Free Republic

Industry experts say the diminished tax income reflects a somber reality: Most consumers are continuing to purchase pot in the illegal marketplace, where they avoid taxes...Newsom also recommended a sharp increase in spending for regulatory programs, although it’s an open question whether it will be enough to help steady the state pot economy. The budget recommends just over $200 million for marijuana-related activities in the fiscal year...

Ten states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized adult use of marijuana.Supporters of America's long war on drugs said legalization would create disaster. Has it? No.Colorado and Washington offer the longest points of comparison because weed has been legal in those states now for five years.More people in Colorado tried marijuana after legalization, but that's not a surprise.Colorado's crime rate did rise a bit. But many things influence crime rates. Washington state's violent crime rate rose a little but slightly less than the national average.In California, people I interviewed said legalization made the streets safer. "It's cleaned up the corner,"...

... The most obvious way that cannabis fuels violence in psychotic people is through its tendency to cause paranoia. Even marijuana advocates acknowledge that the drug can cause paranoia; the risk is so obvious that users joke about it, and dispensaries advertise certain strains as less likely to do so. But for people with psychotic disorders, paranoia can fuel extreme violence. A 2007 paper in the Medical Journal of Australia looked at 88 defendants who had committed homicide during psychotic episodes. It found that most of the killers believed they were in danger from the victim, and almost two-thirds reported...

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on an amendment that would federally legalize marijuana by allowing states to regulate their own medical and recreational pot markets. But even one senator can block a vote on the amendment, which would address a longstanding conflict between federal and state law. Sen. Cory Gardner, D-Colo., is seeking to attach the measure to the First Step Act, a bundle of prison, prisoner re-entry, and sentencing reforms that senators voted 81-12 to advance Monday.

Bucks County authorities have charged nearly a dozen people with running a massive narcotics distribution center out of an unassuming Warminster home, pumping out nearly $8 million of opioids per week, District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said Wednesday. Check out good old American names of those killing Suburban housewives children.

Nov. 17 Northampton, Penn. Pennsylvannia State Troopers pull over an urban suspect for suspicion of DUI, get into a massive brawl. Apparently the man is a paranoid schizophrenic. The perp seems to take over A FULL MINUTE of non-stop tasering, impeded from fighting only at first. Both cops seem to perform a full mag dump on the guy. HE DRIVES AWAY...! (full video of the brawl and gunfight at above source link) ...???

An unruly passenger was arrested Thursday morning at Orlando International Airport and the incident was caught on camera. Jeffrey Epstein is charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, trespassing after a warning and disorderly conduct, according to an arrest affidavit from the Orlando Police Department. Police said they were called to investigate reports of an unruly passenger at the American Airlines ticket counter just before 6 a.m. Police said that Epstein began to yell when he saw the officers arrive. After talking with police, Epstein began to calm down, but became agitated when he learned the airline...

Some day soon, even as sweet, skunky smoke drifts in from the streets outside, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other staunch opponents of marijuana may draw inspiration from a true believer named Morris Sheppard. After the repeal of national Prohibition in 1933 and until his death in 1941, the Texas senator embraced a yearly custom. A progressive Democrat often considered “the father of Prohibition,” Sheppard would rise on the Senate floor to rail against alcohol and call for a repeal of Repeal. “It was a ritual,” Daniel Okrent, author of the 2010 book “Last Call: The Rise and Fall...

The Ohio Attorney General's office said that enough fentanyl to kill more than 4 million people was seized in a Clark County bust Monday night. The Miami Valley Bulk Smuggling Task Force seized about 20 pounds of fentanyl as part of an ongoing investigation, and four people were arrested. A large amount of marijuana and more than $100,000 in cash were also seized. Aguilar Reyes-Espinosa of New Carlisle, Omar Cantu-Garcia of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, David Cantu-Garcia of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and Pedro Medina of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, are currently being held in the Montgomery County Jail on drug trafficking charges....

Some 22.3 percent of fatally injured motorists who were tested for drugs tested positive for marijuana in 2016, a figure that researchers say has "increased substantially" in recent years as states have legalized the drug for recreational or medicinal use, according to a new report. The finding, in a study released Thursday by the Governors Highway Safety Association, was one of several regarding the growing prevalence of drugs in vehicle fatalities. The report also found that 44 percent of drivers killed in automobile accidents in 2016 who were tested for drugs tested positive for one or more substances – a...

Cannabis is responsible for 91 per cent of cases where teenagers end up being treated for drug addiction, shocking new figures reveal...The findings also back up academic research, revealed in The Mail on Sunday over the past three years, that skunk is having a serious detrimental impact on the mental health of the young. At least two studies have shown repeated use triples the risk of psychosis, with sufferers repeatedly experiencing delusional thoughts. Some victims end up taking their own lives.

The pot industry panicked when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ended the government’s hands-off policy on weed. Today, it can breathe a bit easier as former Republican House Speaker John Boehner joins the advisory board of U.S. cannabis producer Acreage Holdings. ~SNIP~ The announcement that Boehner and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld will advise Acreage, a private company, “should send shockwaves throughout the industry and act as a positive catalyst for the sector as a whole,” Ajamian said. Boehner’s move marks a fundamental shift for a man who said nine years ago he was “unalterably opposed” to legalization, and indicates...

"There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order."

By KYLE CHENEY 03/23/2018 02:17 PM EDT Updated 03/23/2018 03:01 PM EDT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter A Virginia Beach man was charged Friday with threatening to murder his local congressman, Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.), the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia announced Friday. According to court documents, Wallace Grove Godwin, 69, visited Taylor's office on Thursday and threatened to shoot him and two staffers at a Saturday event. The dispute arose, according to the District Attorney's office, over a discussion about marijuana policy. “Scott is having an event this Saturday. I am going to get my...

According to court documents, Noel G. Moor, 28, placed the dog in the oven "because she thought an ex-boyfriend was inside the dog." ... Moor is being held at the Clatsop County Jail on the charge of first degree aggravated animal abuse. The county mental health organization will review her case and decide whether to continue in criminal court.      

Trump also criticized Democrats for opposing his proposed wall on the Southern border. “Eventually the Democrats will agree with us to build the wall and keep the damn drugs out,” he said, prompting chants of “build that wall” in the room. The president criticized sanctuary city policies for allowing illegal immigrants and drug dealers to remain in the country. He called on Congress to end funding for sanctuary cities. “If we are not going to get tough on the drug dealers who kill thousands of people and destroy so many people’s lives, we are just doing the wrong thing,” he...

A lawsuit filed last year by West Virginia's Republican attorney general Patrick Morrisey has resulted in a new Trump administration directive to evaluate the opioid production quota system, which Morrissey says is "responsible for many deaths across the country." Morrisey, who has been attorney general since 2013 and is now running for U.S. Senate, has long viewed the Drug Enforcement Agency's quota system on controlled substances as broken, believing it was setting limits based on sales numbers instead of true medical needs of Americans. He told the Washington Free Beacon he has been digging for information on the system for...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Police responded to a disturbance call Thursday morning at a San Fernando Valley home reportedly belonging to the family of actress Tori Spelling. Officers arrived at the home on the 21200 block of Mullholland Drive in Woodland Hills just after 7 a.m., according to LAPD Media Relations. Dispatch audio described a “female mental illness” call, according to Entertainment Tonight, which was awaiting a response to a request for comment. While police wouldn’t confirm any details, sources told TMZ the call came after Spelling became “very aggressive” in her home.

While President Donald Trump and his cabinet are consistently winning on the issues they care about, it’s going to take a lot of time and patience to clean up most of the mess Barack Obama left in his wake. One such issue is the war on drugs -- something that was virtually nonexistent during the previous presidency. At the end of the Obama presidency, statistics and reports showed that drug-induced deaths were on the rise, as was the use of drugs among American youth. As David W. Murray of the Weekly Standard suggested in December 2016, this is anything but...

Cannabis users are more likely to experience negative emotions, particularly feeling alienated from others, new research reveals. People who use marijuana are significantly more likely to feel that others wish them harm or are deceiving them, a US study found. Brain scans also reveal the class-B drug increases signal connectivity in regions of the brain that have previously been linked to psychosis, the research adds, which is associated with severe depression.