Free Republic

I understand the arguments for the legalization of marijuana: It can generate tax revenue. It can reduce illegal supply and demand. It can strip power from cartels and lessen crime across and at our borders. And it isn't so dangerous as other illegal drugs or alcohol. President Barack Obama even claimed one of those arguments when he recently told New Yorker Editor David Remnick, "As has been well-documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through...

Within days after each season premiere and season finale of the Discovery Channel's reality show "Moonshiners," they come — a small but perceptible wave of people — to purchase suspiciously large amounts of corn, sugar and hardy strains of fermenting yeast at Austin Homebrew Supply. "We know what they're up to," says Chris Ellison, the manager of the Texas store.That is, it's obvious they're planning to ferment the sugars from grain or fruit juice into alcohol, then distill the resulting mid-strength beverage into high-alcohol hooch.Making spirits at home with plans to drink it is against federal law. Only with the...

Mr. Norris, with Washington and Colorado recently legalizing pot smoking and their football teams (Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos) being in the Super Bowl, some have asked whether there is going to be added marijuana use during this year’s Super Bowl. And President Barack Obama recently said that he doesn’t think marijuana is as dangerous as alcohol. What do you think, Chuck? Is it? – “Trying to Make Sense of Sensimilla” in Seattle I understand the arguments for the legalization of marijuana: It can generate tax revenue. It can reduce illegal supply and demand. It can strip power from cartels...

A few years after Wendy Davis claimed in court that she had suffered damage to her mental health, a Texas court put Davis under a temporary restraining order prohibiting her from using drugs or alcohol within twenty-four hours of coming into contact with her children. Folks, from here on out, the only card left for Wendy Davis to play is victim

A controversial new study claims that decisions made by women when they are pregnant can affect their babies brains including determining their sexuality, intelligence and chances of developing autism. The suggestion that the lifestyle of an expectant mother can affect their offspring’s development has been put forward in Professor Dick Swaab’s new book, We Are Our Brains.The professor of neurology at Amsterdam University claims that the chance of having a child who is gay can be determined by a range of factors, including how stressed pregnant women are, as well as whether they smoke and their exposure to amphetamines. “Pre-birth...

If you ever doubted that money outweighs principles in contemporary politics, then the case of Richmond campaign consultant Boyd Marcus should permanently erase such ambiguity in your mind. Marcus, a prominent figure in Virginia politics for two decades, made headlines in August when he abandoned a lifetime of supporting Republicans to endorse Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor. McAuliffe’s team and Marcus trumpeted the conversion as an important political sign that mainstream Republicans were rejecting the tea party conservatism espoused by GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli II. Instead, we learned Thursday, the primary motive was entirely mercenary. An e-mail was made public...

Los Angeles bartenders have been told they must wear gloves when making drinks from now on, thanks to the introduction of a new food safety law. Like chefs, bartenders have to wear gloves or use other utensils and are not allowed to touch ice, fruit garnishes or anything else that goes directly into your glass. Changes to the California Retail Food Code went into effect at the beginning of 2014. Chefs have also been banned from touching certain foods with their bare hands including sushi, bread, deli meats and fresh fruit and vegetables. Bartender Matthew Biancaniello says he has experimented...

David Cassidy, a former teen idol and star of the 1970s U.S. television series "The Partridge Family," was arrested in California on Friday night on suspicion of drunken driving — his third such arrest since 2010. Cassidy, 63, was stopped on a road near Los Angeles International Airport after making a right turn on a red light in violation of a posted sign, the California Highway Patrol said in a news release. After smelling alcohol coming from Cassidy's vehicle, an officer gave him a field sobriety test that showed a blood alcohol content of 0.19 percent, the patrol said. That...

OSAKA, Japan, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Japanese alcoholic-beverage-producer-turned-conglomerate Suntory said it had agreed to buy Beam, makers of Jim Beam whiskey, in a deal worth $16 billion. Suntory, which was founded in 1899 and produced Japan's first whiskey in 1923, controls vast holdings in Japan, including a multibrand beverage business, fitness spas, health clubs, Subway restaurants and golf ranges, the New York Times reported Monday.

This was proven by a study by Grethe Jensen and co. (1993), who meticulously counted neurons in matched samples of non-alcoholics and alcoholics. What they found was that there was no real difference in the density or overall number of neurons between the two groups. In every group, those who drank moderately on a regular basis throughout their lives always had a diminished chance of becoming mentally impaired in their old age compared to those who didn't drink at all or almost never drank. Now for the negative (there's a lot when it comes to intemperate alcohol consumption, so I'll...

The chart above, produced by the right-leaning research firm NMRPP and first published in the Washington Post last week, shows the comparative political inclinations (and relative voter turnouts) associated with the drinkers of various major liquor brands.At first glance this may look like it conforms to some basic stereotypes about the two parties—Democrats like wine! Republicans like whiskey!—but wine actually runs the whole political scale, with Smoking Loon drunk primarily by Democrats, and Robert Mondavi drunk primarily by Republicans. Major whiskey brands do generally show a Republican bent, with the exception of Jameson, Canadian Mist, and Glen Ellen. Gin...

I have read that ethanol alcohol—the kind of alcohol that makes us drunk—was the first synthesized product that humans made. Originally made from honey, fruits, berries, grains, and other plants left in the sun to ferment, alcohol and its first use documented as far back as 10,000 B.C. Historically, fermented beverages: Acted as a substitution for water Fixed nutritional deficiencies Served medicinal purposes Alcohol also had its place in religious ceremonies and even used as currency. Supposedly, vodka was an ingredient in early European gunpowder. And of course, people drank alcohol in order to become intoxicated. When shopping for liquor,...

A University of Virginia student has notified the state that she plans to file a civil action over her arrest by Alcohol Beverage Control agents. Don LeMond with the Virginia Department of Treasury said that the notice begins a dialogue between Elizabeth Daly's lawyers and the Virginia Attorney General's Office. On April 11, 2013, ABC agents confronted the 20-year-old Daly after mistaking sparkling water that she had bought for beer.

Original post (December 30) -- Around 9:30 a.m. on December 7, University of Minnesota-Duluth student Alyssa Jo Lommel, 19, was found nearly frozen to death on a neighbor's porch. She'd apparently spent the entire night outside while temperatures dropped as low as 17 below zero. THE BACKSTORY: UMD student Alyssa Jo Lommel tweeted about tequila shots before she was found freezing More than three weeks later, Lommel remains hospitalized. Her condition has been upgraded to fair, but according to her family, doctors still haven't told her how bad her injuries are. Her doctor "felt that today it would be good...

Authorities plan to crack down on impaired drivers – either drunk or under the influence of drugs – using new DUI technology this New Year’s holiday. A state grant will allow Los Angeles police officers to expand its use of swab testing at DUI checkpoints and jails to check for narcotics use, city officials announced at a press conference on Friday.The grant comes at an opportune time as authorities said they are seeing more incidents of motorists driving under the influence of marijuana and other drugs. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said the prevalence of medical marijuana dispensaries throughout...

A sign on a restaurant door that reads “No Guns Permitted” isn’t likely to turn many heads at most restaurants. But when the other, bigger sign heralding the name of the establishment reads “Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill,” you can bet a few feathers are getting ruffled. And indeed that’s one of the biggest reactions since the country music star’s restaurant opened last week in Woodbridge, Va., a Washington, D.C. suburb about a half hour south of the nation’s capital. The big sticking point is that gun-rights advocates note that Virginia law lets citizens enter restaurants and bars...

ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – According to a new study, alcohol can boost your immune system. Researchers vaccinated animals and then gave them access to alcohol. Researchers found that the animals that had consumed alcohol also had faster responses to the vaccines.According to Medical News Today, the researchers hope this study leads to a better understanding of how the immune system works, and how to improve its ability to respond to vaccines and infections.Researchers were able to show other data to back their findings. According to UCR Today, moderate alcohol consumption has long been associated with a lower mortality rate.Moderate alcohol...

Full Title: Did Beer create modern society? Ancient man developed agriculture to brew alcohol and not to bake bread, claims scientist Some scientists claim beer - not bread - is the reason early man adopted a society based on farming around 10,000 years ago, a key moment in our evolution. The cultivation of grain saw the transition away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and a widely-accepted theory is that the crops were used to bake bread, but experts claim it was the prospect of a brew that drove the desire to settle down and start a farm.

The domestication of wild grains has played a major role in human evolution, facilitating the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture. You might think that the grains were used for bread, which today represents a basic staple. But some scientists argue that it wasn’t bread that motivated our ancestors to start grain farming. It was beer. Man, they say, chose pints over pastry. Beer has plenty to recommend it over bread. First, and most obviously, it is pleasant to drink. “Beer had all the same nutrients as bread, and it had one additional advantage,” argues Solomon...

Troopers all across Texas are going after drunk drivers this holiday season. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is aiming to lower the amount of drunk drivers across the state by increasing the amount of troopers, working overtime, and enforcing stricter rules. No refusals are among the stricter rules being enforced, meaning if an officer believes you are drunk and asks you to take a blood test you will most likely have to still take one. If you say no, the officer will get a warrant from a judge immediately to get your blood specimen. Saying no to a...