The new Cherokee Indian Hospital in Cherokee, North Carolina. Photo from Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority / Facebook

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is putting significant resources into addressing substance abuse on the North Carolina reservation.

The tribe has allocated $16 million for prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and other facilities, The Smoky Mountain News reports. Another $2.2 million will be spent a year to operate the programs, the paper said.

One of those facilities is the Analenisgi Recovery Center in Cherokee. It has offered services to 29 people and held 178 classes since opening just three months ago in a modest building that used to house a bank, the paper reported.

The tribe plans to spend $13.5 million to build the Snowbird Recovery Center. It will offer intensive rehabilitation services with an emphasis on tribal culture, the paper said.

“We have the resources to address it is really why it’s at the forefront now,” Lynn Harlan, a public relations officer at the new Cherokee Indian Hospital, told the paper. “Before it was like, we don’t want to talk about a problem we can’t address.”

The tribe doesn't have exact data on drug abuse problems but about 14 percent of patients at the hospital received a diagnosis related to substance abuse in 2012 alone, the paper reported.

Get the Story:
Cherokee implements full-circle rehabilitation for drug recovery (The Smoky Mountain News 3/23)

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