Legal weed, Stein's I-77 toll problem, and fare jumpers | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. It is Tuesday, and it is the twelve o'clock timeslot here and that means we talk to Andrew Dunn. He is a contributing columnist at The Charlotte Observer and he's also the publisher of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com also a podcast as well. Now, Andrew, how are you today, sir? I am doing well. How about yourself? I'm doing well. So I saw you at a post over at Longleaf Politics enjoying a weekend in mount Airy. Yeah. I mean, what a great little town. You know. They they lean really hard into the Mayberry branding and and it really works. It is kind of that sort of atmosphere. What was the lama about? Some guy walking a lama? Did you did you pet the lama? Were you allowed to talk to the guy and pet his lama? Oh? Yeah, my kids were thrilled. I think he wanted tips. I gave the guys a little bit of money, but the they. Even got lama kisses. All all my kids got a lama kiss Oh. My gosh, is that what it was? It slobbery? Was it nasty? No, it was very chased, it was. Okay, I have no I have no personal experience with a lama, so I don't know that's it. It's sort of so he's like a busker with a lama, basically, like I think. So, yeah, okay, well, hey that's it. You know, it's a living all right, let's talk about let's talk about the weed and taking the pot. Governor Josh Stein has put together a committee on cannabis. Kudos for the alliteration. I guess it's an advisory council on cannabis. And so they came out with their report about the state of cannabis in North Carolina. So what does the report say? Yeah, so basically how we got here. And I'm sure all of your listeners know this. If they're driving in a car, they're probably going by a billboard right now advertising a cannabis dispensary somewhere in Charlotte. And it comes down to kind of it's kind of a loophole in the law. So marijuana is illegal in. North Carolina, but hemp is legal, and companies have gotten pretty good at staying on the legal side and having hemp but being able to use that to make products that'll get you high. So those are all over the place, and the state has been trying to figure out. What to do about that, you know, whether they want to regulate it more or what have you. And what the council, Josh Sun's Council on Cannabis decided to do is they looked at all of it and instead of doing more enforcement, what they're recommending is that North Carolina just go all the way. Let's legalize marijuana one hundred percent so the state can then get some of that. Sweet sweet tax revenue from it all. So that's really the only recommendation. That they have for us. So, but they did they did look at what further regulation as well, but whatted opted not to go that route, Like I I know, like I had. My brother in law was actually in the hemp business for a while a couple of years ago, and yeah, it is the wild West. I agree with the council's report on that it is the wild West. And the difficulty for law enforcement is if somebody is, you know, using a smokeable hemp product, there's no way that the cop can know if that is weed or not, whether it's an intoxicant or not. And so like my brother in law was trying to figure out a way because like they had a lab and they were like, well, we can figure out how to do this testing and then give these test kits to police, like donate them so they can do like on the spot testing to see if it is you. Know, the legal or illegal kind. Yeah, it just it creates a lot of hurdles for like law enforcement, and then like is that probable cause to smell this smoke when you don't know if it's actually you know, illegal or legal weed. So there's a lot of problems. No, I completely agree, and I agree with the council or the committee or whatever we're calling it. I agree that something does need to be done. I just disagree with the direction. I think you probably have to go one way or the other. You either make it all legal which is what the council is recommending or uh, and this wasn't really explored. You could just make it all illegal and then you don't have any any problems on the law enforcement side and having to figure out whether something's legal or illegal. So hemp is also so used in a lot of other applications, right, it's not just for the intoxicants, So like, would that be banned as well? I don't think it has to be. I mean I think, uh, you know, on the enforcement side, it's on the you know, the selling of the intoxicating products. I mean, I don't think that you have to completely eliminate the hemp growing industry, but just having more guidelines on what you're actually able to do with it. I feel like you're crossing big tobacco on this, right if you try to stop the the use of cannabis products. I think a lot of tobacco companies have been moving into that space for several years now. They've got all the acreage, they've got the machinery, like, and you know, tobacco on the down swing and so it's just an easy swap out, and so I kind of feel like you might be going up again. It's a pretty powerful lobby. Yeah, yeah, oh sure, and they're they're spending a lot of money. The marijuana industry is investing heavily in North Carolina. And I also. Totally get that my position is a fairly a growing unpopular. However, you know, when I look at public policy in North Carolina, I just I usually just come down to one question, does this make North Carolina a better place to live? And I've been to cities that have gone the route of full marijuana legalization, and I just it just really takes away from the overall ambiance and atmosphere. It just makes it a more unpleasant place to be. And so for me, that's what outweighs. You know, that that takes the cake. For me, I don't think that full legalization would make North Carolina a better place to live, so I'm against it. And there's another component here is that, you know, marijuana has become way more intoxicating, way more powerful than it was, you know, twenty thirty years ago. You know, the boomers getting high at woodstock is not like that was just schwag. That was like not good stuff. You know, now the they've chemically engineered these things and the botanists have gotten involved. Like, yeah, it's a high dollar industry now, and so you've got a lot of innovation and research and development going into it to make this stuff even more and more powerful. There are negative side effects people who are you know, if they're paranoid, schizophrenic, it makes it way worse. And so there is that. And then to your point, like I've lived in multifamily settings over the last decade as this has become more and more prevalent, and like I got to say, like I was, I'm a decriminalization proponent, but one of the downsides I did not expect was like, for some reason, you're not allowed to smoke cigarettes anywhere, but people are smoking joints everywhere. Like, I don't understand why that's acceptable, because it smells worse to me. It's you know, it smells like skunks. Literally literally smells like skunks. And so I don't I don't know why that that became acceptable. All right, So we shall see, we'll see what this what the council does and what the legislature does on this. Let's shift over to I seventy seven tolls. Oh my goodness, this is this is always an issue Whenever I bring this up, I always get flooded with texts and calls about this. But you had an interesting piece at The Observer. The I seventy seven tolls project is about to become Josh Stein's problem. So how so? Yeah, so, back under Governor Pat McCrory twenty thirteen timeframe, North Carolina passed some really excellent laws that really took the politics. Out of road building in a lot of ways. You know, back in the day yea, how they decided who got a road basically was who had the most powerful elected official there who could advocate for it. And so North Carolina Department of Transportation really did some good work and transitioning that to a more scientific, more formula based way to divvy out all the road money. But the problem is that it doesn't take the politics out of road building completely. So, but it also it makes it easier for the governor and for elected officials to kind of hide behind the process. So it's really easy for Governor. Josh Stein in this case to say, well, hey, I mean this, we have this process, the science says we need the toll lanes here, I'm just going with the process. But the reality is that there is still enough wiggle room baked into the process where if the governor's against. The project, the project is not going to move forward. There's just so many different bureaucratic mechanisms that the governor could pull to cancel this. And so that's kind of where we are with the I seventy seven South toll lanes. And it really made me think a lot about the I seventy seven North toll Lane project that arguably ended Pat McCrory's political career. You know, he took the same sort of approach that Josh Stein is taking now and saying, hey, the locals voted on this, they want it, The formulas say it's a good project, and there's nothing really I can do. And Pat McCrory learns that the voters still held him accountable. And I guess we'll see if Governor Josh Stein ends up in the same sort of predicament. Yeah. One thing that seems obvious in this debate, and also from the prior one, was the process does not seem to afford any kind of change once the plans are done. You know, it seems like there's a step or something missing in there. And I don't know what that step would be or multiple steps. I don't know. You know, McCrory came in and, as you rightly pointed out in your piece, like BEB Purdue's administration moved that thing forward, the local jurisdiction, MUMPO, they moved that thing through, so everybody was on board, and then all of a sudden public outcry and McCrory's like, well, I can't cancel this contract now. If I do, there's it's like a two billion dollar hit or something, and that's just crazy. So like they had to move forward. Now. I don't know if I know we've sunk money in on this process for the South seventy seven project. I think it's like two million. But I don't Yeah, I don't know if that mechanism has been changed now, so we're not on the hook for billions of dollars. But it does seem like there's something wrong with the process. Yeah, I think you're right, And we are at a very different stage in the process versus the I seventy seven North and South. So no contract has been signed yet on the South project, so we're still at a point where, you know, canceling it or shelving the project wouldn't require the state to put up billions of dollars like you were just mentioning. However, money is still very much a part of the conversation. I mean basically, what the city of Charlotte is being told is, well, if you don't want this, you know, we set aside. Eight hundred million dollars or whatever it is for this project. And if you guys say no to this, all that money is just going to go away and we're going. To go spend it somewhere else. So they're essentially trying to hold the City of Charlotte hostage over that money. But it's not money that would be completely lost to the state at this point. Yeah. I remember there was a Department. NCDOT board member and he had made that comment, and I warned people about that when they started, you know, rising up in protest over this idea. I said, look, I was up in Ashville and they hadn't gotten there. I think it was I twenty six project done in like twenty years or something. And eventually they moved that money to finish our loop in Charlotte, the forty five loop. That's how that got funded at the end, was because the city of Asheville kept blocking all of the dot plans. Now they've blocked it because it was like, we need bike lanes on the interstate and you know so butterfly passageways and stuff. So I mean there's different reasons, but yeah, like you block these projects too much and the money goes someplace else. So that's just the reality. I think. All right, Hey, we'll leave it there, Andrew Dunn. I appreciate your time as always, sir, and I will I'm not going to hear Monday, but I'll be back Tuesday, so I'll talk to you next week. Perfect, all right then, thank you. That's Andrew Dunn. He is the creator of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com. You can read his newsletter there, watch his podcast, and you can also read his work at the Charlotta Observer. He's a contributing columnist, but we don't hold it against him. We like Andrew. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable serve, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative video dot com. A couple of messages on the text line actually awesome, Andy, I'm gonna circle back Kasaki style. I'll circle back to you on this one because I do have this story in the stack of stuff. TK asks how about medical marijuana. There is a push in the legislature for medical marijuana, but it would be done through a state regulated system, so it's not like these fake medicinal shops. You know. Yeah, I got a prescription, you know, not like that, and that's been pushed. I think it cleared the House, but it did not make it through the Senate. I think maybe Andrew Dunn mentioned it because Bill Rabin, who is a well he's a state senator. Yeah, he's state senator and cancer survivor, and so he became a huge proponent of medicinal marijuana. Okay, so he was part of the he was part of that panel. Okay. So yeah, it doesn't say whether where it passed or whatnot. But if I recall correctly, it made it through one of the one of the chambers, but not both. I think. So that is there is an effort in the North Carolina General Assembly to do that. Michael says, Pete, you nailed it. The pot today is way stronger than when we were younger. It smells worse than a skunk. I literally was at we were at our apartment in Ashville and we're out on the balcony and my nephew, who's like eight years old and at the time, and we're standing out there and somebody's out on their back deck smoking weed and you're not allowed to smoke cigarettes anywhere in the building are on the premises, right, So like, so again, if you're not allowed to smoke cigarettes, then you shouldn't be allowed to smoke weed either, right, just like you're not allowed to vape if you're not allowed to smoke cigarettes. So it should be a uniform standard. But anyway, this person's in there at their balcony. They're smoking weed off the balcony. And my nephew says, somebody hit a skunk, you know, because he lives in the country, So that's the and it did. It's smelled like a skunk, and so we're like, oh, yeah, I guess so that's David says, you are currently speaking on the air about marijuana. Please discuss the rights of people to breathe clean air. Horrible marijuana odors are constantly coming into our backyard from the apartment complex behind us. The management of the apartments is unresponsive when we have complained in writing. We cannot even open our windows without it coming into our house. It is completely unacceptable for marijuana users to inflict their smoke on those of us who do not want it. It smells like skunks. It even comes into our cars on a daily basis while we are driving. That I had. That happened yesterday on my way home. Yes, Like I'm sitting at a stoplight and you catch a whiff of it. It's like, okay, somebody in you know, within a two car radius of me is getting high and you know, now I hope I'm not behind them because they're going to drive really really slow. Does this not mean these people are driving on the influence. It does the orders. The odors probably even can get into the upholstery in our cars. Brian says, I think one way for North Carolina to deal with the cannabis issue would be for the legislature to hold a joint session. Yes, Brian, I got a Cherokee. I go to Cherokee at least once a month and buy legal weed. Yeah, they do sell it legally out there. Jordan says, I've been smoking my entire adult life. The fact that I can spark a joint in the golf course when I used to have to hide in the woods or in parking lots is still wild to me. Oh, don't use my name, Sorry about that. Well, you're listed in our system, so I mean there, you could be a chick. The non psychotropic weed smells like real weeds, so you won't know ultimately. The hellion. Danny says, I don't know a lot of people if a lot of people realize this. But in the states where marijuana is legal medicinally and recreationally, there are botanists to have PhDs who are cross breeding all these different strains for both potency and effect. Yes, I lost my place here. Oh there it is. They are literally an ongoing science project. When you go into these dispensaries, they have placed on little pedestals all types of samples that address anyone's given preference. It's really something to see. Seven oh four numbers. Says our son in law was not hired for a job after he had spent some time in a truck with someone else who was smoking. We uh huh. I was in the car with someone It wasn't mine. The second hand smoke exposure caused him to have a slightly elevated level of THHD on his drug test. It could happen to anyone. Well, that's why you should just go ahead and you know, smoke it with him. You know, No, I'm kidding, I'm just kidding, all right, So awesome, Andy wrote in about a news story about a guy drunk and high who was firing off a weapon. His girlfriend grabs the gun and accidentally shoots herself in the stomach. Play that out in your head. Zero chance that's what actually happened. Well, I'm not sure what happened here, but this is the story as told to us by two local TV stations, WSOCTV and WBTV SO. First, WSOCTV says a man living in Minhill named Luis Marcano Marcono Marcano Marcano Marcano squared. He was apparently firing a gun in the air while impaired by alcohol and drugs. As his wife took the gun from him early Sunday morning, she accidentally shot herself and killed her unborn baby. Police arrested Marcano Marcano and Ice put a detainer on him. Huh what what I thought? He was just a man living in mint Hill. He'd be a Minhillian, minhillowin Minhillite. But no. Apparently, ICE detainer indicates illegal alien. He had outstanding warrants. In Venezuela, he got hit with a one million dollar bond for firing a gun in city limits. But then he appears before judge Karen McCallum. After the magistrates set the bond at a million dollars, the judge lowers that just a bit down to twenty five thousand, A little bit of a difference. Now you have to go to the very end of the story to learn that Marcano. Marcano is also a member of the Trende Aragua gang in mint Hill. Now, WBTV their headline Venezuelan gang member given million dollar bond after pregnant wife accidentally shoots herself in Minhill. Seven month old baby killed and Affidavid said the forty one year old Louis Marcano Marcano a known member of the Trende Aragua gang. Well, if he's a known member, what is he doing here? He is an illegal alien. This is who you guys were whistling in the streets trying to protect, teaching people how to evade, alerting everybody that ICE was in the area. That seven month old baby is dead because of the opposition to the ICE activities. So don't tell me you had the moral high ground in alerting gang members to the presence of ICE operations. So apparently he had a birthday party on Saturday. When everybody left the party, it was just him and his wife, Sabrina Composts. They were hanging out on the back porch, and then they got into an argument, and then he retrieved his pistol, and then he started shooting at the ground near her feet, thinking this is more, This would be more than just firing a weapon inside city limits. Charge he's shooting at her feet. He then put the pistol on the rail of the back porch. The Affi David says, she tries to grab the pistol. Well, she does grab it, and when she's trying to put it into her pocket, she pulled the trigger, accidentally shooting herself in the stomach. I guess this is her story. Police said that Marcano. Marcano dropped her off at the hospital, so I guess he wasn't too drunk to drive. And then he returned to the home where he threw the pistol in the woods. So there is a obstruction of an investigation, you know, attempting to destroy evidence. He was placed under an ice detainer due to the warrants in Venezuela, so we shall see. And then there is this how many, well what percentage of the riders of the Cat's system. The Charlotte Area Transit System. What percentage of the riders would you think, if you had to guess, are fair jumping? What percentage of the riders did not pay a fare to ride the buses and trains? Is it ten percent? Is it ninety percent? Well, here's what the interim still interim CEO for the Charlotte Area Transit System, Brent Cagel said at the city council meeting last night. The fair evasion rate is estimated to be fifty percent. Fifty so half of all of the people riding CATS did not pay and that means the CATS has lost three to five million dollars of revenue every single year. Now, I'm just gonna throw this out there. I suspect that number is actually too low. If they're estimating fifty percent, it's probably higher. That's my guess. Brett writes in on the text line pete a little secondhand weed smoke? Well, I mean a little versus a lot. I don't know, a clam bacon in the truck or something. That guy or the person who said that their son failed a drug test or whatever. I like, I'm not accusing anybody of lyon here. I'm just saying it's I've heard that, I've heard that that that line before. You know, it wasn't me. It must have been secondhand. I didn't do it that. You know, that's. A little secondhand weed smoke will not cause those people's kid to fail a drug test. Since marijuana attaches itself to fat cells, it takes a bit more than that to register on a test. But they can keep kidding themselves. Beth's favorite Russ says the great in the car with excuse right up there with the I had poppy seed muffins on that day exactly. It was the poppy seeded bagel that got me to fail the drug test. I swear, by the way, while I'm speaking of drug tests, just in case somebody needs to hear this, never ask if you pass the drug test. It's just a piece of advice I give to you. Not that I ever did that, but I'm saying, like, if you go to in for a job interview and they're like, hey, you got to do this drug test, uh, and then you go to. The lab and you you do the. Test, it's never a good idea to call the prospective employer and ask, hey, so did I pass that test? Okay, you should you should know you know that you're not going to pass it or you are going to pass it. Stanley says, it sounds to me like we should make the naturally grown wacky weed legal and just regulate all GMO production of it. Jeff Guest seventy five percent. What is this? Oh, okay, former, and I am a former NC state Probation officer. Mecklimber County was my assigned county. Long story short, there is no such thing as a contact high. You cannot test positive just by being in a confined space, car, bedroom, garage, et cetera, while others are smoking the wacky weed. Yeah, that's been my understanding of it as well. So that's literally the plot of an episode of the Office. Michael Scott smoked a clothes cigarette at a concert. That's right, stan says, I agree. Fifty of people that are fair jumping on cats is probably low. Since Democrats believe that all goods and services should be free and paid for by the government, the actual percentage is probably proportional to the percentage of registered Democrat voters. Oh, that's that's an interesting theory. It's true. Let me jump over here to Richard Hello, Richard, Hey, I'm good. What's going on? So I was Tony Streener. My mother suffered from MS for. Forty two years. They live They live in Florida. She never tried the stuff in her life. I knew my nephew dabbled with it. So I got him to get me some chocolate and I. Gave it to her. And it changed her life because she was ready to check out. Yeah, and then, but you don't have to smoke it. That's the thing is. She got a prescription and got an oil she put under a tongue. Yea, it didn't smell like a skunk, but it changed her her life for the last five six years of the battle in those diseases. So there's potential there. You just don't have to smoke it and make everything stink around you. Yeah. No, Like I said, my brother in law he grew he was a hem farmer and they had a business and they were doing the CBD oils and stuff. And I forget what they call the tinctures. I think is what they were called with a little eye dropper and yeah and the repeat. And that's why Senator Bill Rabin, who was I believe he was a dentist and he got cancer and he used it during his cancer treatments and because it benefited him so greatly, now he's become a huge proponent of it. He's a conservative Republican in the legislature. So yeah, I guess the oil is not as effective as smoking it, but it you know, it really did change. Her last few years of life. So yeah, I mean there's. Some benefits there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Richard. I appreciate the call, but. The contact high I don't know. I also heard that teenage girls can get pregnant swimming in the swimming pools too. Oh there, you got right, Thank you, all right, buddy, appreciate it. Let me chat with Greg. Hello, Greg, Hey, Hey, how are you. I'm good? What's up? I just want to call in. I've been listening while all listen every day. But thank you a little bit about the HMP farming. And we jumped in full bore in twenty eighteen when the farm build became active, right, and we've invested a lot of money. We lead to twelve acre farm. We put twelve thousand plants in the ground. We built three fifty one fifty greenhouses. In the hottest summer on record, and so you know, I just the farm build a way that it's written now as next November, it's you know, still in kind of a gray area is where it's. Going to happen. But they they said, you. Know, come on, jump on in, you know, let's make a bunch of money. And so we jumped in full board and we invested a lot of money. And for them now to be saying, well, this might not be the best recourse for the way that we proceed ahead with him, I can tell you this. We have a booth at Charlotte Regional Farmers Market and it's like a real time test lab for me in my business. And I talk to people every day who tell me the benefits that they're deriving from our products. And people are saying, you know, I'm no longer taken ambient I'm not yeah, taking anxiety drugs. I'm not doing this, that or the other. And I look at them every. Week and they tell me, you know, a face to face rebuttal of how they're doing and how this is helping their lives. Yeah I did. I took CBD oil before bed for probably like two years up in Ashville. Yeah, and like I slept better I mean my wife used it. She does. She used the CBD bombs topicals. So yeah, I mean there were, yeah, there are benefits and yeah, like I I don't understand why they enticed everybody to get into this line of work and then now they're gonna and it's not even over marrow, it's not even over hemp, it's over marijuana. Yet it seems like hemp is paying the price for that. Yeah, they are. And there's still one of our legislators, John Autry, followed the bill every year on four to twenty to try and push the hemp business. He said, if we would just make it legal, he said, I could fix every pothole, every bridge, every road in North Carolina in one year. And so I don't know about that, but you know, we jumped in. Everybody thought it was the next biggest gold rush coming and then there were thousands of pounds of it sitting in warehouses and. Nobody could sell it. Yeah, and I have a marketing and advertising background, and that's really the only thing that saved my business was that I created my own brand. I did the website, I did the videos, certified Jordan Pilot, so I shot our farm, you know, sunrise, sunset and the whole thing. And so we became profitable after well the beginning of our third year. But I know a lot of people that went bankrupt trying to make a stake in this business. Yeah no. And so out to our east is where my brother in law's farm was, and they did a co op model. So this way people didn't have to go and like plant entire fields of it, so they could just do little batches of it, and then they would test all of the different crops and make sure that everybody was below the certain THHC level. They had a full on lab. They were doing it all in there in house. And so yeah, I mean it's. Most of ours in house too. Yeah, send our products out for testing for coas. But all the rest of it is small backs farm, a table, all organically grown. I mean we do it right, Yeah, Greg, I got to run. I do appreciate the call, and good luck to you. Thank you man, All right, man, take it easy. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.