The Office of National Drug Control Policy identified the Qualla Boundary, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ (EBCI) 56,000-acre homeland just south of Smoky Mountains National Park, as one of 10 “high-intensity drug trafficking areas” in the country. Following a two-year undercover investigation targeting drug traffickers, federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities raided the Boundary, arrested 132 people. The operation was touted as a huge success and a possible turning point in the scourge that had plagued the community.
Instead of improving, the community’s drug problems only got worse. Drug-related crimes and addiction rates continued apace and, like everywhere else in the state, grew worse during the pandemic. Statewide, deaths from drug overdoses increased more than 25 percent in the first six months of the pandemic, according to CDC data. Almost immediately, the lockdown on the Boundary led to a dramatic increase in fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses.
There is a growing acknowledgement among treatment and drug policy experts that real solutions must center around prevention and treatment which include mental health counseling, medication-assisted treatment (MAT), as well as the time and support needed to recover.
American Indians represent just 1.2 percent of North Carolina’s population, but the 2020 drug overdose rate was 2.3 times higher for them than the white people in the state. To address this crisis, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians oversees and operates its own public health care system and provides some of the most extensive substance use and mental health care of any tribe in the nation without copays or deductibles.
Read more NorthCarolinaHealthNews.org.
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