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A gunman shot and killed a deputy, and wounded four other deputies and two civilians at an apartment complex during a domestic violence call early Sunday morning, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said. About 5:15 a.m., deputies responded the Copper Canyon Apartments complex at 3404 E. County Line Road in Highlands Ranch, between Colorado and University boulevards. A gunman opened fire, hitting five deputies and two civilians. One deputy was confirmed dead and the six others were taken to hospitals, the sheriff’s office said. The gunman was shot, is believed to be dead and is “no longer a threat,” the...

A 60 Minutes/Washington Post joint investigation into the DEA's response to the opioid epidemic again finds investigators who hit a brick wall in Washington In October, we joined forces with the Washington Post and reported a disturbing story of Washington at its worst - about an act of Congress that crippled the DEA's ability to fight the worst drug crisis in American history - the opioid addiction crisis. Now, a new front of that joint investigation. It is also disturbing. It's the inside story of the biggest case the DEA ever built against a drug company: the McKesson Corporation, the...

The Honolulu Police Department has sent letters to local medical marijuana patients ordering them to “voluntarily surrender” their firearms because of their MMJ status.

The White House says the true cost of the opioid drug epidemic in 2015 was $504 billion, or roughly half a trillion dollars. In an analysis to be released Monday, the Council of Economic Advisers says the figure is more than six times larger than the most recent estimate. The council said a 2016 private study estimated that prescription opioid overdoes, abuse and dependence in the U.S. in 2013 cost $78.5 billion. Most of that was attributed to health care and criminal justice spending, along with lost productivity.

Mass shootings in America are getting deadlier. Of the 30 deadliest shootings in the US dating back to 1949, 18 have occurred in the last 10 years. Two of the five deadliest took place in just the last 35 days.

It seems that many states, my home state of New Jersey included, are hell-bent on legalizing recreational use of cannabis. The arguments in favor of this, though loud and dominant in the media, are not particularly convincing. Most of the advocates tout the desire to legalize the drug so that the state can raise additional tax revenue off of the sales. Enhancing the ability of an over-bearing confiscatory high-tax state like New Jersey to extract even more revenue from its citizens is never going to be a compelling argument for me. Slightly better is the argument that legalizing the drug...

Cannabis users are more likely to commit violent crime, pioneering research has shown. It warned those who smoke the drug regularly run an increased risk of using violence against others. The project is the first to demonstrate that cannabis is not only linked with violent crime but is the cause...Researchers said that cannabis causes violence and they found no evidence that the link is the other way round – ie that violent people are more likely to use cannabis...The academics said the effect of cannabis use was clear and not diminished by other factors such as patients who were heavy...

Two other men from Los Angeles — 22-year-old German Michel-Arreola and 19-year-old Irene Michel-Arreola — were also inside the vehicle, the station reported, citing authorities. All three face felony drug charges of including manufacturing/possession/distribution of a Schedule I/II Substance, according to KDVR. The 13-year-old driver is facing additional charges for driving without a license and failing to drive in a designated lane, authorities said

SLINGERLANDS, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Reports claim addicts have begun hurting their pets to get ahold of a pain killer given to pets with arthritis. Veterinarians at The Animal Hospital in Slingerlands said they don’t carry the drug Tramadol in-house because they’re worried addicts will use it for themselves instead of their pets. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declared Tramadol a controlled substance three years ago. Since then, the commonly used pain medication for pets with arthritis became available only as a prescription at pharmacies. “There’s unfortunately always the risk of abuse with any of these medications, and it’s a sad...

Amber Heard's dire financial situation has been revealed after court documents showed the actress is losing money at an alarming rate. The 30-year-old filed for divorce from husband Johnny Depp last week requesting he pay her spousal support of $50,000 (£34,500) a month plus her legal costs. She cited irreconcilable differences for the split, which has triggered a battle over Depp's huge $400million fortune.

Hawaii lawmakers are asking how much marijuana a driver can safely consume before getting behind the wheel of a car. It’s an issue they want to tackle now that Hawaii is setting up medical marijuana dispensaries. So Rep. Cindy Evans and 15 other lawmakers introduced a resolution asking the state Department of Health to study whether a person can safely drive while under the influence. Marijuana is the illicit drug most frequently found in the blood of drivers who have been involved in accidents, including fatal ones, but the role marijuana plays in those accidents is often unclear because it...

Over the last 10 months, the U.S. Coast Guard and partners from the Navy, federal law enforcement and allied nations worked together to apprehend 215 suspected smugglers in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and more than 119,000 pounds of cocaine. The drugs have an estimated street value of about $1.8 billion...The impact of the seizures will be felt far from U.S. streets, however. "The cultivation, trafficking and distribution of narcotics fuels violence and instability throughout the Western Hemisphere, leaving a path of destruction directly to the door step of the U.S. We must continue to make progress in our effort to...

Legendary singer Willie Nelson will be featured at a high-dollar fundraiser for Democratic governor nominee Wendy Davis. The event will be held April 27 in the Houston backyard of plaintiff’s lawyer Steve and Amber Mostyn, featuring barbecue, Nelson and — for those who stay overnight at the Hotel ZaZa — a campaign briefing on Monday morning.

U.S. federal agents have uncovered two drug-smuggling tunnels underneath the U.S.-Mexico border, both surfacing in San Diego-area warehouses and equipped with rail systems for moving contraband, officials said on Friday. The discovery led to the arrest of a 73-year-old woman accused of running one of the warehouses connected to a drug smuggling operation, according to a joint news release by four federal agencies.

The number of chronic marijuana users—defined as those who used it on four or more days in the past month—increased 84.3% between 2000 to 2010, according to a RAND Corporation report commissioned by the White House. “In January 2012, the U.S. White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) asked RAND to generate national estimates of the total number of users, total expenditures, and total consumption for four illicit drugs from 2000 to 2010: cocaine (including crack), heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine (or meth),” says the report, What America’s Users Spend on Illicit Drugs: 2000-2010. …

Things are not looking too good for Democrats in the upcoming 2014 midterm elections, and a new George Washington University Battleground poll is, on the surface, more bad news. The respondents were roughly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but 64 percent of GOP voters said they are "extremely likely" to vote in November, versus 57 percent of Democrats. President Obama's 44 percent approval rating won't help the Democrats, and a daunting 73 percent said their personal economic situation has stayed the same or gotten worse over the past four years. But there is one silver lining for Democrats: Marijuana....

There are things you expect to see at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and there are things you don't. One of the things you probably don't is an audience cheering and applauding arguments for legalizing pot and bemoaning the war on drugs. A panel titled "Rocky Mountain High" held Thursday afternoon started out as a debate between Mary Katherine Ham of Fox and Hot Air and Christopher Beach a staffer for former Drug Czar William Bennett's radio show. But as the debate wore on it became clear the real disagreement was between Beach and the overwhelming majority of the...

Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope tells Michigan Messenger he has been investigating the allegations that a Lansing medical marijuana clinic, Your Healthy Choice Clinic, is offering inducements for votes — something that would violate state law. Swope says it is not completely clear what the dispensary is offering a free 1/2 gram of pot or a free medible (edible product made with marijuana) for. On the one hand, the text of the website says the offer is for registering to vote, but the second half of the website posting indicates that voters should vote for and against certain candidates for...

Barney Frank and Ron Paul unite - over weed Caroline May June 22, 2011 ... Thursday the pair plan together to unveil legislation to legalize marijuana. ... Other co-sponsors include Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, Michigan Democratic John Conyers, Colorado Democratic Rep. Jared Polis and California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee.

New Zealand Are addictive medicines cures or problems? “Legalising cannabis for medicinal purposes would be the thin end of the wedge towards increasing drug use in New Zealand, according to a former detective who now manages a drug education company.” APN News and Media also reports: “Dale Kirk, managing director of MethCon, said taking a softer line on drug offenders would do more harm than good.” “I think we'd see people suddenly developing medical problems to source the drug,” asserts Kirk. The former detective is also concerned about impressionable children and vulnerable teenagers, but especially the many ways in which...