Free Republic

**SNIP** Firing squads have all but disappeared from the U.S. While Oklahoma law provides for them if lethal injection is ever ruled unconstitutional, only Utah actually continues to use them, and then only for inmates convicted before 2004 as it seeks to phase them out. But the shortage of pentobarbitol has some lawmakers reconsidering. State Sen. Bruce Burns filed a similar bill (.pdf) Monday in Wyoming, saying the state would have to do something soon before it runs out of approved drugs for lethal injections.

Justin Bieber's rapper pal Lil Za has accused reporters of racial discrimination by exaggerating his drug possession arrest to make him "look bad". The 19 year old was taken into custody on Tuesday following a police raid on Bieber's Calabasas, California mansion in connection to an alleged neighbourhood vandalism incident. Cops claim to have discovered illegal substances in "plain view" during the property search and arrested Lil Za on suspicion of felony drug possession. The white powder allegedly found was determined to be MDMA, a form of ecstasy frequently referred to as molly, but the teenager, real name Xavier Smith,...

A Connecticut man is in over his head after an extremely bone-headed move. William Bradley, 46, was arrested by Clinton police after posting a video of his own personal marijuana garden on YouTube. Even dumber, Bradley included both his full name and his home address in the video which, unsurprisingly, led police straight to his door. The video is called "William Bradley - Hope Garden." It begins with Bradley saying: "Hi everyone. Welcome back to my garden. Hi. My name is William Bradley. My PO Box is 14. My hometown is Westbrook, Connecticut, zip code 06498. And welcome to my...

U.S. counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan are in a “perilous state” despite billions of dollars spent to combat the spread of drug production there, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko told Congress on Wednesday. [snip] Poppy cultivation hit a record level in 2013, with 209,000 hectares, or about 516,000 acres, devoted to growing the picturesque red flowers that provide the base ingredient for opiate drugs, including heroin, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That’s a 36 percent increase over 2012.

Jesse Wachter's neighbors knew him as a "down-to-earth" guy who retired to hang out with his little white dog and tool around in his golf cart and Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Now they've learned that the 63-year-old resident of the Mid Florida Lakes mobile-home park, who hadn't been seen in weeks, is dead — buried in a grave covered with bags of mulch outside his home.... ....Several years ago, Wachter helped abduct his son's children from their mother in a violent confrontation near Orlando, court records show. His son, Jesse Jr., and the children's mother, Jessica Thigpen, remain held in the Lake...

Vermont’s governor dedicated his entire state of the state address this week to the scourge of drug addiction, stressing that the uptick in heroin use is more deadly that guns or “all of the other things that we keep talking about.”“What started as an OxyContin and prescription drug addiction problem in this state has now grown into a full-blown heroin crisis,” Peter Shumlin said of the 770 percent increase in opiate treatment in his home state since 2000. The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy has also reported the number of deaths involving heroin jumped 45 percent...

A Colorado family experienced a frightening surprise last week when their toddler, for no apparent reason, became groggy and unable to walk. A trip to the local emergency room found the cause: the child had eaten a cookie from the ground outside the family’s apartment. Only this was no ordinary cookie. It had been laced with THC, the mind-altering chemical in marijuana, and wreaked havoc on the two-year old’s system. Thankfully, she’s now recovered. Ironically, the incident happened the day before Colorado’s new law legalizing marijuana for personal use went into effect. Apparently some drug users just couldn’t wait and...

Bill Dal Cerro of the Italic Institute of America [Free for All, Dec. 28] took Dana Milbank to task for allegedly stereotyping Italians in his Dec. 22 Sunday Opinion column, “Godfathers of the Capitol.” But Milbank never used the word “Italian.” He did write “mafia” twice, and he used the phrase “going to the mattresses” once. He also used the term “mob boss.” In my opinion, it takes more effort than it is worth to be offended, no matter what one’s origins, by any of these words. It seems to me that even in “today’s enlightened era,” to use Dal...

SEASIDE — A Seaside waitress received an unusual – and illegal – tip from two patrons early Friday morning. Ryan L. Bensen, 40, of Beaverton, and Erica A. Manley, 37, of Cascade Locks, were arrested for allegedly thanking their Twisted Fish waitress with an envelope full of methamphetamine. Seaside Police responded to a report from the waitress that, after the couple paid for their drinks, they included an envelope filled with a crystal-like substance with their payment. The responding officer identified the substance as methamphetamine, and officers arrested Bensen and Manley. A search of Manley’s purse revealed a large quantity...

The business of legal marijuana is booming in Colorado -- and investors are catching a contact high. Yes, there are pot stocks. Nearly all of them are thinly traded penny stocks available only on over-the-counter exchanges, but shares of companies that service the growing cannabis market have been blazing in recent weeks. Medbox (MDBX) is the latest example. The company provides products and services for businesses that dispense medication, such as pharmacies. It announced plans Tuesday to tailor its products for use in recreational and medical marijuana facilities. Shares soared 65%. (Medbox, for the record, is not a penny stock....

A woman is under arrest after Austin's famous Frog mural was defaced with obscene words Christmas Eve. "The Frog," as it it known locally, was painted by singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston and was once worn as a T-shirt by Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. Johnston lives in Waller, about 40 miles northwest of Houston. ...Rebecca Guest, 32, was caught red-handed by officers who saw her at work on the mural on Tuesday, according to a police affidavit. ...According to the affidavit, Guest told officers "she was covering it in expletives to force the owners to take it down completely." Officials said Guest...

The Philippine government is investigating how a Mexican drug cartel may have entered the country after police seized a large cache of high-grade crystal methamphetamine intended for the local market, officials said Friday. "Good information sharing" among Filipino law enforcers led to the Christmas Day raid on an alleged drug warehouse inside a ranch in Lipa City south of Manila, said Abigal Valte, a spokeswoman for President Benigno Aquino III. Police seized 84 kilograms (185 pounds) of crystal meth, known locally as "shabu," worth around 420 million pesos ($9.4 million). National police chief Alan Purisima said a Chinese-Filipino who was...

Massachusetts State Police on Friday confiscated 1,250 bags of heroin during a traffic stop -- and many of the bags were labled "Obama care." Other bags were labled "Kurt Cobain." The traffic stop was made in the town of Hatfield, Mass.

One of President Barack Obama’s close friends has been arrested in Honolulu on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. Robert “Bobby” Titcomb was one of four men arrested in an undercover sting operation late Monday and later released on $500 bail, according to Honolulu police. Titcomb, 49, attended Punahou School in Honolulu with Obama in the 1970s. The president graduated in 1979, a year before Titcomb. The two often golf, play basketball, go to the beach and dine together when the president returns home to Hawaii for vacation. Obama’s family has also attended barbeques at Titcomb’s beachside home in Waialua, located...

New guidelines published Wednesday for the treatment of high blood pressure take a step back from the long-standing position that lower is always better when managing hypertension, raising the level at which people age 60 and over should start taking medication. For many patients, the recommendations by an expert panel could simplify what is often a complicated effort to get blood pressure under control, especially those who take multiple pills to treat several chronic ailments, researchers said.

A San Francisco doctor wrote bogus pain-killer prescriptions for homeless people, who then traded the drugs for money in a scheme that netted the physician hundreds of thousands of dollars, federal prosecutors alleged. Collin Leong, 68, pleaded not guilty last Wednesday at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to charges of drug dealing and conspiracy. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Investigators said Leong, in exchange for cash, issued prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone to homeless people with no medical justification. The fake patients were recruited by a co-conspirator, investigators said, and...

Teenage pot smokers could be damaging brain structures critical to memory and reasoning, according to new research that found changes in the brains of heavy users. Research released Monday in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin showed the brains of young heavy marijuana users were altered in so-called sub-cortical regions — primitive structures that are part of the memory and reasoning circuits. And young people with such alterations performed worse on memory tests than non-using controls, despite the fact that the heavy users had not indulged for more than two years, on average, before the testing. [Snip] When the groups were given...

After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating. Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs like Adderall and Concerta to temper the traits of classic A.D.H.D., helping youngsters succeed in school and beyond. But Dr. Conners did not feel triumphant this fall as he addressed a group of fellow A.D.H.D. specialists in Washington. He noted that recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis...

Synthetic marijuana is believed to have sickened 221 people in Colorado during a monthlong outbreak this year, according to a federal report released Thursday. The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on a joint investigation with state health officials launched after Colorado hospitals started seeing an increase in emergency room visits by people who had used synthetic pot in late August.

MEGYN KELLY, HOST: We are seeing new reports tonight about another possible consequence of the health care overhaul. While media outlets continue to dig into the issue of losing your plan or losing your doctor -- you can see this cover here on the Cincinnati Enquirer -- we are now hearing that you may also be losing your prescription drug coverage, or at least find to get much more expensive.