Platform of the North Carolina Green Party

Platform

(adopted May 15, 2004)

(Click a heading to get subheadings, then click a subheading for details.)

I. Grassroots Democracy

II. Social Justice, Equal Opportunity, Respect for Diversity

III. Ecological Wisdom

IV. Nonviolence, Peace, Diplomacy

V. Community-based Economics, Citizen Proprietorship

VI. Feminism, Gender Equity

VII. Reform of Healthcare, Education, Justice Systems

VIII. Personal and Global Responsibility

IX. Sustainability

I. Grassroots Democracy

A. Citizen Participation
B. Campaign Financing
C. Instant Runoff Voting
D. Election Reform
E. Campaign Media Access
F. Neighborhood Associations
G. Workplace Democracy

II. Social Justice, Equal Opportunity, Respect for Diversity

A. Racism
B. Immigrant Rights
C. Sexual Orientation, Domestic Partnerships, Marriage

III. Ecological Wisdom

A. Energy Conservation
B. Nuclear Power
C. Electrical Utilities
D. Alternative Energy Sources
E. Building Practices
F. Air Quality
G. Water Quality and Use-Efficiency
H. Environmental Outlook Documents
I. Factory Farming Pollution
J. Open Space
K. Recycling

IV. Nonviolence, Peace, Diplomacy

A. Death Penalty
B. Trade Policy
C. Gun Control
D. International Violence, Citizen Responsibility

V. Community-based Economics, Citizen Proprietorship

A. Community Action for Economic Justice
B. Housing
C. Corporate Responsibility
D. Taxation
E. Development Funding

VI. Feminism, Gender Equity

A. Reproductive Freedom
B. Individual Empowerment
C. Family Planning
D. Comprehensive Sex Education, Rape Prevention

VII. Reform of Healthcare, Education, Justice Systems

A. Medical Research
B. National Single-Payer Health Insurance
C. Alternative Health Care
D. Family Support
E. Elder Support
F. Youth Support
G. K-12 Education
H. Higher Education
I. Continuing Education
J. Criminal Justice
K. Prisons
L. War on Drugs

VIII. Personal and Global Responsibility

A. Self-Sufficiency
B. Manufacturer Responsibility
C. Food and Health
D. Waste
E. Product Testing on Animals
F. Animals in Education
G. Animals in Entertainment
H. Fur Apparel
I. Overpopulation of Domestic Animals

IX. Sustainability

A. Communications Technology
B. Sustainable Agriculture
C. Biotechnology
D. Community Greenlands
E. Hunting and Fishing
F. Vegetarianism
G. Overpopulation
H. Overconsumption
I. Public Transportation
J. Combustion Engines
K. Automobile Efficiency
L. Bicycles
M. Plant and Non-Fossil Fuels
N. Downtown Transportation, Auto-Free Zones
O. Light Rail Transit
P. Natural Control of Undergrowth

I. Grassroots Democracy

A. Citizen Participation
B. Campaign Financing
C. Instant Runoff Voting

1. Where a single seat is to be filled, each voter designates on a ballot up to four non-identical choices, ranked in order of preference. All ballots are initially counted based on first preference. If a candidate has a majority after the first count, that candidate wins. If no candidate has a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped, and that candidate's ballots are recounted by the voters' second choices. If a candidate has a majority at this point, that candidate wins. If no candidate has a majority, again the hindmost candidate is dropped, and that candidate's ballots are re-counted by the voters' next choices. The process continues until one candidate receives a majority.
2. Where multiple seats are to be filled, each voter ranks a number of non-identical choices equaling the number of seats to be filled, plus three. All ballots are initially counted by the highest-ranked choices for the number of seats � for example, the highest four if four seats are to be filled. Winners are then determined by simple plurality, with the additional requirement that to win, a candidate must receive votes from a majority of the voters. If an insufficient number of candidates meet this requirement, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped, and that candidate's ballots are recounted by the voters' next choices. This process repeats until candidates who received votes from a majority of voters fill all seats, or until all alternate choices on all ballots have been exhausted, at which point the remaining seats may be filled by simple plurality.

D. Election Reform

1. Voting time, when citizens may cast ballots, should be extended to 48 hours and should include at least one weekend day.
2. Same-day voter registration (on election day) should be implemented in North Carolina. It is working well in the states that currently allow it.
3. Restrictive barriers to ballot access should be removed. North Carolina's current signature requirement for ballot access for parties should be drastically lowered, and the existing signature requirement for write-in candidates should be abolished.
4. Parties should be allowed to define their own voting membership for the purposes of party policy-making.
5. New forms of computerized voter registration should not exclude residents with rural route addresses. North Carolina is currently adopting such a system. No voter should be disenfranchised by a computer or by a rush to automation.
6. Votes should not be counted by computers, which are vulnerable to stealthy and sophisticated forms of tampering. Ballots should be on paper, visible and verifiable to any person. Any voting system that eliminates this transparency and verifiability is an invitation to election rigging and should be prohibited.

E. Media Access for Campaigns

1. The Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to provide equal time to all sides of an issue or debate, should be reinstated.
2. Because the broadcast airwaves are public property, all political parties and candidates should be granted free, equal access to radio and television, including access for political advertisements. The FCC should allow media outlets to put reasonable limits on the amount of airtime each political party or candidate is allowed. All candidates on the ballot for an office should have equal access to any organized multi-candidate debate that is broadcast on public airways or held in public facilities.

F. Neighborhood Associations
G. Workplace Democracy

1. The employees of a corporation should have a fair number of representatives on the board of directors of that corporation, along with the investors, who now wrongly enjoy a monopoly on corporate board seats.
2. We support card-check union recognition. If a majority of bargaining-unit employees sign union cards, the employer should be required to recognize the union without any additional election or process.
3. We advocate the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, which strips organized labor of the right to the secondary boycott, deprives it of tactics that are legal in many other countries and allows employers unfair advantage in opposing union organizing.
4. We oppose so-called "right to work" laws, which greatly weaken organized labor in many southern states, including North Carolina.
5. We oppose the legal precedent of "corporate personhood," which classifies corporations as individuals having all the constitutional rights of citizens, including equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Such entities are inimical to democracy, because they are untouchable corporate super-citizens which cannot truly be held accountable to the people.
6. Union organizers and employers should have equal time to make their pitches to workers, even if that requires that union officials talk to workers on the shop floor.
7. All unions should have the following:

a. the right to access areas in which employees work;
b. the right to use employers' bulletin boards, mailboxes, and other communication media; and
c. the right to use the employer's facilities for meetings that exercise any of the rights guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

8. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should be reformed to do the following:

a. upon finding that an employee was discharged as the result of an unfair labor practice, award back pay equal to three times the employee's wages from the time of dismissal to the settlement date;
b. allow employees to file civil actions for punitive damages when they have been discharged as a result of an unfair labor practice;
c. notify any employee wrongfully discharged of the right to sue for punitive and compensatory damages under the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA); and
d. give unions the right to establish mediation if an employer and union cannot reach agreement on a contract within 60 days after certification of a new union.

II. Social Justice, Equal Opportunity, Respect for Diversity

A. Racism

1. Racial profiling should not be tolerated in any North Carolina institution.
2. Affirmative action programs should be supported, but they should be applied critically, so that they favor those most in need of help within discriminated populations.

B. Immigrant Rights

1. The state should provide workers' compensation for all North Carolina farmworkers, including migrant farm workers.
2. All manufactured homes should be treated as real property instead of personal property.
3. North Carolina's predatory lending law should be expanded to include the financing of manufactured homes.
4. Proprietors of mobile home parks should be required to give 90 days notice (not the current 30 days notice) for a tenant to quit a leased lot when no cause for termination is stated.
5. Deposits paid for the sale of a mobile home should be kept in an escrow account and should be returned to the buyer upon proper request.
6. Consumer representatives should have half the designated seats on the Manufactured Housing Board.
7. Cities should not limit the number of non-related individuals who can live in the same household. This disproportionately targets the working poor, students, and immigrant populations.
8. Non-citizens should have the right to be licensed as drivers without regard to immigration status.

C. Sexual Orientation, Domestic Partnerships, Marriage

1. The state should recognize domestic partnerships between same-sex couples and require full domestic partner benefits for public and private employees.
2. Same-sex couples should have the right to co-parent, become foster parents or jointly adopt children under the same standards and requirements as those applied to heterosexual couples.
3. As heterosexual marriage is recognized by the state of North Carolina, marriage between gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons should be recognized equally.

III. Ecological Wisdom

A. Energy Conservation

1. The state and the nation should require the greatest possible energy efficiency in all appliances, including vehicles.
2. The state should use tax incentives and energy taxes to encourage businesses and citizens to use energy more efficiently.
3. Governments at every level should promote public transportation, both within urban areas and between them.

B. Nuclear Power

1. Fission nuclear power plants are catastrophes waiting to happen and should be phased out as soon as possible.
2. Every state with nuclear power facilities should store its nuclear waste within its own boundaries. Immediate action should be taken at the local level to address the safety of nuclear waste storage.

C. Electrical Utilities

1. The state should create incentives for electric-power producers to invest in energy efficiency and conservation.
2. Electrical utilities should be publicly owned.
3. Electrical utility companies should be required to draw up immediate plans to bury all power lines in order to reduce future power outages, preserve tree canopies, and protect the public.

D. Alternative Energy Sources
E. Building Practices

1. Municipalities should require that public buildings, including public schools and universities, incorporate passive-solar heating elements and other energy-efficient measures in construction and renovation.
2. Municipalities should require additional insulation and double-pane window glass, or insulated shutters, on all new residential, commercial and government construction.
3. Municipalities should revise zoning laws to allow for the protection of solar access and other small-scale energy production units.

F. Taxation, Subsidies

1. Subsidies, tax benefits, and research funding should be eliminated that goes to companies producing electricity from nuclear and other non-renewable sources.
2. A carbon tax should be levied on all fossil fuels. These taxes would be an incentive for efficiency and conservation and would be partly used to fund the development of renewable energy sources.
3. Government should subsidize the construction and rebuilding of relevant infrastructures, including public transportation, along more ecologically sustainable lines.

G. Air Quality

1. Air-quality and emissions standards should be tightened. The number of pollutants monitored should be increased, as should air-quality testing. Stiffer penalties and better-funded remedial programs should be established for violators.
2. All discarded heating and cooling units should be collected in order to recover or destroy chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used as refrigerants or insulation. Service and salvage operations for air conditioning units should be required to recover all CFCs.
3. "Good Neighbor Agreements" should be promoted between industry and neighborhood groups. These agreements encourage non-adversarial, non-regulatory meetings that promote the reduction of toxic emissions.
4. North Carolina should require and promote the sale of low-emission vehicles:
- a. North Carolina should adopt the LEV II program, a low-emission vehicle standard currently used in other states that would dramatically reduce smog-forming emissions and cut pollution by 40%.
- b. To boost clean car technology and demonstrate the state's commitment to improved air quality, North Carolina should invest in clean cars for the state's vehicle needs.
- c. The state should provide tax incentives and rebates to encourage the purchase of low-emission vehicles.

H. Water Quality and Use-Efficiency

1. New policies aimed at eliminating all groundwater pollution and monitoring the quality of our aquifers should be implemented at local and state levels. We propose a groundwater management program that would include regular and extensive testing of aquifers, regulation of groundwater pumping, wetlands conservation, funding to clean previous dumping or landfills and bio-regional aquifer protection.
2. Deep-well injection of hazardous waste should be banned.
3. The destruction of wetlands should be halted immediately and measures taken to restore some damaged wetlands.
4. Society should accept no discharge of toxic materials into water or landfills. There must be heavy penalties for violation, including the revocation of business licenses.
5. All landfills should be lined and contained. All underground storage tanks containing toxic materials should be of the double-container type.
6. We need tougher enforcement of our clean water laws. Polluter fines should be increased to give the state the resources to enforce the law and to nullify the economic benefits of disposing of waste improperly. The state should enforce environmental laws by collecting all fines.
7. To reduce salt content in wastewater, self-regenerating water softeners must contain built-in salt recovery systems.
8. Agribusiness and farmers should be encouraged to use water efficiently and avoid polluting it, employing such techniques as low-runoff tillage, drip irrigation, fertilizing with compost, mulching, and organic growing methods, which eliminate the use of chemicals and recycle organic wastes. We support legislation, financial incentives, and educational programs that encourage conservation and water reuse, low-use water systems, and reduced-use patterns in residential and commercial buildings.
9. Water supply projects should be funded on the user-pays principle rather than by taxpayer subsidy. We propose that all water and sewage management be converted to publicly owned and democratically organized regional agencies, ideally in the form of consumer cooperatives.
10. The state legislature should give municipalities, park districts and watershed districts the power to ban certain classes of pesticides (including, but not limited to, diazinin, 2, 4-D, and MCPP) from golf courses, private lawns and parklands.

I. Environmental Outlook Documents
J. Factory Farming Pollution

1. The hog industry should clean up and properly close the more than 700 abandoned lagoons in eastern North Carolina.
2. Existing hog factories should meet more stringent performance standards. Hog factories using open-air lagoons and aerial spray-fields should replace them with more effective waste management systems.
3. Hog farmers and large pork producers that own hogs should be legally liable for their business and environmental practices. We support legislation that would make these businesses more accountable to the public.

K. Open Space

1. The state should protect the funding of our four natural resource trust funds.
2. The state should create a permanent, dedicated source of funding for open-space preservation.
3. The state should add to existing tax incentives for preservation and should increase penalties for irresponsible development.

L. Recycling

1. Developers and construction companies should be required to recycle or reuse products like cardboard and wood instead of dumping them.
2. North Carolina counties and industries should meet new, more effective recycling requirements. New landfills should not be permitted if these recycling requirements have not been met.
3. All public and private landfills should be lined to prevent leakage. In the last ten years, state leaders successfully shut down or lined all landfills serving the public. All construction and demolition landfills should be lined and equipped with leachate collection systems as soon as possible. Landfills that do not comply should be shut down.
4. Clean, reusable or recyclable waste should be banned from all landfills as soon as is feasible. Such waste includes wooden pallets, clean wood, cardboard, newspaper, steel, aluminum, plastic and office paper.
5. All local governments, commercial and industrial facilities, and construction and demolition operations should meet minimum state recycling requirements. No new landfills should be permitted in areas that do not meet these requirements.

IV. Nonviolence, Peace, Diplomacy

A. Death Penalty
B. Trade Policy
C. Gun Control

1. We urge a permanent extension of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (US Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 44, Section 921), and we urge the United States Congress to appropriate money to enforce the current gun control laws.
2. We urge Congress to require registration, background checks and waiting periods for all gun and rifle purchases, including those at gun shows.

D. International Violence and Citizen Responsibility

V. Community-based Economics, Citizen Proprietorship

A. Community Action for Economic Justice

1. The North Carolina legislature should determine an hourly living wage, based on a forty-hour work week, that all North Carolina employers must pay all employees, full- or part-time. The level of this living wage should be reevaluated and adjusted, if necessary, every four years.
2. The state should establish a fund to provide retraining and interim income to workers displaced by plant and office closings, bankruptcies, environmental reforms, technology shifts, and conversions from military to civilian production. We favor tax and other incentives to encourage worker retraining by the community and its businesses.
3. We favor federal programs and legislation designed to prevent moving U.S. jobs overseas and international trade agreements with mandatory improvements in wages and working conditions in U.S.-owned businesses abroad.
4. State laws should encourage the formation of consumer cooperatives, worker cooperatives, and community land trusts. Essential public services, particularly utilities and mass transportation, should be publicly owned.
5. As noted under Section I. G., "Workplace Democracy," we strongly support workers' rights to organize. We further assert that this basic human right must apply internationally, and we affirm the need for international labor solidarity. We intend to use the international character of the Green movement as an instrument to further this value.

B. Housing

1. Zoning laws should integrate accessible, low-income housing into all segments of a community. We also support volunteer efforts to address public housing problems.
2. We support efforts by local, state, and federal government to oppose and prevent urban sprawl and to encourage denser, less automobile-dependent urban communities.
3. We support co-housing developments with such arrangements being democratically managed by the residents.
4. The state should increase its temporary rental and mortgage assistance programs to provide families with counseling services, grants and loans for up to six months in the case of temporary disruptions of income, including layoff, medical problems and divorce.

C. Corporate Responsibility

1. We support "level playing field" laws. These allow communities to adopt minimum environmental, labor, and social standards that are stricter than national and international standards. These laws place fees on outside corporations and their products, fees which nullify the competitive advantages of manufacturing in places with lower standards. This practice could help reverse the present "race to the bottom" that transnational corporations are imposing on communities worldwide.
2. Just as private citizens who break the law stand to lose their freedom, corporations that repeatedly violate the law should lose their charters. Individual CEOs must be held partially accountable for violations of the law perpetrated by other officers of the corporation that occur during that CEO's term of office.

D. Taxation

1. Local property taxes should be progressive, like the income tax, and should have an exclusion for the poorest property owners. Wealthier property owners would pay higher property-tax rates.
2. Since real estate owned by churches requires government services, just as business and private properties do, such properties should not be exempt from property taxes. Exempting church real estate from property taxes unfairly favors religious organizations, violating the principle of the separation of church and state, and burdens private property owners with higher tax rates.
3. North Carolina should move away from regressive sales taxes toward progressive property, income and inheritance taxes based on the taxpayer's ability to pay.
4. The state should eliminate tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy. Capital gains should be taxed at the same rates as wages.
5. The personal exemption for single heads of households with dependents should be raised.
6. The home mortgage interest deduction should be limited to an amount equal to or less than the median cost of a home in North Carolina.
7. Corporations should not be able to deduct outrageous salaries as business expenses. The deduction should be limited to the portion of an executive salary that does not exceed 25 times the earnings of the lowest-paid worker in a company.

E. Development Funding

VI. Feminism, Gender Equity

A. Reproductive Freedom
B. Individual Empowerment
C. Family Planning

1. The state should fund the dissemination of information on the full range of currently available contraception options, including natural family planning.
2. Contraceptives of all sorts should be readily available to all sexually active females and males.
3. In the U.S., private insurers should be required to provide gender-equitable coverage of medical services and prescriptions related to contraception and reproductive health.

D. Comprehensive Sex Education, Rape Prevention

1. Statewide curriculum should be revised to include comprehensive sex education. The state should mandate comprehensive sex education beginning no later than grade four.
2. The curriculum of that program should incorporate a rape prevention unit aimed not to arm women against men, but to grow boys into men who respect every person's autonomy over her own body.
3. Furthermore, the curriculum should include an exploration of gender concepts and sexual-affectional orientation that promotes understanding of other-than-heterosexual relationships.
4. Moreover, the curriculum should include the full range of currently available contraception options, including natural family planning.

VII. Reform of Healthcare, Education, Justice Systems

A. Medical Research

1. The development of non-animal models in scientific research of human disease should be funded and pursued at least as vigorously as the development of animal-research-based models.
2. Medicine's current focus on interceptive and crisis medicine should be replaced with a focus on preventive health care.
3. Institutional animal-use and care committees should include members other than those with a vested interest in the continuation of animal experimentation and should publicly disclose all nonproprietary business.
4. Childhood immunizations should be available to all who desire them. Early childhood programs should offer, but not require, these immunizations. Parents and doctors should be educated about the possible benefits and risks of specific immunizations.

B. National Single-Payer Health Insurance
C. Alternative Health Care

1. State and national health plans should cover the use of alternative care providers like chiropractors, massage therapists, homeopaths, acupuncturists and nutritional analysts.
2. Alternative health care providers should only be regulated by licensing and review boards made up of representatives of their respective healthcare fields.

D. Family Support

1. The state should require companies that employ 20 or more people to provide paid leave for childbirth, for the adoption of children and for the care of sick family members.
2. The state should establish a Family and Children's Services Board, with broad parent and professional representation, for the planning and coordination of public and private family services.
3. Local governments should establish planning councils to assess the needs of children and adolescents, and to develop the resources to meet those needs.

E. Elder Support

1. The state should fund community-based support services that aim to avoid unnecessary nursing-home placements and encourage the highest degree of independence, dignity and choice for our elders.
2. Community programs should make use of the wisdom, expertise and energy of elders.
3. Housing options for elders should include both multi-generational settings and peer-based settings.
4. Workers should have the option of phased-in retirement �
- a. to ease the transition from working to retirement;
- b. to allow time for economic and personal adjustment;
- c. to allow for the development of replacement social connections; and
- d. to help retirees find a new place in the community.

F. Youth Support

1. Children of a responsible age should participate in determining how their needs can best be met.
2. The state should fund programs that meet the needs of the poor, including food, shelter, childcare, healthcare, job training and education.
3. Corporal punishment should be prohibited in schools and all other institutions, public and private, where children and adults are cared for or educated.
4. The state should support programs that teach alternative, non-corporal forms of discipline to parents, teachers and other caregivers.
5. The state should fund treatment for all juveniles in the legal system with mental health or drug problems.
6. The state should expand and promote its support services and shelters for battered women and their children in every county in North Carolina.
7. The state should fund crisis nurseries and respite care to provide safe housing for children whose parents are temporarily unable to care for them.
8. School meal programs should provide more pesticide-free, organic foods prepared onsite and more fresh produce.
9. The state should increase its financial support for childcare providers.
10. The state should establish a voluntary professional accreditation program for those serving special needs children, make screening and therapeutic services available to homes and centers serving special needs children, and link special needs programs with Early Childhood Family Education, Early Childhood Screening and Early Childhood Special Education programs.
11. Every school-aged child of working parents should have access to responsible childcare. Family services collaborative grants should be offered only to programs that include childcare.

G. Education, K-12

1. The state should move in the direction of full public financing of preschool education to make preschool available to all state residents.
2. Because the public schools are a public trust and a public asset, they should be supported by public taxes. All citizens, regardless of where they send their own children to school, have a direct interest in an educated society.
3. Private and parochial schools are a consumer choice and one that should not be funded by public tax money.
4. State funding of primary and secondary education should be sufficient to negate the importance of federal funding in school district budgets. The whims of federal legislators should not adversely affect public education in North Carolina. Federal power grabs through carrot-and-stick funding offers could likewise be ignored if state funding were adequate.
5. Grading, assessment and standardized examinations should be thoroughly studied and reevaluated.
6. Families and students need to be free to choose from a wide array of educational approaches.
7. Student-teacher ratios should be no more than 15 to 1 in kindergarten through 3rd grade and 20 to 1 in all other grades.
8. School districts should explore alternatives to suspension, including academically focused day-treatment centers.

H. Higher Education

1. The state should move in the direction of full public financing of public higher education to make college available to all citizens who desire it.
2. To make North Carolina's higher education system more equitable, the state should reduce the share of individual support provided via appropriations and increase the share provided directly to individuals on the basis of financial need.
3. State aid programs should follow a student to whatever campus and academic program the student selects.

I. Continuing Education

1. The state should provide free literacy programs for all residents.
2. The state should make literacy, job training and other educational opportunities available to the public. Such programs have been positively linked with reducing the chance that a released prisoner will become a repeat offender.

J. Criminal Justice

1. Conflict resolution programs should be promoted in schools, prisons and as part of probation.
2. Restitution programs and alternative sentencing, such as meaningful community service, must be emphasized as much as possible.
3. Our justice system must begin to attach as much importance to justice for white-collar criminals, including environmental violators, as it currently does to justice for petty criminals. Corporate executives should be held personally responsible for the social and environmental consequences of their company's actions.
4. Community members must be involved directly in crime control in their own communities, through citizen police boards, recruitment of police officers within patrol areas and neighborhood watch programs.
5. Prosecutions that appear to have been politically motivated should be promptly reviewed, including convictions of individuals associated with the American Indian Movement, the Black Panthers, the civil rights movement and Earth First.
6. The death penalty should be abolished.

K. Prisons

1. The state and the nation must take immediate steps to improve the conditions of the prison system and to educate the vast number of citizens who are incarcerated.
2. Small, sustainable businesses, such as organic farms, greenhouses, and small appliance repair services, should be established in prisons, with the goal of teaching skills and business practices to inmates. The profits from these programs should be used to compensate crime victims and to help underwrite the cost of running prisons.
3. Prisons should be run by the state, not by for-profit corporations. It is a breach of trust to turn over the lives of our citizens, criminal or not, to unaccountable, profit-driven entities.
4. Inmates should not provide cheap labor for corporations, not even government contractors. For-profit corporations should pay the same amount for prisoner labor that they pay their employees to perform those same duties. Some portion of that payroll should go to the prisoners or to the state to cover the cost of housing and feeding those prisoners.

L. The War on Drugs

1. Communities that are susceptible to high levels of drug abuse should be the focus of economic development efforts. Those efforts should favor locally owned enterprises.
2. Drug abuse of all kinds should be treated as a disease, rather than a criminal offense. We support legalizing the personal possession of controlled substances.

VIII. Personal and Global Responsibility

A. Self-Sufficiency
B. Manufacturer Responsibility
C. Food and Health

1. State farm subsidies should encourage a shift from animal agriculture in order to provide more food for the human population.
2. North Carolina public schools should include non-biased information on proper nutrition in their curriculum.
3. Produce should never be irradiated.

D. Waste

1. Manufacturers should reduce packaging and make durable products: The first priority of any waste-management plan must be to minimize waste. Only reduction at the source in manufacturing and packaging will solve our growing waste problems.
2. Consumer products should be reusable: Our second priority in waste management is maximum possible reuse of materials. We must adopt standardized reusable containers and mechanical parts wherever possible.
3. Government policy should encourage the development and use of recycled products and should fund community recycling: Our third waste management priority is recycling. We support the expansion and increased efficiency of all current recycling efforts and encourage the manufacture of recyclable products. We also encourage the composting of organic waste.
4. Industry, agriculture and communities should discharge no toxic chemicals into the environment. Until we have accomplished the transition to a sustainable society, residue of waste streams remaining after exhausting the first three waste management priorities must be permanently isolated from the environment in a manner that protects against toxic leakage and allows future recovery of additional useful materials. The costs of such disposal must be internalized in the price of the products or services requiring it.
5. Society should reduce consumption. We must reclaim the virtue of frugality, eliminating overconsumption and its attendant waste.

E. Product Testing on Animals

1. Whenever possible, companies should be required to use the wide variety of innovative, quick, accurate and inexpensive product tests that do not use animals.
2. Research grants, whether they come from the government, universities or the private sector, should favor in-vitro (non-animal) testing methods.
3. Companies should be required to use ingredients recognized to be safe for animals and people.

F. Animals in Education

1. Education, especially in the life sciences, should communicate respect for human and non-human life.
2. Schools should use existing alternative teaching techniques that enhance the learning of anatomy and physiology while instilling greater respect for life.

G. Animals in Entertainment

1. The use of animals in entertainment should meet federal standards for minimum acceptable living conditions.
2. Laws against animal fighting should be expanded and those currently in place vigorously enforced.
3. Anyone caught using endangered species in entertainment should have their permits revoked and their animals confiscated.

H. Fur Apparel
I. Overpopulation of Domestic Animals

IX. Sustainability

A. Communications Technology
B. Sustainable Agriculture

1. Agriculture should begin to move away from farming that depends on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and phosphates in favor of sustainable practices like crop rotation and cultivation, integrated pest management and the use of unprocessed natural fertilizers and disease-resistant indigenous plants.
2. All farm animals should be humanely treated and respected in their own right. Diversity and natural husbandry should be used to maintain healthy stock.
3. A higher percentage of the money spent on food should go to farmers rather than to processors, packagers and distributors.
4. Federal organic certification standards should be established that are at least as stringent as those of the California and Oregon certification boards.
5. As a vehicle to economic growth and job creation, the state should promote the development of new and ecologically sound agricultural products, including non-food uses of plant fiber, hemp and agricultural waste.

C. Biotechnology

1. The use of growth hormones and preventative antibiotics in livestock should be banned.
2. A five-year moratorium should be instituted on all products containing genetically engineered organisms, from seed to processing to table, including bovine growth hormone.
3. All genetically engineered products should be labeled as such.
4. In keeping with the precautionary principle, all genetically engineered products must be proven safe to long-term public health and the long-term integrity of the environment before being put on the market or having a chance to contaminate the environment.
5. The patenting of life forms should be prohibited.
6. The patenting of any segment or portion of the human genome should be prohibited.

D. Community Greenlands
E. Hunting and Fishing

1. Wildlife advocates, non-hunters, and anti-hunters should receive proportional representation in wildlife management agency oversight.
2. The state should establish refuges for the protection of both habitat and species, not for the production of game animals.
3. Current laws which hold that hunters may enter private land not posted against them should be reversed. Any hunter wishing to use another's land should receive permission to do so. Any landowner who wants to welcome all hunters should post signs to that effect.
4. The state should not promote "new game species," and no new hunting seasons should be established.
5. Public funds should not be used for the promotion of recreational hunting.
6. Rather than declaring a special hunt for every perceived problem with wildlife, non-lethal and educational approaches to human conflicts with wildlife should be considered.

F. Vegetarianism

1. Nutritional information in public schools should not be written by the meat and dairy industries. Educational materials should come from sources without financial conflicts of interest..
2. Schools should provide accurate information on vegetarian diets in nutrition classes at all levels.

G. Overpopulation
H. Overconsumption
I. Public Transportation
J. Combustion Engines
K. Automobile Efficiency
L. Bicycles

1. Roads should include paved shoulders, wide outside lanes, or bike lanes wherever practicable.
2. The state should build bicycle and pedestrian through-paths in areas with few through-streets, to create shorter travel routes and traffic bypasses for bicycles.
3. The state should depart from "big road," freeway-style architecture when designing the surface streets and secondary roads where bicycles are allowed, and freeways should interrupt the fewest number of these streets possible.
4. Traffic signals with pressure plates should be able to detect bicycles waiting at an intersection.
5. Drainage and expansion grates should be designed not to destroy bicycle wheels. Those with the potential to snag bicycles should be replaced immediately.
6. Planning and development policies should emphasize modest-sized communities placed at reasonable distances, linked by scenic secondary roads, rather than distant metropolitan areas served by freeways.
7. The state should institute educational and public relations programs to inform all users of the road about the proper and safe use of bicycles and the rights and responsibilities of both cyclists and drivers.
8. Three- and four-wheeled human-powered vehicles of less than 1 meter (39.37") width should be recognized as vehicles legally equivalent to bicycles.
9. Bicycle racks should be added in all public destinations and should be part of all new development.

M. Plant and Non-Fossil Fuels
N. Downtown Transportation, Auto-Free Zones

1. We support designating free mass-transit areas within the major business districts of North Carolina's major cities to promote the use of mass transit, limit automobile traffic in downtown areas and promote the use of downtown businesses.
2. We support the designation of automobile-free zones within downtown areas.

O. Light Rail Transit
P. Natural Control of Undergrowth

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