Free Republic

Tea Party-backed Senate candidate Ted Cruz points with pride to the army of small conservative donors supporting him. But his largest longtime contributor is a gay billionaire who supports same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, campaign finance filings show. Peter Thiel, a German-born hedge fund manager and founder of the online payment system PayPal, gave Cruz $251,000 in 2009 for his aborted run for attorney general. The money represented 19 percent of the total raised for that campaign, which Cruz ended after Attorney General Greg Abbott decided to run for re-election. ...

Video of a police raid of Sky High Holistic in Santa Ana last month showed officers appearing to eat “edibles” laced with marijuana, according to attorney Matthew Pappas,

The federal government would be unable to block state laws permitting the use of medical marijuana under legislation that has been approved by a Republican-controlled Senate committee. The 20-10 vote puts the Senate Appropriations panel on record in favor of permitting people to obtain and dispensaries to provide medicinal marijuana in states where it's permitted and regulated. [...]

Medical marijuana patients will now be able to consume marijuana — and not just smoke it — as well as use other extracts and derivatives, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled today.

Vacationers can soon live the high life at cannabis camp. CannaCamp — which bills itself the first pot-friendly ranch resort — opens in southwest Colorado next month. The 170-acre ranch in Durango hosts daily Wake+Bake breakfasts, organizes pot-centric cooking and yoga classes and encourages guests to smoke freely on resort grounds. CannaCamp won’t provide travelers with pot, a clear violation of Colorado’s marijuana laws. Instead, the resort allows their guest to bring their own weed and use it during their stays. CannaCamp will even pick guests up at the airport and take them on dispensary tours before heading to the...

BSO says Fort Lauderdale woman found with 'flakka' in her pocketA Fort Lauderdale woman called 911 to report that a man from whom she was buying drugs took her money, according to a Broward Sheriff's Office report. Daneshia Heller, 19, was arrested Tuesday on charges of drug possession and misuse of the emergency 911 system. ccording to the arrest affidavit, Heller told the arresting deputy that a man named Zakan Allan took her $5 that she was using to buy drugs. Heller said she went to the house to buy marijuana, but he took her money and didn't give her...

<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The founder of the First Church of Cannabis in Indianapolis says he has found a home for the new church where plans call for members to smoke marijuana at the first ceremony.</p> <p>The Indianapolis Star reports founder Bill Levin is set to announce the purchase Wednesday morning. He says the church building on the city’s Eastside would hold 150 to 200 worshippers.</p>

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. Pot divides the real estate industry -- Colorado may have legalized recreational marijuana, but not all landlords are on board with pot on their property. According to Dan Slover, a broker at Cedar Creek Property Management, it comes down to landowner preference whether or not they will allow the possession, consumption, and production of marijuana in their rentals.

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'"