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With a wave of legalization measures in recent years, marijuana in some form is now legal in 38 states. But in the 12 where it is not — a swath of the west and Midwest, including Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and in the rust belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — parents whose use of the drug would be legal elsewhere are losing their children and often seen as irresponsible parenting pariahs. In March, Child Protective Service workers took Shona Banda’s 11-year-old son from her home in Garden City, Kansas, saying her use of marijuana to control debilitating...

Audio. Click link http://www.npr.org/2015/06/09/413069509/smoking-pot-interferes-with-math-skills-study-found

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A Hillsborough school bus driver who resigned “for personal reasons” following a bus crash in March, was able to keep transporting students a week after submitting what a collector described as “looking and smelling like chicken broth” during a routine drug screening. A second test the same day of the “chicken broth” sample turned out to be positive for pot, but the school district didn’t find out until the day after Crews crashed her bus into a Toyota driven by David Senquiz and was cited by Tampa police for failure to yield the right of...

SIERRA VISTA — An attempt to smuggle several bales of marijuana hidden inside a horse trailer was thwarted by a sharp-nosed Sierra Vista Police K-9 on Friday morning. It was about 9:15 a.m. when officers conducted a traffic stop on the white pickup truck hauling the trailer. A department narcotics-detective dog was brought to the scene and alerted to the presence of illicit drug inside the vehicle, prompting a search. Inside a hidden compartment within the trailer, investigators located 19 bales of marijuana covered in manure in an apparent attempt to mask the drug’s smell. A total of 482 pounds...

A 27-year-old Ypsilanti Township woman was duct-taped and led into a back room while five young men ransacked her home early Thursday morning. The woman and her boyfriend, a 24-year-old man, were sitting in the living room at their home in the 500 block of Bagley in Ypsilanti Township when there was a knock at the door around 12:36 a.m., according to police. When the woman answered the door, five young men burst in the door and pushed her to the back of the house where they duct-taped the woman's wrists, Derrick Jackson of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office said....

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said Wednesday on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that the tax revenue from legalized marijuana sales in his state will go in part towards treating drug addiction. When asked how much Oregon will tax legalized marijuana and how the tax revenue will be spent, Blumenauer said it will be allocated among a number of things, one of which will be to deal with addiction. “Voters decided that it’s available to deal with addiction, people who are addicted—whether it’s to a drug or alcohol, gambling—we need more resources,” he said, adding that some voters want it to go towards law...

NORTH POLE — Marijuana stores are welcome in the city with the motto “where the spirit of Christmas lives year round.” The City Council on Monday rejected a measure that would have banned marijuana dispensaries in North Pole. Even Santa Claus — yes, that’s his real name — spoke in favor of a marijuana store opening in the Christmas-themed community. “As far as the image goes here at North Pole, how do most people perceive Santa Claus?” Claus said. “I would say Santa Claus is a pretty jolly fellow. “I am a medical marijuana patient,” he said. “I would like...

An Indiana-based church that worships marijuana has been granted tax-exempt status. First Church of Cannabis founder Bill Levin said it took 30 days for the IRS to grant his group tax-exempt status. “Somebody at the IRS loves us,” he added. […] Marijuana is still illegal in Indiana. …

Featuring a mix of Rock hits and marijuana themed programming, KBUD will also air the syndicated Bubba The Love Sponge in mornings. The station is focusing on the niche of weed smokers in the first state to legalize marijuana, just like the short-lived on-air version of “K-High” in Colorado Springs.

The Senate Appropriations Committee did something last week the Senate has never done; it passed a marijuana reform measure. It was the narrowest of proposals, an amendment co-authored by Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., to a military spending bill that would prohibit the Department of Veterans Affairs from using federal money to prosecute doctors who recommend medical marijuana to veterans in states where the drug is legal. Last year, the House passed five measures that supported states' rights on marijuana. For its part, the Senate would not budge -- until Thursday. Twelve Democrats and four Republicans supported...

California might be ready to legalize cannabis for adults 21 and over, but some members of the Oakland community are worried it will be a job-killer for their street dealers. Support for legalization proved mixed at a public meeting of the ACLU’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Legalization in Oakland this week. "Street-level drug dealers who are now selling to 17- to 25-year-olds could see legalization cut their market in half," said Robert Dousa. “Many of these dealers are doing it to support their families — they need to make money,” Dousa said.

Drudge Headline Gives one pause. STUDY: Smoking marijuana causes early puberty, stunts growth... Boys 'four inches shorter'... That's a lot to give up for a bud or blunt. Good headline for dads to show their teen age boys. From the Telegraph: "Boys who smoke cannabis 'are four inches shorter'"

Bill Bennett, a great American and a great Republican was all over television promoting his new book Going to Pot co-written with Robert A. White. This is a topic I have followed for years and previously written about so I thought I would read the book and hope for an interview with Dr. Bennett. I was unable to land the big fish, but did interview his co-writer for an hour discussing the issue of whether the legalization of marijuana should continue. I have previously written that the experiment of legalization should go forward in Colorado and Washington and let us...

A proposal to reduce marijuana penalties for those convicted multiple times of possessing pot cleared the House floor Wednesday (May 13) in the Louisiana Legislature. Current law allows for someone to be sentenced up to 20 years in prison for getting convicted three or more times with as little as one joint. Among the changes proposed in the legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, is a reduction of the maximum penalty from 20 years to eight. "It starts chipping away at Louisiana being the incarceration capital of the world," Badon said from the House floor, after his...

MPs from the Green Party and Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have joined forces to say that cannabis should be regulated and legalized. Economic policy spokespeople Joachim Pfeiffer of the CDU and Dieter Janecek of the Greens told broadcaster ARD that they thought it no longer made sense to criminalize possession of or trading in the drug. “Every year we spend between one and two billion euros to punish consumers, although real organized crime should be the focus of our efforts,” they wrote in a position paper. The pair believe that a state-regulated cannabis market would bring in between...

In a surprise move that supporters hailed as a historic victory, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee approved legislation Wednesday that would make it legal to buy and sell marijuana in the state. Two Republicans joined with the panel's three Democrats in support, giving House Bill 2165 a decisive 5-2 victory. The proposal, which would make Texas the fifth state in America to OK pot for recreational purposes, has virtually no chance of clearing any other hurdles on the path to becoming law in this year's legislative session. Still, advocates described the committee vote as a big step toward future...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court asked Monday for the Obama administration’s views on whether Oklahoma and Nebraska should be able to sue Colorado over its marijuana laws. The court sometimes asks the solicitor general — the president’s advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court — for input on a case justices potentially will hear.

The GOP-controlled House Thursday barely rejected a bid by supporters of medical marijuana to permit veterans to receive information about the drug from their government doctors. The 213-210 vote came on a failed amendment to a bill funding the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The proposal by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would have lifted a rule blocking VA doctors from discussing the pros or cons of medical pot. They would still not have been able to prescribe it. He said marijuana is less addicting and dangerous than drugs like opiates that are commonly prescribed. "States are listening to...

A new Norwegian study has shown that alcohol and drug abuse is much more common among patients suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression than in the population at large. The study, conducted by the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, looked into the extent of drug and alcohol dependence among Norwegians diagnosed with serious mental health disorders. Every fourth patient with schizophrenia and every fifth with bipolar disorder also suffered problems with substance abuse.  One in ten people who were severely depressed also had problems with alcohol or drug-related health problems.  It is estimated that one in forty Norwegians indulge...

Almost all of the declared and undeclared Republican candidates for 2016 could be found this weekend at one of two events, or both. The first was organized by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, and held in Point of Grace Church in Waukee. Dominated by Evangelical Christians, who were 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers in 2008 and 2012, the Point of Grace Church event drew no fewer than nine Republican hopefuls. Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, past winners of the Iowa caucuses, were there. So, too, were Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walter. Cruz and Walker are...