North Carolina Residents Push For Marijuana Legalization

Every day the support is building for medical marijuana legislation. Supporters gathered in Raleigh on Tuesday, and now the push for legislation is stronger than ever. These are supporters and opponents of the highly debated issue. North Carolina would be the first southern state to legalize medical marijuana.
It’s illegal to smoke pot in North Carolina, but Howard Toller doesn’t care. He smokes two, three, sometimes five times a day. Sometimes even more.

He says he smokes marijuana for medical reasons. A veteran of Iraq, Toller served 27 months overseas. Marijuana is his choice of medicine when it comes to dealing with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and chronic back pain. Before learning of medical marijuana, he relied heavily on several pain killers.

“I was on nine medications at one point and within six months, I was down to about six,” he says. “And six or eight months later, I was down to none almost.”

After coming home from Iraq in 2008, Toller moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became an alcoholic. He was taking all sorts of pills and painkillers every day. But while in Seattle, he discovered medical marijuana, and things started to get brighter. Now in Cary, Toller is still using marijuana for medicine, even though it’s illegal.
“It helps me not to be so anxious and alert about things,” he says. “That’s really my main uses for it, those two reasons more than anything. I’m sure it just allows me to all in all just lead a much more fulfilling life.”

On February 7th, state Representative Kelly Alexander, Jr. introduced a bill that legalizes medical marijuana in North Carolina. A recent state poll showed that 58 percent of people agree that using marijuana for medical reasons should be a legal, a first in the state’s history. Toller is the triangle chapter president for the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network.

“I’ve met a lot of people who benefit from this,” he says. “People who have multiple sclerosis, people who are confined to wheelchairs, paraplegics who tell me that their life is 180 percent better since they started cannabis to relieve the pain and they’ve gotten off of a lot of the heavy narcotics.”
Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist, a radio host and a newspaper columnist. Graedon, of the The People’s Pharmacy, says that medical marijuana can be a beneficial remedy to sick patients.
“I think between a physician and a patient, medical marijuana does have a place to play especially when it comes to severe pain, when it comes to cancer treatment, there are a number of areas where a doctor and a patient can indeed determine that medical marijuana has a valuable role in therapy.”
But Graedon says there just isn’t enough concrete evidence supporting medical marijuana.
“What we need more than anything else is a really good research demonstrating that medical marijuana has a really important place to play,” he says. “We’ve lacked a lot of that research in large measure because the funding agencies haven’t really been willing to give enough money to researchers to do the type of research that’s necessary.”

Not everybody is on board. Trish Hussey is the Director of the Freedom House Recovery Center, a rehabilitation center and halfway house for drug addicts in Chapel Hill. She is worried by the legislation. She said that there are potential dangers associated with passing the law because there are people who will try and take advantage of the law by abusing it. She compared the situation to how college students abuse adderall and how some people abuse oxycontin.

Toller’s response to the opponents is simple. Says. “She was suffering, she had pain, whatever, and she found this pill or medication that helped her a lot, would you deny her that just because someone else may abuse it?”
“What reason do that you…my favorite story to ask someone is what if your grandmother needed this life-saving medication or something that just improved her life a lot,” h

Supporters of the proposed bill rallied in Raleigh on Tuesday. Toller will continue to push for the legislation daily, because he wants to help out as many people as he can. People who are just like him.
“We’re not criminals,” he says. “We’re patients.”
CHAPEL HILL-It’s illegal to smoke pot in North Carolina, but Howard Toller doesn’t care. He smokes two, three, sometimes five times a day. Sometimes even more.

He says he smokes marijuana for medical reasons. A veteran of Iraq, Toller served 27 months overseas. Marijuana is his choice of medicine when it comes to dealing with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and chronic back pain. Before learning of medical marijuana, he relied heavily on several pain killers.
“I was on nine medications at one point and within six months, I was down to about six,” he says. “And six or eight months later, I was down to none almost.”

After coming home from Iraq in 2008, Toller moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became an alcoholic. He was taking all sorts of pills and painkillers every day. But while in Seattle, he discovered medical marijuana, and things started to get brighter. Now in Cary, Toller is still using marijuana for medicine, even though it’s illegal.
“It helps me not to be so anxious and alert about things,” he says. “That’s really my main uses for it, those two reasons more than anything. I’m sure it just allows me to all in all just lead a much more fulfilling life.”

On February 7th, state Representative Kelly Alexander, Jr. introduced a bill that legalizes medical marijuana in North Carolina. A recent state poll showed that 58 percent of people agree that using marijuana for medical reasons should be a legal, a first in the state’s history. Toller is the triangle chapter president for the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network.

“I’ve met a lot of people who benefit from this,” he says. “People who have multiple sclerosis, people who are confined to wheelchairs, paraplegics who tell me that their life is 180 percent better since they started cannabis to relieve the pain and they’ve gotten off of a lot of the heavy narcotics.”
Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist, a radio host and a newspaper columnist. Graedon, of the The People’s Pharmacy, says that medical marijuana can be a beneficial remedy to sick patients.
“I think between a physician and a patient, medical marijuana does have a place to play especially when it comes to severe pain, when it comes to cancer treatment, there are a number of areas where a doctor and a patient can indeed determine that medical marijuana has a valuable role in therapy.”
But Graedon says there just isn’t enough concrete evidence supporting medical marijuana.
“What we need more than anything else is a really good research demonstrating that medical marijuana has a really important place to play,” he says. “We’ve lacked a lot of that research in large measure because the funding agencies haven’t really been willing to give enough money to researchers to do the type of research that’s necessary.”

Not everybody is on board. Trish Hussey is the Director of the Freedom House Recovery Center, a rehabilitation center and halfway house for drug addicts in Chapel Hill. She is worried by the legislation. She said that there are potential dangers associated with passing the law because there are people who will try and take advantage of the law by abusing it. She compared the situation to how college students abuse adderall and how some people abuse oxycontin.

Toller’s response to the opponents is simple. Says. “She was suffering, she had pain, whatever, and she found this pill or medication that helped her a lot, would you deny her that just because someone else may abuse it?”
“What reason do that you…my favorite story to ask someone is what if your grandmother needed this life-saving medication or something that just improved her life a lot,” h

Supporters of the proposed bill rallied in Raleigh on Tuesday. Toller will continue to push for the legislation daily, because he wants to help out as many people as he can. People who are just like him.
“We’re not criminals,” he says. “We’re patients.”
CHAPEL HILL-It’s illegal to smoke pot in North Carolina, but Howard Toller doesn’t care. He smokes two, three, sometimes five times a day. Sometimes even more.

He says he smokes marijuana for medical reasons. A veteran of Iraq, Toller served 27 months overseas. Marijuana is his choice of medicine when it comes to dealing with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and chronic back pain. Before learning of medical marijuana, he relied heavily on several pain killers.
“I was on nine medications at one point and within six months, I was down to about six,” he says. “And six or eight months later, I was down to none almost.”

After coming home from Iraq in 2008, Toller moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became an alcoholic. He was taking all sorts of pills and painkillers every day. But while in Seattle, he discovered medical marijuana, and things started to get brighter. Now in Cary, Toller is still using marijuana for medicine, even though it’s illegal.
“It helps me not to be so anxious and alert about things,” he says. “That’s really my main uses for it, those two reasons more than anything. I’m sure it just allows me to all in all just lead a much more fulfilling life.”

On February 7th, state Representative Kelly Alexander, Jr. introduced a bill that legalizes medical marijuana in North Carolina. A recent state poll showed that 58 percent of people agree that using marijuana for medical reasons should be a legal, a first in the state’s history. Toller is the triangle chapter president for the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network.

“I’ve met a lot of people who benefit from this,” he says. “People who have multiple sclerosis, people who are confined to wheelchairs, paraplegics who tell me that their life is 180 percent better since they started cannabis to relieve the pain and they’ve gotten off of a lot of the heavy narcotics.”
Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist, a radio host and a newspaper columnist. Graedon, of the The People’s Pharmacy, says that medical marijuana can be a beneficial remedy to sick patients.
“I think between a physician and a patient, medical marijuana does have a place to play especially when it comes to severe pain, when it comes to cancer treatment, there are a number of areas where a doctor and a patient can indeed determine that medical marijuana has a valuable role in therapy.”
But Graedon says there just isn’t enough concrete evidence supporting medical marijuana.
“What we need more than anything else is a really good research demonstrating that medical marijuana has a really important place to play,” he says. “We’ve lacked a lot of that research in large measure because the funding agencies haven’t really been willing to give enough money to researchers to do the type of research that’s necessary.”

Not everybody is on board. Trish Hussey is the Director of the Freedom House Recovery Center, a rehabilitation center and halfway house for drug addicts in Chapel Hill. She is worried by the legislation. She said that there are potential dangers associated with passing the law because there are people who will try and take advantage of the law by abusing it. She compared the situation to how college students abuse adderall and how some people abuse oxycontin.

Toller’s response to the opponents is simple. Says. “She was suffering, she had pain, whatever, and she found this pill or medication that helped her a lot, would you deny her that just because someone else may abuse it?”
“What reason do that you…my favorite story to ask someone is what if your grandmother needed this life-saving medication or something that just improved her life a lot,” h

Supporters of the proposed bill rallied in Raleigh on Tuesday. Toller will continue to push for the legislation daily, because he wants to help out as many people as he can. People who are just like him.
“We’re not criminals,” he says. “We’re patients.”

 
It’s illegal to smoke pot in North Carolina, but Howard Toller doesn’t care. He smokes two, three, sometimes five times a day. Sometimes even more.

He says he smokes marijuana for medical reasons. A veteran of Iraq, Toller served 27 months overseas. Marijuana is his choice of medicine when it comes to dealing with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and chronic back pain. Before learning of medical marijuana, he relied heavily on several pain killers.
“I was on nine medications at one point and within six months, I was down to about six,” he says. “And six or eight months later, I was down to none almost.”

After coming home from Iraq in 2008, Toller moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became an alcoholic. He was taking all sorts of pills and painkillers every day. But while in Seattle, he discovered medical marijuana, and things started to get brighter. Now in Cary, Toller is still using marijuana for medicine, even though it’s illegal.
“It helps me not to be so anxious and alert about things,” he says. “That’s really my main uses for it, those two reasons more than anything. I’m sure it just allows me to all in all just lead a much more fulfilling life.”

On February 7th, state Representative Kelly Alexander, Jr. introduced a bill that legalizes medical marijuana in North Carolina. A recent state poll showed that 58 percent of people agree that using marijuana for medical reasons should be a legal, a first in the state’s history. Toller is the triangle chapter president for the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network.

“I’ve met a lot of people who benefit from this,” he says. “People who have multiple sclerosis, people who are confined to wheelchairs, paraplegics who tell me that their life is 180 percent better since they started cannabis to relieve the pain and they’ve gotten off of a lot of the heavy narcotics.”
Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist, a radio host and a newspaper columnist. Graedon, of the The People’s Pharmacy, says that medical marijuana can be a beneficial remedy to sick patients.
“I think between a physician and a patient, medical marijuana does have a place to play especially when it comes to severe pain, when it comes to cancer treatment, there are a number of areas where a doctor and a patient can indeed determine that medical marijuana has a valuable role in therapy.”
But Graedon says there just isn’t enough concrete evidence supporting medical marijuana.
“What we need more than anything else is a really good research demonstrating that medical marijuana has a really important place to play,” he says. “We’ve lacked a lot of that research in large measure because the funding agencies haven’t really been willing to give enough money to researchers to do the type of research that’s necessary.”

Not everybody is on board. Trish Hussey is the Director of the Freedom House Recovery Center, a rehabilitation center and halfway house for drug addicts in Chapel Hill. She is worried by the legislation. She said that there are potential dangers associated with passing the law because there are people who will try and take advantage of the law by abusing it. She compared the situation to how college students abuse adderall and how some people abuse oxycontin.

Toller’s response to the opponents is simple. Says. “She was suffering, she had pain, whatever, and she found this pill or medication that helped her a lot, would you deny her that just because someone else may abuse it?”
“What reason do that you…my favorite story to ask someone is what if your grandmother needed this life-saving medication or something that just improved her life a lot,” h

Supporters of the proposed bill rallied in Raleigh on Tuesday. Toller will continue to push for the legislation daily, because he wants to help out as many people as he can. People who are just like him.

“We’re not criminals,” he says. “We’re patients.”

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