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.
As a Green, I believe that the course we have pursued over the past half century of our War on Drugs has been a financial boondoggle. Criminalizing drugs means creating more criminals by definition, and our prisons are already overcrowded and underfunded. If someone has an addiction problem it should be treated as a medical issue, not a criminal offense. The history of the War on Drugs in America is the history of a classist and racist war against working people and people of color. Our campaign promotes the legalization of drugs and treating drug abuse as a medical issue. Toward this goal, we aim to:
- Legalize cannabis and its derivatives at the state and federal level. Cannabis use is safer than alcohol and tobacco use, and criminalization has been driven by ideological and racial bias.
- Grant amnesty to and release from confinement—without any further parole or probation—all people who have been incarcerated for the use, sale, or cultivation of marijuana in federal and state prisons and in county/city jails. Strike from the record prior felony convictions for cannabis/marijuana possession, sale, or cultivation.
- Prohibit big pharma, liquor, tobacco, and industrialized agribusiness from exploiting legalization. Encourage worker-ownership of cannabis enterprises and organic production methods, and protect consumers from pesticides and chemical additives.
- Avoid attempts to use this new industry to fund social programs through “sin” taxes. Instead, tax the wealthy and corporations to pay for schools and healthcare.
A direct submission from Michael Trudeau himself:
Hello! I am running for NC State Senate District 16 in this year's general election. My positions on pot are those of the NC Green Party:
2022 Raleigh News & Observer Voter Guide
SHOULD MEDICAL MARIJUANA BE LEGALIZED IN NORTH CAROLINA?
Yes.
In response to 2022 NC Family Policy Council's question “Should North Carolina legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes?
View Candidate Survey for Response
https://www.ncfamilyvoter.com/candidate/nc-senate/trudeau-michael/
A- Publicly supports ending prohibition of marijuana for adults.
Candidate tagged self 8/29/22 and noted that he supports "an end to the "war on drugs," legalization of drugs and for treating drug abuse as a health issue. The war on drugs has been an ill-conceived and institutionally racist program that has wasted billions of dollars, misdirecting law enforcement resources away from apprehending and prosecuting violent criminals, while crowding our prisons with nonviolent drug offenders and disproportionately criminalizing youth of color.