Free Republic

If you're smoking weed to ease your stress during the coronavirus pandemic, experts say it's time to think twice. Smoking marijuana, even occasionally, can increase your risk for more severe complications from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. "What happens to your airways when you smoke cannabis is that it causes some degree of inflammation, very similar to bronchitis, very similar to the type of inflammation that cigarette smoking can cause," said pulmonologist Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. "Now you have some airway inflammation and you get an infection on top of...

The Supreme Court on Friday denied the Justice Department's request to allow it to enforce a ban on religious use of a hallucinogenic substance, hoasca tea, during the pendency of the government's petition challenging a court's decision that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act likely requires a religious exemption from the Controlled Substances Act. A federal judge in New Mexico, relying upon RFRA, has granted a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the CSA as to a religious group's use of the tea.