Free Republic

Research into recreational drugs still carries a bad rap, following the anti-drug crusades of the Reagan years and beyond. But such research may be one of the most important scientific investigations happening today. Here's why: the most popular recreational drugs, particularly alcohol, are atrocious. If pharmaceutical chemists could invent a less toxic replacement for alcohol, the social benefits could be enormous. Despite the common phrase "drugs and alcohol," which seems to imply that alcohol is merely in a related category, alcohol is definitely a drug. Indeed, as Mark Kleiman writes, alcohol is more like the ur-drug: the oldest, most common,...

The execution of the only woman on Georgia's death row has been postponed at the last minute for a second time in less than a week - because the drug used in the lethal injection she was scheduled to receive was 'cloudy'. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, was due to be given an injection of pentobarbital at a prison in Jackson at 7pm on Monday in retribution for plotting the murder of her husband in 1997. But after officials observed the drug to be used in the execution had a 'cloudy' appearance, they postponed her death until a future, unspecified date...

MIDDLETOWN >> They were studying to be doctors and scientists, but police say four Wesleyan University students arrested this week also are known on campus as drug dealers. The four are charged in connection with the distribution of a bad batch of the party drug known as Molly. Authorities said 11 people, including 10 Wesleyan students, some of whom had attended a rave music show Saturday night, went to hospitals for medical attention last weekend. ... Witnesses said several of the victims were hanging out with Kramer during the rave Saturday night at the Eclectic Society, a co-ed social fraternity....

members of the Arizona National Guard, including military recruiters were discovered working as “muscle” and “traffickers” for Mexican drug gangs .. About 12 National Guard were identified as suspects in one of the FBI’s biggest government corruption cases ever, which was almost totally ignored by government officials in Washington and major national news outlets On Friday in federal court, a non-commissioned officer (non-com) with the border-state Arizona’s Army National Guard was sentenced to federal prison for his role in protecting drug traffickers by using his military position to provide security for shipments of cocaine being transported from Mexico into the...

She was schizophrenic, battered, depressed and drug-addicted. So Johanna Bernal went to the city for help. Instead, her appointed drug counselor used her for sex and impregnated her, then subjected her to a brutal attempted abortion with his bare hands, a lawsuit alleges. In the course of a twisted relationship that stretched four years, counselor George Alejandro allegedly kept Bernal “in a drugged state” while sleeping with her, and threatened her family members if they dared complain, according to court papers. And Alejandro, 61, was treating Bernal despite an attempted-manslaughter conviction, not having a state drug-counseling license and two child-support...

Bill Cosby has refused to address the scores of rape allegations that have been hurled at him in recent months, but that doesn't mean he isn't working to clear his name. The comedian is allegedly paying private investigators six-figure fees to dig up dirt on the more than two dozen women who have come forward to accuse him of rape, according to a report in the New York Post. A source told the paper that Cosby has hired a Glendale, California, firm to discredit his many alleged victims' stories.

Researchers could be closing in on a "fountain of youth" drug that can delay the effects of aging and improve the health of older adults, a new study suggests. Seniors received a significant boost to their immune systems when given a drug that targets a genetic signaling pathway linked to aging and immune function, researchers with the drug maker Novartis report. The experimental medication, a version of the drug rapamycin, improved the seniors' immune response to a flu vaccine by 20 percent, researchers said in the current issue of Science Translational Medicine. The study is a "watershed" moment for research...

US Special Forces working with James Cook University in Australia. Drug aims to raise the heart and blood pressure into a 'survival window' low enough to reduce blood loss, but high enough to prevent brain injury. Human trials expected to begin within a year.

Nearly two dozen suspects have been arrested in recent months, and 500 pounds of methamphetamine siezed, as a result of a Contra Costa County takedown of members of the Sinoloa drug cartel in Mexico, authorities announced Monday.

Charles Arntzen is the Regents' Professor and Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Chair of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. Dr. Arntzen is known as a pioneer in the development of edible plant-based vaccines, and he has also been a key collaborator on what appears to be a promising new Ebola drug. The Washington Post recently reported that: It took nearly three decades of tireless research and countless millions of U.S. government dollars to produce a few grams of the experimental Ebola drug that may have saved the lives of two U.S. missionaries stricken by the virus in West Africa....

The US Department of State released their World-wide Blacklist for Human Trafficking. Not listed are Obama, Holder and Kerry all of whom have played key roles in encouraging over 40,000 innocent children to be transported through the hostile Nation of Mexico to the US/Mexico Border.

England has seen a 10% fall in the number of opiate and crack [the top 2 illicit drugs abused] users since 2005 with the largest reductions being seen in the last few years. This also includes a significant fall in the number of people injecting these drugs: from 93,401 in 2010 to 2011, to 87,302 in 2011 to 2012. THE DIFFERENCE: England approaches the issue as a "public health" issue. In the USA we approach substance abuse as a "legal" issue. Until we fund treatment adequately, attacking demand, law enforcement attempts to shrink supply will just make profit margins greater...

I am running computers at my Florida farm that use ten-fold the electricity I used a year ago, this time of year. I read freeper threads about the LEO, no-knock, drug suspected raids, that occur all across the states when electricity usage is flagged as abnormally high. How would you go about contacting the county sheriff and what to say as well as what not to say with regard to high electric usage. I don't want to wake in the middle of the night to LEO activity on my property that I suspect is a burglary or other criminal activity....

A serial killer was put to death Thursday in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers' demand that the state release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug. Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, was the first inmate to be injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the powerful sedative. Sells declined to give a statement. As the drug began flowing into his arms inside the death chamber in Huntsville, Sells took a few breaths, his eyes closed and he began to snore. After less than...

San Francisco spends $165 million a year on services for homeless people, but all that money hasn't made a dent in the homeless population in at least nine years. And in fact, the city's homeless tally may have long been underestimated. In addition to the 6,436 homeless adults counted during one night last year, a separate daytime count specifically of homeless youth found 914 children and young adults living in San Francisco without parents or guardians and without a roof over their heads. These findings are part of a new report by Harvey Rose, the budget and legislative analyst for...

Despite growing controversy over the use of anonymous pharmacies for lethal injections, the U.S. Supreme Court has thus far declined to block any executions based on 11th-hour appeals challenging the drug connections. That includes the case of Michael Taylor, a convicted rapist and murderer who was put to death at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri after a furious legal battle that stretched well into the night. It's worth nothing, however, that three high court justices wanted to block Taylor's execution and cited the words of an appeals judge who said so little was known about the source of the deadly...

New York Police officers arrested four men Tuesday night on suspicion of having a connection to drugs. Police acted after receiving a tip that the four had sold heroin to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead from an overdose of the drug on February 2. Drug dealers are far from my favorite people, and the arrests are welcome, but no drug dealer killed Philip Hoffman. Only one person is, ultimately, responsible for his death: Philip Seymour Hoffman, himself. Mr. Hoffman was the one who procured the drug, injected the drug and kept injecting the drug. Mr. Hoffman was...

A drug-dealer who successfully scored a $125,000 stop and frisk settlement was shot and killed by a robber on Staten Island Tuesday night after bragging about the windfall, sources said. Kenrick Gray, 34, was brutally blasted in the head around 6:15 p.m. outside 140 Park Hill Avenue in Stapleton after flaunting his riches in recent months, police said. His pal, Noland Whistleton, 41, was also fatally shot in the leg and torso during the botched robbery, cops said. Police collared suspect Darren Brown, 27, cowering in the shower of his girlfriend’s Staten Island home Wednesday afternoon in connection with the...

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)Rep. Jared Polis wants President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to come see how Colorado is implementing its new marijuana legalization laws. Polis, a Colorado Democrat and cheerleader of his state’s new legalized marijuana laws, told CQ Roll Call he wants the two leaders to “visit a regulated store and a growing operation with me to see our Colorado laws enforced. It’ll only reinforce their emerging beliefs when see what we’re doing in Colorado.” In a letter that will be sent on Thursday, Polis extends the invite and thanks Obama and...

President Obama’s latest claims about marijuana are contradicted by research and official positions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is part of the White House. And Mr. Obama’s words have anti-drug leaders worried about negative repercussions among youth. Mr. Obama claimed to The New Yorker magazine that marijuana is no worse than cigarettes or alcohol and he promoted state efforts by Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. The National Drug Control Policy’s official stance, posted on the whitehouse.gov website, says the opposite of Mr. Obama on all counts. For example, as...