INDY Week Candidate Questionnaire 10/20/22
12. Do you support reforming North Carolina’s marijuana laws? Do you support full legalization? Please explain your position.
The government has no place regulating lifestyle choices. If adults want to smoke a joint or have a drink, that’s their decision. Cannabis is legal in many other states that collect taxes on it. North Carolina should end the war on drugs, and vacate all prosecutions and convictions for possession of marijuana. Giving or selling drugs to children should remain illegal.
Cultivation is another policy that the state should look at. If the federal government outlaws the production of hemp for fiber because the active alkaloid is federally regulated on the same level as heroin, that is a big problem with the federal government. Government needs to get out of the way of production, and profit from reasonable regulation of other cannabis activity, as other states do. The ABC boards are poor models for regulation and should be done away with.
NC Family Voter 2024 Questionnaire:
https://www.ncfamilyvoter.com/candidate/meilleur-guy/
5. Should Congress legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes? YES
In response to 2022 NC Family Policy Council's question “Should the use of marijuana for medical purposes be legal in North Carolina?” YES
A- Publicly supports ending prohibition of marijuana for adults
Responses to NC NORML’s 2020 Primary Questionnaire
Do you support prohibiting access to marijuana (cannabis) by persons younger than 21 years, unless for evidence-based medical applications prescribed by a healthcare provider and with parental consent? YES
Research reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that states with legalized cannabis saw a reduction in opioid use and opioid overdose deaths. Would you consider legalizing medical cannabis as a strategy to reduce opioid use? YES
According to the Cato Institute, North Carolina spent ~ $263.3 million in state and local dollars to enforce cannabis laws in 2016. Meanwhile, the American Journal of Drug Alcohol Abuse found that arrestees who tested positive for THC had low incidents of aggressive crime. Aggressive crimes were associated with self-reported use of alcohol. Would you consider decriminalizing possession of cannabis since its use results in less aggression than legal alcohol? YES
A Mayo Clinic study has shown that cannabis has lower addiction rates than alcohol (Nicotine 32%; Heroin 23%; Cocaine 17%; Alcohol 15%; Cannabis 9%). Do you agree that adults should have the right to use cannabis? YES
Contradicting the myth that cannabis is a gateway drug, the RAND Corporation reported in 2012 that the use of cocaine dropped 50% as cannabis use increased 40%. Cannabis is associated with lower use of hard drugs and is not a gateway drug. Would you consider legalizing adult use of cannabis? YES
Comments: " The war on drugs he has had many unintended victims. Families of defendants, who have been locked up because of cannabis, suffer without their loved ones. Those defendants carry the stigma of an arrest record, and suffer the time and expense of fighting the charges, and losing a portion of their lives if they are convicted. Taxpayers whose hard-won money has been used to enforce laws against possessing a plant are also victims. They also suffer when they see the size and the power of government expand for no good reason, and when these cannabis laws take their government’s attention away from enforcing legitimate laws against force and fraud, against people and property. Farmers who can no longer feed their families by growing crops like tobacco and cotton are unable to grow hemp, because of drug laws. And when they do, if their crop is above a certain level of a psychoactive substance, they must destroy it. I do not personally indulge in or support the use of cannabis for recreational purposes. But I will defend the right of my fellow citizens to produce it or market it Within a reasonable regulatory framework, or use it for medical or recreational purposes. Other states have figured out how to regulate and tax legal cannabis. North Carolina can too."