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COSTA MESA [California] (CBSLA.com) — Several students at an Orange County middle school were sickened Wednesday after eating pot brownies. Firefighters were sent to TeWinkle Intermediate School on California Avenue in Costa Mesa around 12:45 p.m. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials said five seventh-graders went to the school’s nurse and complained of stomach aches. Other classmates confessed those students ingested brownies laced with marijuana, according to Sky9’s Gil Leyvas. Three children were transported to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach as a precaution. Their conditions are unknown. Two other kids went home with their parents. Costa Mesa police later...

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- If you think 2013 will be a half-baked year for tourism in Seattle, you haven't been paying attention to the curiously pungent smoke signals emanating from this city. On a recent chilly evening, an unmistakable smell has drifted across the street from an industrial space in the SODO neighborhood. Inside, a DJ spins an eclectic mix of rock while a man in a tie-dyed hoodie distributes cannabis-infused buttered rum and root beer-flavored hard candy to a diverse crowd of revelers. Another volunteer passes around a 12-foot-long "vape bag" filled with marijuana vapor -- one way to...

Criminologist Professor Alex Stevens has refuted media reports that reducing penalties for cannabis possession has led to increased drug use, crime and health problems. He said published data shows that these claims are unfounded and in fact highlight that cannabis use and crime have gone down since the 2004 declassification of cannabis to a class C substance.He said: ‘Government policy on cannabis hit the headlines again recently, when both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph ran articles on it claiming reductions in penalties for users of the drug have increased both crime and drug-related hospital admissions. If cannabis declassification...

A Leawood couple says heavily armed Johnson County deputies barged into their home last year, turning it upside down and detaining them and their children for more than two hours in a fruitless search for marijuana. “This is how we were awakened: banging, pounding, screaming,” the mother, Adlynn Harte, said Friday. “My husband opened the door right before the battering ram was set to take it out.” The father allegedly was forced to lie shirtless on the foyer while a deputy with an assault rifle stood over him. The children, a 7-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy, reportedly came out of...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - - As of midnight, Rhode Island became the 15th state to decriminalize non-medical marijuana possession, meaning that anyone caught with up to one ounce will get a $150 ticket instead of facing a misdemeanor criminal charge. The softened penalty is the state's latest move to regulate use of a drug that has become more acceptable. The ball began rolling in 2006, when the General Assembly passed a law establishing a state medical-marijuana program, allowing patients to grow their own cannabis or get it from caregivers, or growers, certified by the state.

Wall Street sees opportunity in marijuana BELVIDERE, N.J. — Amid the whir of fans and the glow of soft white light, workers tended to bright green seedlings sprouting in a giant greenhouse. Located about an hour's drive from Manhattan in the hills of northwestern New Jersey, the facility produces basil, chives, oregano and other herbs that are sold in grocery stores around New York City. But if Ken VandeVrede has his way the facility will one day be growing a much more valuable plant: marijuana. VandeVrede is chief operating officer at Terra Tech, a hydroponic equipment maker based in Irvine....

As the New York Legislature considers a bill to allow medical marijuana, a couple of Rhode Island business journalists are reaping the profits. Anne Holland and Ron Perry founded Medical Marijuana Business Daily two years ago in Providence to cover the emerging industry of legitimate marijuana sales, as total black market business continues to represent the single largest cash crop in America at more than $35 billion. The trade in illegal marijuana - mostly for recreational use - trumps the second-largest cash crop, corn, at a mere $23.2 billion, of which $4.5 billion worth is exported from America's breadbasket to...

The female Texas trooper who performed a roadside cavity search on two Irving women has been indicted by a Dallas County grand jury. The two women from Irving are suing Trooper David Farrell, Trooper Kelley Helleson and the director of the Department of Public Safety for what they call an unconstitutional search without probable cause. The Department of Public Safety terminated Trooper Kelly Helleson. Dallas County District Attorney spokeswoman Debbie Denmon confirmed on Monday that a grand jury indicted Helleson on two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression. NBC 5 contacted Helleson's attorney for comment. "The...

SEATTLE -- The passage of I-502 made things difficult enough for the humans tasked with creating and enforcing the laws for legal marijuana. Now, try explaining the difference between "personal use" and "intent to sell" or the gray area between state and federal law to a dog. That's why many law-enforcement agencies around the state, including the Seattle Police Department and Washington State Patrol, will no longer be training their drug-sniffing dogs to alert for marijuana. “Moving forward, it makes most sense not to train dogs to alert to marijuana as that would likely lead to unwarranted investigatory detentions of...

Westchester County Republican Assemblyman Steve Katz was pulled over yesterday morning for speeding and hit with a possession charge when an officer recognized the distinct smell of marijuana. "He was alone and cooperative," said the police, who ticketed him for a small baggie and going 80 in a 65 mph zone. Katz was oddly arrested twice for allegedly mishandling dogs when he worked as a veterinarian, but both cases were dismissed. Last year, he voted against legalizing medical marijuana, although maybe this will be his Portman moment. The assemblyman sits on Assembly committees for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, as well...

In his column of March 12, 2013, my beloved friend wrote on the issue of legalized marijuana in the state of Colorado. On his radio show, he justifiably bemoaned readers of his column who had written comments questioning his sanity and their relationship over this one issue despite years of being Prager groupies. I will not do any of that. But for only the second time in our long relationship, Mr. Prager, you are dead wrong on a topic … but I still love you. We Baby Boomers grew up in a generation where marijuana made the jump from the...

The federal government should stop enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, with its draconian definition of marijuana, in Washington and Colorado, which voted last November to legalize and tax the growing and sale of cannabis, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told interviewers Monday. “The state (Colorado) has spoken: The law has been passed. There are issues with taxation and regulation, and we should get on with it,” Pelosi told the editorial board of the Denver Post.

A Washington mother has been arrested and her 22-month-old child put into care after shocking footage of her feeding the boy marijuana from a bong was anonymously handed into police. The cell phone footage shows the young boy taking a hit from the top of the device while his 24-year-old mother, Rachelle Braaten laughs uproariously with a group of adults.

SEATAC, Wash. -- One person was killed and another person was wounded in a shooting at a marijuana grow operation in SeaTac early Monday. King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said a woman called 911 just before 3 a.m. to report the shooting. Deputies found one person dead inside the home in 3000 block of South 146th Street, and another person who had been shot was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition. West said the two attackers got away. No description was immediately available, but West said they believe the victims knew the attacker and it wasn't a...

Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since voters passed Amendment 64 last November, legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is “an electoral first not only for America but for the world.” That means two American states are to the left of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and every other liberal country regarding marijuana. CBS4 quotes a number of local high-school students: “I’ve seen a lot more people just walking down the street smoking (joints),”...

Ex-DEA heads: Feds should nullify Colorado, Washington pot laws CHICAGO — Eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs say the federal government needs to act now or it might lose the chance to nullify Colorado and Washington's laws legalizing recreational marijuana use. The onetime DEA heads plan to issue joint statements today saying the Obama administration has reacted too slowly and should immediately sue to force the states to rescind the legislation. The Associated Press received an advance copy of the statement Monday. One of the former DEA administrators, Peter Bensinger, told the AP that the more time goes by, the...

SPRINGFIELD — A panel of state lawmakers Wednesday approved legislation to legalize medical marijuana in Illinois. Supporters of the plan say it would be the most tightly regulated marijuana law in the country, restricting who can use the drug to people suffering from specific diseases and limiting the total number of marijuana dispensaries statewide to 60. "This is clearly model legislation for the country if we pass it," said state Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat sponsoring the plan. An Illinois House committee approved it by an 11-4 vote this morning, sending the legislation to the full House. "Why would...

Cannabis decriminalization measures across the United States, including the medical use of marijuana in California, have been sharply criticized by the United Nations, which has warned Washington they violate the international drug conventions. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which polices the drug treaties, has also warned about the growing public health threat from the “unprecedented surge” in “legal highs” and called for concerted global action to curb the growing trade. … The INCB has warned the US government that medical cannabis must be properly regulated. “In some US states, they are being operated in a way that is completely...

A United Nations-based drug agency urged the United States government on Tuesday to challenge the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, saying the state laws violate international drug treaties. A United Nations-based drug agency urged the United States government on Tuesday to challenge the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, saying the state laws violate international drug treaties.

With the Christopher Dorner case, the role of prescription psychotropic drugs in mass killings has again come to the forefront. Numerous articles have approached the role of so-called "psych meds" in causing depraved and indifferent violent behavior, but one in particular deserves attention because it highlights the fact that among psychiatric professionals there is no coherent understanding of what needs to be done after we take people off of drugs that are prescribed for their psychiatric illnesses. The article -- Jon Rappoport's "Is Christopher Dorner Another Psychiatric Killer?" -- makes a number of important points about the former Los Angeles...