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Marijuana has been called a “Gateway” drug. The thinking is that once a person experiences the effects of pot, they will have lost their reluctance to try stronger drugs such as cocaine, meth and heroin. “I smoked pot and lived through it. I kind of liked it. Maybe the stronger drugs won’t hurt me. Maybe they will be like pot, only better. They probably won’t kill me. Plus, it’s kind of exciting.” We sit after this election wondering how so many of our fellow citizens feel the need to cheat to achieve a political goal. Cheating is against the rules....

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta admitted earlier this month that he had been wrong in his opposition to medical marijuana during the rollout for his documentary "Weed." Gupta reported on research that demonstrated the proven benefits of marijuana in treating neuropathic pain. Medical marijuana was the only drug that helped a 5-year-old girl with Dravet syndrome live without constant seizures. It calmed the constant hiccuping of a 19-year-old. Israelis use it to treat Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Gupta took on the federal government's classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which has no accepted medical use but has a...

The chairman of insurance giant Progressive Corp. this year provided another $465,000 for a ballot question to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts. Peter B. Lewis, who supports medical marijuana, has now contributed $990,000, including $525,000 last year, to the Committee for Compassionate Medicine, the organization leading the effort to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts. Lewis is nonexecutive chairman of Progressive, which is based in Mayfield Village, Ohio. ccording to reports filed with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance last last week, the Committee for Compassionate Medicine has raised $512,850 this year and spent $405,825. Including last year, the...

The DEA Web pages on "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" are linked with some regularity on FR. They're full of errors in fact and logic; since I couldn't find a comprehensive rebuttal online, I've started creating one. Here's my rebuttal to their "Fact 1;" more to come as time permits. Claim 1: "We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts." Claim: On the demand side, the U.S. has reduced casual use, chronic use and addiction, and prevented others from even starting using drugs. Overall drug...

In 2011, Gallup reported that 62% of 18-29 year olds and 50% of the general public supports the legalization of marijuana; 69% of liberals and even 34% of conservatives also support such measures. Obviously the pro-pot movement has taken root in the American populace and especially in the minds of Millennials (even managing to infiltrate the minds of the most conservative among us). Myth #1: Legalization Would bring in Enormous Tax Revenues The Heritage Foundation’s Charles Stimson published an extensive legal memorandum urging for the failure of the RCTC Act of 2010, which would have legalized pot in California. This...

From certain precincts on the left, notably Barney Frank, to certain precincts on the right, notably the editorial page of National Review, we are witnessing a new push to end the so-called war on drugs and legalize drug use, starting with marijuana. Indeed, Ron Paul, Barney Frank's co-sponsor in the latest legislative effort, said recently he would go so far as to legalize heroin. It's a bad idea. My friends at National Review begin their case by stating the illegalization of drugs has "curtailed personal freedom, created a violent black market and filled our prisons." But the legalization of drugs,...

Some conservatives outraged by Obamacare’s individual mandate had helped pave the way for it through the war on drugs. If the generation of “limited government” lawmakers freshly chosen to man the trenches in Washington wishes to be taken seriously, the butcher’s bill must include some of the social conservatives’ sacred cows. Starting with the War on Drugs. Many conservatives have long argued that the federal government is broadly empowered to prosecute the drug war under Congress’s authority over interstate commerce. In the name of the drug war, they have been willing to allow federal law-enforcement officers to prosecute seriously ill...

The California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) announced their “unconditional support” of Prop 19, the initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, at a news conference last week.

America's experiment with banning alcohol created problems that persist to this day. BY THOMAS FLEMING On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans liberated themselves from a legal nightmare called Prohibition by repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Today most people think Prohibition was fueled by puritanical Protestants who believed drinking alcohol was a sin. But the vocal minority who made Prohibition law believed they were marching in the footsteps of the abolitionists who sponsored a civil war to end another moral evil—slavery. At least as important was the belief that Prohibition would produce health and wealth. Yale economist Irving Fisher, the...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest - -- Mexican drug traffickers have expanded their marijuana-growing operations in California parks as state and local governments have tightened spending and slashed jobs and services. Law enforcement officials say the traffickers, taking advantage of the fact that there are fewer sheriff's deputies and rangers monitoring parks, are cultivating more pot than ever before. This year's multibillion-dollar crop is on pace to be the largest in history, said state officials. "It's a huge problem," said Gordon Taylor, the assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "California is ground zero for domestic marijuana cultivation...

Porn, Pot and Abortion You may have read that the Obama administration has altered United States government policy and has sanctioned "medical" marijuana by ending raids on "clinics" where "medical" marijuana is passed out. The use of quotes in the paragraph above is deliberate. It's my view and the views of millions of conservatives that there is no such thing as "medical" marijuana...or at least in the way it's being presented to the public. "Medical" marijuana is simply a term for pot being sold for profit under the guise that it helps a plethora of medical problems. The "clinics" are...

California may be going to pot - literally. Marijuana would be grown and sold openly to adults 21 and older under legislation introduced this morning by a San Francisco lawmaker. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said the cash-starved state could generate more than a billion dollars by taxing pot growers and sellers. Ammiano predicted that the public would support loosening marijuana laws that require substantial public funds to enforce. "I think there's a mentality throughout the state and the country that this isn't the highest priority," he said. "And that maybe we should start to reassess." Before California could legalize...

And then President Obama, and then George W. Bush, and then Bill Clinton . . . Michael Phelps, the aquatic icon who won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, has violated the law. When a photograph of him smoking a bongful of marijuana was published, he admitted the crime. The same crime for which the better part of a million people were arrested last year. Shouldn’t Phelps be charged? Along with President Obama and his two predecessors, all of whom, it seems, used illegal drugs? If not, perhaps it is time to have a serious debate about the drug...

Yes it is time for another “Hippie Report” from Humboldt county Ca. Join us as we explore The Triad of Death. Humboldt State University, the Ciy of Arcata Ca., and The glorification of marijuana aimed at the youth of the community by the local newspaper - The North Coast Journal. 01/07/09

Famously, Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved the United States banking system during the first seven days of his first term. And what did he do on the eighth day? "I think this would be a good time for beer," he said. Congress had already repealed Prohibition, pending ratification from the states. But the people needed a lift, and legalizing beer would create a million jobs. And lo, booze was back. Two days after the bill passed, Milwaukee brewers hired six hundred people and paid their first $10 million in taxes. Soon the auto industry was tooling up the first $12 million...

Vast tracts of our most treasured public lands, supposedly set aside in perpetuity for Americans, are no longer controlled by the United States government. Instead, they have been invaded and taken over by Mexico’s violent criminal drug organizations to grow marijuana. Even more shocking: Mexican cartels have been growing marijuana for at least 10 years in Sequoia National Park, one of the crown jewels of the system. Nature-loving hikers are compelled to accept that parts of Sequoia are "no go zones" during the growing season. These Mexican marijuana messes are an ecological disaster. They are not innocent little plots that...

Among the likely choices for Obama's running mate, Joe Biden was not the person reformers were hoping to see on the democratic ticket. Radley Balko sums up Biden's drug war credentials: …from a policy perspective, it’s a disaster. Biden has sponsored more damaging drug war legislation than any Democrat in Congress. Hate the way federal prosecutors use RICO laws to take aim at drug offenders? Thank Biden. How about the abomination that is federal asset forfeiture laws? Thank Biden. Think federal prosecutors have too much power in drug cases? Thank Biden. Think the title of a “Drug Czar” is sanctimonious...

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, California (CNN) -- Beyond the towering trees that have stood here for thousands of years, an intense drug war is being waged. Illegal immigrants connected to Mexico's drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marijuana in the heart of one of America's national treasures, authorities say. It's a booming business that, federal officials say, feeds Mexico's most violent drug traffickers. "These aren't Cheech and Chong plants," said John Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy. "People who farm now are not doing this for laughs, despite the fact Hollywood still thinks that....

Authorities say it's the biggest pot bust in Cocke County in the last five years, maybe more. Around 10 a.m. Monday, helicopter pilots spotted hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants growing in the Cherokee National Forest in Cocke County. They alerted officers on the ground, and the crew trekked more than a mile into the forest from Interstate 40, where they came upon what they call a DTO, or drug trafficking organization. "They just live in it, move in, grow, and that's all they're there to do is grow marijuana," Special Agent Jason Poore said of the growers. Poore is...

Medical marijuana in San Francisco may be going up in smoke. In late December, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sent letters to landlords of buildings that housed medical cannabis dispensaries in the city, telling them they face the loss of their property and possibly prison if the businesses stay open. Now, less than two months later, seven of the city's 28 dispensaries have closed or are on the verge of closing, according to medical marijuana supporters and activists. They fear more will follow. "It's like a dagger in the heart," said Wayne Justmann, a medical marijuana advocate. "We're barely holding...