Comment Archives: Stories: News & Culture
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
Ana: Thank you for publishing this article in Creative Loafing. I am a member of NORML in North Carolina, which is a grassroots organization that depends on membership and donations to succeed. This year NC NORML is focusing its lobbying efforts on the medical marijuana bill you wrote about. There are several other goals to ensure local communities get involved with the political process. These activities promote a statewide campaign to raise awareness about the fact that marijuana really is medicine, really is safer than alcohol and, according to the National Cancer Institute, has cancer cell killing properties (search "marijuana" at Cancer.gov). North Carolina NORML is based in Charlotte and has a rapidly growing membership base. Thank you very much for helping to fuel this statewide discussion. Best wishes... Jon Kennedy NCNORML.org
Re: “Bayard Rustin: Unsung hero of the civil rights movement”
I am still in shock and dismayed that many people do not know who Mr. Rustin was and his important contributions of the Civil Rights Movement. I live in Atlanta and know some of the people who were a part of that movement with Dr. King. I am going to make it a point to ask them why his contribution has not been recognized . I think that it is a shame that his name is not known for his important contributions to our American History.
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
As a long time Conservative I fully support the full legalization of pot.
Re: “Immigration Assistance Program: Fixing what's broken”
Maybe if we fixed the broken border we wouldn't have as many of these problems as we see here.
Re: “Will the Democratic South rise again?”
So, unlike Democrats, Republicans will actually have to deliver?
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
@ Mike Parent,
Agree with re-legalization but the term "NeoCon" ("newly conservative") generally refers to interventionist Democrats who became Republicans in the wake of the Vietnam war and the rise of George McGovern.
One of Obama's broken campaign promises has been his near-demonic pursuit of the medical marijuana community.
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
Prohibition, especially Prohibition of Medical Marijuana is not a Conservative policy. Wm F Buckley and Barry Goldwater both favored legalization. This is a NeoCon policy that goes in the face of the Personal freedoms they pontificate about. They'll champion the right to use deadly tobacco but refuse to consider allowing marijuana which has be scientifically proven to be safer than what the Gvt currently allows. FACT Marijuana is less addictive and less harmful than Caffeine, let alone alcohol and Tobacco;.
Dr Henningfield is a former NIDA Staffer;.
Addictiveness of Marijuana - ProCon.org.
http://www.procon.org/view.background-resource.php?resourceID=1492
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
i also thank Mr. Alexander for standing up for the sick. I have been using marijuana to control my siezures that come from two brain tumors that are leaning on my 7th coratic nerve that give me 3-5 siezures a month when on meds from doctor my siezures were 2-3 a day thank you kelly.
Re: “The sound and the fury of noise ordinances”
If you don't like the sound of airplanes dont live near the airport, if you don't like living around bars don't live around bars
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
Kudos to Mr. Alexander - thank you for standing up for sick North Carolinians!
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
I too, am a cannabis Marijuana) patient, and I need this bill to pass. This plant has saved my life in so many ways. One, being that it saved me from Bipolar. I have suffered for yrs with this disorder. Rx meds did nothing but make it worse. Cannabis, is the only safe remedy I have found to treat this disorder. Research and scientific evidence supports this finding. I tell people everyday that I have Bipolar, but, because of cannabis, Bipolar, no longer has me. I am able to finally enjoy my family, and, life, in general. Cannabis, will also help our Military Vets, not for only the pain they suffer from wounds and injuries, but also save their lives from PTSD. Cannabis will help the sick and dying people of NC. There are so many who are suffering from diseases and disorders from cancer to MS. I also support Industrial hemp. We need to get this state back on track and hemp can play a role in this recovery.
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
This is just one documented case of using Cannabis oil in an infant who WAS terminal... this is What the Medical Cannabis Act passing means to me.... the lives we could save by giving the sick safe access to this Natural plant. Smoking Cannabis can alleviate a lot of symptoms for many things including PTSD, but the Cannabis oil extract is where the true healing power of the Cannabis plant lies.
Great story, here's to many more. Here's the article with the scan to prove it
http://www.inquisitr.com/423292/babys-brai…
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
As a NC Patient and well respected political activist in both Medical Cannabis and an adults right to choose Cannabis over Alcohol as a recreational substitute, as well as a full edorser of Industrial Hemp, I am very proud of Rep. Alexander for being in the forefront of changing the law in NC to protect our sick. Data is overwhelming, and Colorado, who has both a medical and recreational program had media recently on the closing of prisons because they are no longer arresting non violent low level cannabis offenses anymore for people over the age of 21. I would like to see a resurrection of HB 324 which would of made simple posession of small amounts of Cannabis a civil offense, not a criminal offense, but my first priority is to see NC patients gain safe access. I have resolved an adrenal mass and lung diesease with the use of Cannabis oil, and will be back spending a lot of time with our NC Legislators to let them know that Cannabis Medicine is NOT about smoking it anymore. Cannabis in extract form is saving lives, has generated National media attention, and it is time for NC to get with it and help our suffering citizens who would benefit from the NC Medical Cannabis Act's passage. Sincerely, Rebecca Forbes, Carolina Cannabis Coalition CEO, and Asst. Director of Overgrow the Govt. DC.
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
The only Brave polatition in NC
Re: “Rep. Kelly Alexander, Charlotte's medical marijuana man”
Rep. Alexander should enlist Ron Paul's help with this, since Paul is a medical doctor, a staunch conservative/libertarian, and a grassroots favorite.
Re: “Bayard Rustin: Unsung hero of the civil rights movement”
I hear you…lol.
Maybe this has resonance as we enter Black History Month.
Being born in the very heart of the ward that hosted most of the civil rights movement in Atlanta at the height of the movement, I l saw first hand the work of many troopers who never received their due.
It is very true that Bayard Rustin was an astute social and civil rights activist and even that he was a concurrently a trailblazer for LGBT issues as a very out gay man. Still I believe Rustin pursued the Civil Right movement knowing its leadership was largely set and its Judeo-Christian principles tightly guarded. He knew that would lessen his public visibility with those men and women who at least outwardly were very strict persons of the cloth and whose politics public played out in a very traditional way. We have since learned that even there things were not always as they were portrayed.
Still Rustin proved to care more about the overall abiding state of the race than his own personal accords. But his life and contributions to the movement are clearly very public record—though apparently impetus to view that chronicle is not so much so.
Consider:
He was born in Pennsylvania, went to school in Ohio, lived in Harlem, and traveled to India and Africa. WEB Dubois and James Weldon Johnson were friends of his guardians and visitors in his home as a child. He debated both Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael publicly. Beyond King and The March on Washington, he influenced President Harry Truman and advised Ghana Minister Kwame Nkrumah and Nigeria Nnamdi Azikiwe, James Farmer, Jr, Norman Thomas, A. Philip Randolph, William Julius Wilson and Carl Gersham, The man was a educator, scholar, activist, unionist, organizer, Quaker, pacifist, communist, singer, arranger, traveler and researcher. Further, his nonviolent pioneering work predated the modern American Civil Rights movement by more than three decades and he outlive the major luminaries of it and black social movements by about the same period of time.
Clearly his sexual orientation did not lessen his public service value and those advocates of the same cannot deny he was one of the most intelligent influential men for civil, human and social rights that has ever lived in this or any country.
A favorite Bayard Rustin side note: Six years ago his home town, West Chester Pennsylvania, impressed with his achievements some two decades after his death, decided to confer its most famous native son with a noteworthy distinction: to name a brand new $70 million high school in his honor. That was before the community got wind that he was gay, a Communist Party member and a World War II dissenter. Many in the community wanted a different name above the school as a result. But on a vote of 6-3, the school board voted to move ahead with Bayard Rustin High School. The school board president, Rogers Vaughn said, “The contributions that Mr. Rustin made (aren’t) just to civil rights but to the whole United States.
Indeed.
And what a significant way to educationally inform a new generation about non violent struggle through the familiar angle local boy leaves home and does home and whole world a whole lot of good.
Re: “Pull the global trigger on gun control”
One of the key leader states assigned to the conference proposing the Arms Trade Treaty was Iran, a prolific weapons smuggling country if there ever was one. With winners like that at the helm, you know you can trust the outcome.
Re: “Aaron Swartz and the freedom to connect”
Gert real, this Administration rather be burned alive at the stake rather than admit a wrong. If they won't admit to their lies and incompetence surrounding Bengahzi there isn't a snowball's chance they will do a thing about this.
Re: “Bayard Rustin: Unsung hero of the civil rights movement”
@ Michael Bedwell Thank you so much for giving us even more history of Bayard Rustin. I am always excited to hear more about this exciting historical figure. I understand Mr. Rustin's reluctance to be an "out" gay person but I also have to put his decision within a historical contextual framework so he still gets much props....smile.
Thank you for sharing your very personal perspective on this topic. Please keep reading and sharing!
Re: “Legalize it!: N.C. House Bill 577, aka the medical cannabis act”
i think they should all get together and sit down and talk to our reps and get it legalized in north Carolina to be exact. because there would be less crimes and people would be more relaxed. and i think it is a good use for those who have an illness. and DOCTORS trust me these people are not kidding it helps. and the jail house would not have to spend all their money keeping marijuana users in jail, feeding,showering, and just all of the things that are required in jail. it would probably even get us out of debt now think about that long and hard representatives what our state would be like with zero debt....