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(STMW) – A Chicago woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to setting a fire inside a west suburban apartment last year because she was mad at her boyfriend for smoking all their marijuana. Linda B. Lopez, 35, of the 2800 block of S. Drake, pleaded guilty to residential arson, according to a statement from Riverside police. She had initially been charged with aggravated arson, but the charge was reduced. Lopez was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution, according to the statement.

Carson City — The Nevada Legislature apparently won’t consider initiative petitions to allow the sale of recreational marijuana and to require background checks for some gun sales. Initiative backers gathered the necessary number of signatures to qualify the plans, but under the state constitution, they first must be presented to the Legislature for approval in the first 40 days of the session. If not, they go on the 2016 election ballot.

  Smoking cannabis can lead to manic behaviour: Hyperactivity, aggression and delusion are all strongly linked with the drug, researchers warn  

The market for Mexican marijuana has dried to a whiff and “everybody and his mother” is growing their own product, says a Puebloan who has been selling pot here for more than 20 years. - The current legal recreational market is fueled by people from out of state, Tracy said. Colorado users, weary of the high taxation on the product, have taken to growing, getting their “red card” for medicinal marijuana or even using Craigslist to score pot. - See more at: http://www.chieftain.com/news/3292183-120/marijuana-tracy-market-dealer#sthash.D9Z5fiLF.dpuf

A study more than thirty years in the making found that smoking marijuana permanently lowers intelligence, or IQ. Frequent pot smokers (even those who had given up marijuana) tended to have deficits in memory, concentration, and overall IQ. The reduction in IQ for those who smoked pot heavily prior to age 18 was most pronounced: an average of eight points. An eight point reduction in IQ is enough to have a significant, negative impact upon your life. To put it into context, consider that individuals with an IQ of 110 have an average net worth of $71,000 and individuals with...

Gun owners and self-defense advocates are lauding a rare victory in which a Texas grand jury has refused to indict a homeowner for shooting and killing a police officer who entered his home unannounced in the middle of the night. The homeowner, Henry Magee, 28, said he thought the officers who broke through his door were robbers and he acted in self-defense to protect his pregnant girlfriend and two children. Police were acting on a tip from a criminal informant that led them to believe Magee had more than a dozen marijuana plants, all at least six feet tall, in...

The number of people driving under the influence of alcohol on U.S. roads continues to decline, but the number of drivers using marijuana and prescription drugs that can affect road safety is climbing, according to two studies released by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One study found that the number of inebriated drivers has declined by nearly one-third since 2007, but that same survey found a large increase in the number of drivers using marijuana or other illegal drugs. In the 2014 survey, nearly one in four drivers tested positive for at least one drug that...

She’s back! Danielle Lei, the entrepreneurial San Francisco Girl Scout who made international headlines in 2014 with her sales table’s location — in front of a medical marijuana dispensary — is back for another year and is already cleaning house. ~snip~ Lei reports selling a total of 208 boxes in about two hours Sunday — nearly doubling her four-day sales campaign total to 560. “That’s pretty cool,” Lei wrote The Green Cross. “ I would not have sold that many in four days if I did not sell in front of your store.”

Marijuana use has not been found to increase the risk of car crashes, according to a new federal report. Studying car accidents in Virginia Beach, Va., during a 20-month period ending in 2012, researchers randomly sampled 3,000 accident-involved drivers and found no evidence suggesting those with marijuana in their system were more prone to accidents, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report released Friday. When researchers controlled for factors such as age and gender, they found no evidence marijuana use increases accident risks. This was despite the fact that, in the study, drivers who tested positive for marijuana...

Every now and then, liberals let their masks slip off to reveal their true feelings and agendas. That was the case Friday, when former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the stage at the Aspen Institute to discuss marijuana legalization, which he decried as stupid, according to the Aspen Times. He also touted vocational education and, of course, his favorite topic, gun grabbing. The latter point was glossed over by the Times but deserves a hard look. Not only did Bloomberg call for taking away Americans’ right to arms, as he usually does, but this time, he suggested targeting...

Three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg harped on the importance of vocational education and blasted Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana as stupid Friday evening before a sold-out crowd at the Aspen Institute. When an audience member asked the 72-year-old Bloomberg about Colorado marijuana, he responded that it was a terrible idea, one that is hurting the developing minds of children. Though he admitted to smoking a joint in the 1960s, he said the drug is more accessible and more damaging today. “What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose IQs are...

“With marijuana,” declare William J. Bennett and Robert A. White in Going to Pot, their new prohibitionist screed, “we have inexplicably suspended all the normal rules of reasoning and knowledge.” You can’t say they didn’t warn us. The challenge for Bennett, a former drug czar and secretary of education who makes his living nowadays as a conservative pundit and talk radio host, and White, a New Jersey lawyer, is that most Americans support marijuana legalization, having discovered through direct and indirect experience that cannabis is not the menace portrayed in decades of anti-pot propaganda. To make the familiar seem threatening...

DENVER — Public tax money very likely paid for welfare recipients to smoke the equivalent of about 17 pounds of weed (or approximately 9,000 joints) in 2014. Compared with what the rest of Colorado ingested, that’s a small percentage, but controversial none the less. ... the Colorado Department of Human Services calls the “Quest” Electronic Benefit Transfer Card under its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Cash Assistance program. This account is not meant to be used for food, rather “a family’s most basic needs.” It’s essentially a bank debit card, loaded up with from $200 to $1,000 in cash every...

So I suppose Ted Cruz is toast, right? (Or should that be toasted…) In the more bored and rudderless sections of the mediasphere, an article from the Daily Mail issued a triumphant cry when they received confirmation from the Texas Senator that he had smoked pot as a young man. This was part of a roundup where nearly every Republican even suspected of considering a run for the White House was asked about their history with the evil weed. (The answers range from sheepish affirmatives to defiant denials, a few who hedge on it and at least three who...

DENVER - "Tourists are coming for the slopes and the cannabis, and they go together on someone's vacation pretty well," said Tim Cullen, co-owner of Colorado Harvest Company. But when the vacation is over, some tourists want to take the fun back home. And that's where the problems begin. Because while the pot is totally legal in Colorado, it's still very illegal across most of the country--including here in Texas. "We understand the eyes of the world are upon us," said Brett Ahroon, manager at Starbuds Dispensary. Denver dispensaries like Starbuds advise-buyer's beware, use your weed in Colorado, and Starbuds...

Weed history is being made in Seattle: the first vending machines to dispense marijuana flower buds debuted Tuesday. The machines, called ZaZZZ, are being placed in medical pot dispensaries, which helps to verify customer's age and identity since medical marijuana cards are required to enter the centers, said Greg Patrick, a spokesman for the maker of ZaZZZ, American Green. Though vending machines appeared for the first time in Colorado last year, those sold only edibles, or cannabis-infused foods, and not the plant's flower buds that are so often associated with smoking pot.

I suppose it’s better that this GOP laundry is being aired now, a year out from the first Republican presidential primary. Better now than an October Surprise by a malicious Democrat hack two weeks out from the presidential election. The Daily Mail’s David Martosko asked 10 potential GOP candidates about their past use of marijuana: Rick Perry, Donald Trump and John Bolton say they have never smoked pot; Rand Paul hints that he ‘wasn’t a choirboy’ – but won’t answer directly. Marco Rubio refuses to answer, saying no one will believe him if the answer is ‘no’; Carly Fiorina will...

* It was 'when he was a teenager,' Cruz's spokesperson told Daily Mail Online; 'It was a mistake, and he's never tried it since' * Rick Perry, Donald Trump and John Bolton say they have never smoked pot; Rand Paul hints that he 'wasn't a choirboy' – but won't answer directly * Marco Rubio refuses to answer, saying no one will believe him if the answer is 'no'; Carly Fiorina will only say she opposes legalizing weed * Spokesmen for Govs. Scott Walker and Gov. Chris Christie, and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, ignored questions entirely * Bush told the Boston...

DENVER — Nobody in the Colorado marijuana industry is panicking, but those involved are sweating a little over the hard line taken by Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s pick to be the next attorney general, on legalization during this week’s Senate confirmation hearing. “Quite a few of my members were expressing concern and nervousness,” said Michael Elliott, executive director of the Colorado Marijuana Industry Group. “But I’m not sure we could have expected much more than we just heard. Even the president, who came out saying that marijuana is no more dangerous as alcohol, is also on the record as being...

My daughter will turn 19 this month. She is our fifth child. She has also been the most worrying to us as she started using drugs a long time ago. She said she first smoked weed at age 12. Since then she has gone on the try many other drugs to include meth, cocaine, pills and LSD and a few others I can’t name. Last year she was in intensive care for 8 days. She has also been in jail about seven or eight times and gone through rehab twice. She is currently living with her mother and I at...