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Articles by Jon Epstein
THC Beverages, Alcohol Decline, and the Strange New Normal in North Carolina
North Carolina has a habit of stumbling into cultural experiments it never consciously signed up for. Sometimes it’s barbecue politics. Sometimes it’s the legislature’s ongoing performance art. And now, apparently, it’s THC beverages — the hemp‑derived, federally legal psychoactive drinks that have quietly become a staple in bars and breweries across the state. If you haven’t noticed them yet, you will.
CBHD and the Winston‑Salem Crossroads: How a Hemp Coalition Is Forcing North Carolina to Rethink Cannabis Policy
Winston‑Salem has always lived at the intersection of tradition and transition. It’s a city shaped by tobacco, by manufacturing, by faith, and by a long‑standing belief in law‑and‑order governance. For decades, that meant cannabis in any form was treated as a threat to public safety, a vice to be policed, and a cultural line that local leaders refused to cross.
The “Agriculture” Bill That Will Kill an Industry
North Carolina’s hemp‑THC industry is one of the state’s most unlikely economic success stories. It emerged from a century of prohibition, built itself from scratch, and now supports an estimated 16,000 jobs, 2,000+ retail stores, and close to $3 billion in annual economic activity statewide. Now a single piece of legislation, the NC Agriculture Bill, HB 328, could erase all of it overnight. To understand what’s at stake, you don’t need a think tank or a white paper.
A Conservative Case for Rethinking Cannabis: Why Winston‑Salem Should Lead North Carolina Toward Smarter, Safer Policy
Winston‑Salem has always been a city that values order, responsibility, and common sense. It is a city shaped by faith, by hard work, and by a deep respect for the men and women who keep our streets safe. For generations, that has meant supporting tough drug laws and trusting that strict enforcement was the best way to protect families and neighborhoods.
Cannabis as Medicine: A Brief History of Humans Using a Plant While Pretending It’s Dangerous
Humans have used cannabis as medicine for thousands of years. Modern science increasingly supports several of those uses. Big Pharma also agrees, but only when it can charge $1,200 a month for it. Winston-Salem is home to a research ecosystem that could make it a cannabinoid powerhouse, assuming North Carolina lawmakers stop their holier-than-thou posturing and address the problem they created. Before cannabis became the boogeyman of 20th-century American politics, it was simply medicine.
Legal Cannabis Would Bring Positive Change to Winston Salem
Winston-Salem is a city that plants created. Tobacco built its skyline and fueled its factories, while cotton mills and textile processing built its neighborhoods and communities. These industries defined the city for more than a century. Today, another plant — cannabis — is quietly positioning itself as the next chapter in that long agricultural story.
Gales strikes his own chord
As a music journalist, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a record label media kit about a guitarist, especially African American guitarists, that claim [insert artist name here] is the “next Hendrix.” It sounds like a compliment, and I guess it is, but I also think that’s seriously lazy PR work, always have.
Vicki Genfan: the percussive poet of open tunings
There are guitarists who play, and then there are guitarists who feel like entire orchestras wrapped in a single body. Vicki Genfan belongs to the latter category — a musician whose hands seem to translate rhythm, melody, and harmony into a continuous, surprising conversation.
Musical instrument is lost and forgotten, then makes its way back home to the Triad
We hear the admonition “think globally, shop locally” frequently, and while most of us think it is a good plan many of us continue to do our shopping through Amazon, or at one of the big box stores. At the end of the day it is just easier, and often cheaper, to purchase our consumer goods online. Because so many of us are now firmly rooted in a “point and click” reality, we rarely stop to consider what we might be missing as a result.
Cosmic Summit finds a permanent home in the Triad
From June 14-16th The Koury Convention Center will be the site of the Cosmic Summit 2024, which is set to become a yearly event going forward.
Opinion: Oregon lawmakers must include youth prevention in drug policy proposals
In the upcoming legislative session, Oregon must take decisive action on primary prevention, which focuses on preventing, reducing or delaying youth substance use in order to reduce rates of dependency, addiction and resulting harms. Prior recent legislative actions such as S.B. 238 and H.B. 2395, which focus on universal awareness of the existence of fentanyl in counterfeit pills and access to naloxone, are a great start but only scratch the surface of our problems.
Local Singer Revisits the 'Wasteground' of His Northern Ireland Youth
The singer and guitarist for the Mighty Shamrocks was packing up his gear one night after an early-'80s pub gig in the Bogside neighborhood of Derry, in Northern Ireland. Most of the crowd had left, but a small group of men still sat drinking at a table up front. One pointed to the black scarf draped across the Shamrocks' bass drum. "Did one of our hunger strikers die today?'" the man asked. "I don't know, I didn't see the news,'" the guitarist replied.
Jasiatic Anderson Opens 'Su Casa' for Another Year of Enlightened Nightlife | Features | Creative Loafing Charlotte
When Jasiatic Anderson was a kid growing up in Charlotte's Hidden Valley in the late 1980s, she would sneak out of her mom's house, take the No. 11 bus down to Tryon Mall and rifle through the vinyl bins at Shazada Music, looking for the perfect beat — the latest from the Real Roxanne, Eric B. & Rakim or Culture Club. "Tryon Mall was popping in the '80s. It was the place to go.
Legal Perspective: Trump wants to change libel laws? The result could be chilling
Last week President Trump and several members of his staff criticized Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” an unflattering and critical portrayal of the President and the White House.A lawyer working on Trump’s behalf even sent a cease-and-desist letter to the publisher.
Astrea Corp's Dark Electronic Soundscapes are a Trippy Clash of Post-Rock Madness | Features | Creative Loafing Charlotte
One afternoon several years ago, Mike Bachman sat at the desk in his south Florida home where he produced the rich, multilayered electronic soundscapes of his music project Astrea Corp. He opened one of the tracks he was working on. His girlfriend Carly looked over his shoulder. "I remember sitting there and she was behind me and she started singing. My jaw dropped," he says.
Isn't It About Time Douglass Thompson Cut a New Record? | Features | Creative Loafing Charlotte
When a housefire scorched Douglass Thompson's home in the tiny town of Waupaca, Wisconsin, in 2012, he and his wife decided to make a change. Everything they'd accumulated over the years was gone, so they took to heart the old Kris Kristofferson line "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," and hit the road. "I had a friend here in Charlotte who offered us his place," Thompson says. "He asked if we wanted to house-sit for him for a couple of years, so we said, 'Sure.
Last call at The Garage | YES! Weekly
Operating a live local music venue is not as cool as it would appear, and it definitely isn’t easy. When you stop to consider the sheer number of details involved in the day to day operation of a venue, it suddenly becomes obvious that no sane person would do it unless they were highly committed and motivated by the idea that running a club is worth the effort because it matters. This is especially true of clubs that depend solely on artists and fans drawn from the local, community.
Music to Watch 2018: New Local Vibes | Features | Creative Loafing Charlotte
THE YEAR 2017 has been nothing short of spectacular for Charlotte's various music scenes. From intimate, eclectic showcases of area rock, hip-hop and singer-songwriter fare at Petra's, to Snug Harbor's monthly local-music residencies, to the free-jazz and poetry of Brent and Amy Bagwell's "Antidote" series, to all-day festivals such as the Bla/Alt black alternative music fest at Camp North End, Charlotte has offered a kaleidoscope of musical choices over the past year.
Cuzco Subtracts One from Business People, Adds Four to Create Exqusite Soundtrack | Features | Creative Loafing Charlotte
The scene is straight out of a nonexistent film we'll call Indie Bromance. The venue is the Fillmore Charlotte; the date, Aug. 6, 2010: Will Schoonmaker and Nic Robinson, high school music nerds, are in different spots in the audience at a Silversun Pickups show, each singing his heart out amid colored lights and the lurching guitars and melodic verses of the Los Angeles band's pop-rock gem, "Well Thought Out Twinkles." Will and Nic make eye contact and smile at each other, knowingly.
AI Is Disrupting Everything And These 3 Industries Are Next - Dataconomy
You may not see it, but it’s there. Artificial intelligence, that is. It’s beating us at our most complicated games, helping curate the news we read every day, ever improving our search results, driving our cars, and on and on and on. We’ve entered into what some experts are calling an AI spring, a thawing of the barriers that have previously prevented AI practitioners from achieving the breakthroughs we’re seeing today (namely, access to data, low-cost compute power, and better AI algorithms).
Bad Company deserves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Bad Company has consisted of a revolving cast of musicians and vocalists, leading the band to top of the charts with Platinum record level success. The band was fronted by vocalist Brian Howe when it achieved considerable commercial success for it's 1989 album Holy Water. But things got complicated for the band when Paul Rodgers left shortly after the release of the lackluster Rough Diamonds.
Empowering Journalists with the Internet of Things - Dataconomy
How drones, sensors, and even Google Glass are making news better. The Internet of Things is set to disrupt media like never before. Marketing and advertising will be reborn, understanding and reaching consumers with an unprecedented degree of precision. That is not, however, the only way media will be changing. The internet completely changed the way journalists could interact with data. They could find more information, reach more people, and uncover the truth faster.
One type of airway cell can regenerate another lung cell type
PHILADELPHIA - A new collaborative study describes a way that lung tissue can regenerate after injury. The team found that lung tissue has more dexterity in repairing tissue than once thought.
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