Free Republic

Worrying about teen drinking and drug use has kept many a parent up at night. With marijuana becoming increasingly available and legal in some parts of the country, the question has taken on new urgency: If teens are going to experiment, which is safer, booze or pot? "The first answer always has to be neither," Dr. Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, told CBS News. But then he acknowledges they're not exactly equivalent -- and he considers alcohol much more dangerous. Carroll wrote a provocative piece for the New York Times exploring what's known...

Today I want to consider the outlook for bitcoin. 2014 was its worst year on record. It fell by 67%, from $800 to $320 a coin. In doing so, it beat the likes of the Russian rouble and the Ukrainian hryvnia, to the dubious honour of being the world’s worst-performing currency. You know what the world’s best-performing currency was by the way? Nope, not the US dollar, but the Somali shilling. Yup. It surprised me too. Anyway, back to bitcoin… The bursting of the bitcoin bubble So far, 2015 has not been any better than 2014 for bitcoin. At one...

One, and only one, candidate, Barack Obama, caught the X-factor and improbably got himself nominated and elected, and re-elected, president. Another improbable candidate could catch it again.What is that X-factor? How does it upend things?Peace and personal security continued to flourish in 2014 and are likely to continue into 2015 and beyond. This is important news. It also is news the news media can ill afford to report. But voters sense it.Two of our greatest public intellectuals, Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack, provide a defining “state of the world” summation in Slate.com inThe World Is Not Falling Apart. The evidence...

Canada’s largest mental health and addiction treatment and research centre is calling for the legalization of marijuana, with strict controls that would govern who could buy weed, from where, and in what quantity. In a policy statement released Thursday, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto said cannabis should be sold through a government-controlled monopoly and with limited availability and an age limit, possibly through outlets similar to provincially operated liquor stores. “Legalization means that we remove all penalties for cannabis possession and use by adults,” said Jurgen Rehm, director of social and epidemiological research at CAMH. “Canada’s...

One unexpected benefit of medical marijuana legislation appears to be a decrease in painkiller overdoses, perhaps because some chronic pain patients are turning to cannabis instead of powerful opioid drugs. In states with laws legalizing medical marijuana, new research shows there are nearly 25 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses. Opioid painkiller overdoses are a growing problem nationwide. More than 16,500 Americans died of opioid drug overdoses in 2010, and the numbers continue to rise. Although a casual relationship hasn’t been proven, there appears to be a significant association between marijuana legislation and a fall in overdose deaths. Researchers from...

Racial disparities tend to exist where one doesn't expect them. Situations provoke them to appear, and — if we're willing — we take notice and act. For decades, social justice advocates have referenced the racial disparity in citations and arrests for marijuana. liberal blah, blah . . Ending the war on marijuana won't end racial disparity in Oregon, but it would diminish it. Criminalizing marijuana allows racial inequality to fester. We can't reduce racial disparity where we don't know it exists, nor when we lack practical solutions. In the case of marijuana arrests, we have both. Isn't it responsible and...

“I think that a new, repugnant form of fascism is emerging with notable strength…The Nazi genocide of Jews outraged all the earth’s peoples. Why does this (Israeli) government believe that the world will be insensitive to the macabre genocide which today is being perpetuated against the Palestinian people?” (Fidel Castro, August, 5, 2014) “Who cares, what that senile ZOMBIE Castro says!” strikes me as a reasonable retort from many readers. “Unfortunately,” I’m forced to answer. “Many otherwise reasonable care very much what Fidel Castro says.” Take Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu: “The remarks attributed to Castro demonstrate his deep understanding...

America’s first foray into rolling back prohibition 2.0 is barely underway, and already marijuana prices have dropped low enough to convince some cartel farmers in Mexico to abandon the crop. Mere months after two US states legalized marijuana sales, five Nobel Prize-winning economists released a UN report recommending that countries end their war on drugs. It would seem they were onto something. But in order to further decrease drug-trade violence in so-called producer states, the US first needs to legalize marijuana, but then also the US must stop using the UN to pressure producer countries into supply-based drug prohibition. Latin...

Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. They also point to studies showing that in other states that have legalized pot for medical purposes, we’ve seen an increase in the number of drivers testing positive for the drug who were involved in fatal car accidents. The anti-pot group SAM recently pointed out that even before the first...

Have you been following the news about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act has receded from the front page, but information about how it’s going keeps coming in — and almost all the news is good. Indeed, health reform has been on a roll ever since March, when it became clear that enrollment would surpass expectations despite the teething problems of the federal website. What’s interesting about this success story is that it has been accompanied at every step by cries of impending disaster. At this point, by my reckoning, the enemies of health reform are 0 for 6. That is,...

There is rarely a good time to do hard things, and America won't advance if legislators act like seat-warmers. When I learned that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had lost his Republican primary, my heart sank. Not simply because I think he is an intelligent and talented member of Congress, or because I worry about the future of the Republican Party. Like others who want comprehensive immigration reform, I worried that Mr. Cantor's loss would be misconstrued and make Congress reluctant to tackle this urgent need. That would be the wrong lesson and an undesirable national consequence of this single,...

President Obama’s instincts about Iraq and Syria have been sound from the beginning: Greater U.S. engagement probably cannot make things better but certainly can make them worse, both for the people of the region and for our national interests. Obama’s only mistake was to buy, for a time, the notion that Bush’s troop surge had miraculously healed ancient divisions and made the dream of a pluralist democracy still possible. There are aspects of Obama’s foreign policy that I question. His heavy reliance on drone strikes may create as many terrorists as it eliminates. He should have realized that the National...

... What is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945. ... A Democratic Advisory Council committee headed by Acheson called Eisenhower’s foreign...

When it comes to Obama-era scandals, the American Right’s predominant emotion is frustration — a frustration that causes hypertension levels usually seen only in Cubs fans and the unfortunates hired to do PR for Lindsay Lohan and Shia LeBoeuf... --snip-- Why is this happening? Ironically, the mainstream media heavyweights may feel liberated from the responsibility of covering Obama administration malfeasances because of the existence of the alternative conservative media that have arisen over the past 20 years — talk radio, Fox News, and multiple websites...

Former Army Gen. David Petraeus , who has traditionally stayed away from political endorsements, appears to be eager to support a Hillary Clinton candidacy, a new book alleges. “She’d make a tremendous President,” the former commander and CIA director reportedly says in the new book “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. “Like a lot of great leaders, her most impressive qualities were most visible during tough times,” Petraeus adds. The comments mark an interesting departure for Petraeus, who, when it comes to politics, has typically remained quiet. The book, to be...

Did you know that financial institutions all over the world are warning that we could see a “mega default” on a very prominent high-yield investment product in China on January 31st? We are being told that this could lead to a cascading collapse of the shadow banking system in China which could potentially result in “sky-high interest rates” and “a precipitous plunge in credit“. In other words, it could be a “Lehman Brothers moment” for Asia. And since the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, that would be very bad news for the United States as...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Don't believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true “Misery Index.” Because, according to an influential Wall Street advisor, the figures are a fraud. In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government. Marotta, who recently advised those worried about an imploding economy to...

As the Affordable Care Act goes into effect, Andy Pudzer, CEO of conjoined fast-food chains Carl's Jr and Hardee's, went on Fox News to tell Megyn Kelly that President Obama is flat-out "wrong" in thinking that health-care reform has no widespread effect on the job market, claiming that employers, himself included, are overwhelmingly choosing to hire part-time employees to avoid paying for benefits. It's baffling that companies continue to admit their preference for hiring more part-time employees, rather than paying for health care for those working 40 hours a week. Here, Pudzer helpfully spells out his house rules. He tells...

“Obamacare” looks increasingly inevitable, but one lawsuit making its way through the court system could pull the plug on the sweeping federal health care law. A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House. Under the Origination Clause of the Constitution, all bills raising revenue must begin in the House. The Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the act in June, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains in the majority opinion to define Obamacare as a federal tax, not a...

In the short time since Pope Francis became leader of the Catholic Church, his every move has been scrutinized for signs of what his plans could be for his rule. And while his focus on austerity and the world’s poor has excited many who thought the Church was too out of touch with reality, traditionalist Catholics have been devastated. Francis’ decision to wash the feet of two girls, including a Muslim, during a traditional Holy Thursday ritual “has become something of the final straw,” writes the Associated Press. For traditionalists, it was a clear sign that Francis has no...