Exciting News..We are making progress and I am asking you to redouble your efforts. We are on the offensive for a change! This article will be very long and much hformation about how we are to proceed so hope you will take it to heart. BTW, if you are not a member of nccpn...PLEASE JOIN US officially so your number can be represented.

To begin with, the State Democratic Party held its Winter meeting in Greensboro on Saturday. These are the elected members from all 100 counties in the state, County Chairs, vice chairs, secretaries, etc. These elected folks from every county in the state meet twice each year at what is called the SEC (State Executive Committee) meeting. All party business, including resolutions, are voted on. It was at the last meeting in Fayetteville last Summer where the members voted overwhelmingly to support making Cannabis legal for medical use.

For those not familiar with the resolution, the resolve asks legislators to "remove all barriers to the passage of legislation making medical use of cannabis legal". The second resolve of the resolution stated that "A copy of this resolution be sent to all elected members of the House, Senate, Council of State and the Governor". Even though we RAISED THE ROOF in voting for this resolution, IT WAS NEVER PASSED TO ALL OF THESE  ELECTED MEMBERS! Now, the Republicans have this issue in their ball park. The Democrats are on board!

Thankfully, at the Greensboro meeting, I took Chuck Sauls as a press agent for NCCPN with his camera. If you go to the utube page he created on my face book page, you will see the current elected Chair of the Democratic Party, David Parker, address the 600 members of the meeting after my question on the resolution not being forwarded as required by the vote.  He not only admitted the failure, he stated emphatically that this will be corrected. In other words, the resolution WILL BE FORWARDED TO ALL ELECTED MEMBERS AS REQUIRED BY THE RESOLVE, including our republican friends.

Of course, I was pumped at the news then, but what followed last night in Gastonia can only be described as Divine Intervention. The Republican Speaker, Tom Tillis, had scheduled a town hall meeting at Gaston College and announced it in the Charlotte Observer. I took Darrell Davis (vet who was arrested last month and was in Vietnam with me) to the meeting and we arrived early to get the front seats. Of course, as a veteran representative I wore my Dress Blues.  When the speaker arrived, he spoke while standing about 2 feet in front of Darrell and I. After he finished his remarks, he took questions.

When he recognized me, I stood and addressed the group and briefly described the resolution passed by the democrats and we spoke about cannabis as medicine. He even surprised me when he said something about "cabanoids". In the end, he asked all the attendees for a straw poll. Three questions, keep the status quo (prohibition), make all drugs legal, or make the medical use legal. I was overwhelmed when almost all of the group raised their hands in support of the last one. Only one for continuing prohib, about 10 for total legalization. This was a break-through I hope, and we must follow up. Call the speakers offcie at 919.733.3451 and tell them you want to see HB 577 resurrected. You don't have to be elegant or fancy, just DO IT.

The speaker also said he would be holding at least 20 more of these meetings. We will publish the schedule and if you can make ANY of these meetings, they are important and can have a significant impact. The speaker also had 6 other legislators on stage with him. A video was made of the event so if we can get a copy, it will show the support at the meeting and we will post it on the video page.

Getting back on line was a difficult challenge. I finally tracked down Jean and she was very helpful in renewing the account. I paid the $150 fee to Godaddy, so we should not have any interruptions for the next two years anyway. The web site couldn't have gone down at a worse time..It crashed on the 21st..the day we had our reorganization. This reorganization was  very successful. We have increased our working staff by 6, so we will have representative groups across the state. I will try and update later on specific plans for each of us. Keep working the petition for now. Will try and make the next phone conf call if Meggs can arrange one. There is far too much to type. Get excited, we are closer than ever to a NEW BEGINNING!

Forgot to turn on comments..Hopefully, we can communicate through the comments on the articles. I will soon publish the list of new officers and a to do list for everyone. I will judge by the comments whether or not this may work..

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 January 2012 11:16 )