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Johnson & Johnson reaches tentative $20.4 million settlement in massive opioid case Health-care giant Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday that it has reached a $20.4 settlement in principle with two Ohio counties on the eve of a massive federal trial to determine who is responsible for the nation’s opioid epidemic. Under the proposed settlement, Johnson & Johnson would pay Cuyahoga and Summit counties $10 million in cash, reimburse $5 million in legal fees and direct $5.4 million to nonprofits for opioid-related programs in those communities. “The settlement allows the company to avoid the resource demands and uncertainty of a trial...

A new study looking at alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among adolescents gives some interesting and helpful conclusions. Well, helpful conclusions if people will be willing to remove their cultural blinders concerning marijuana. Since the politically and culturally popular thing to do is to extol the virtues of the recreational use of marijuana, the study's sharp gateway-drug implications will most likely be a warning that is derided and unheeded.Frankly, I don't really care if people smoke weed or not. To be clear, if asked, I'll warn against it. What bugs me, though, is that many who do choose to...

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) ...???

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on Nevada becoming the fifth state in the U.S. with stores selling marijuana for recreational purposes (all times local): Minnesota resident Edgar Rosas Lorenzo on Saturday flew with his family to Sin City for a wedding. But even before he checked in to his hotel, he stopped at a pot dispensary on the Las Vegas Strip. The 21-year-old says he learned of the legalization of recreational marijuana in Nevada while he was at the airport waiting for his flight to depart. He waited in line about 40 minutes before he could buy one-eighth of...

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...

Reefer is Worth Getting Mad About Vienna -- Supporters of the legalization of cannabis would have us believe that it is a gentle, harmless substance that gives you little more than a sense of mellow euphoria. Sellers of the world's most popular illicit drug know better. Trawl through websites offering cannabis seeds for sale and you will find brand names such as Armageddon, AK-47 and White Widow. "This will put you in pieces, then reduce you to rubble -- maybe quicksand if you go too far," one seller boasts. This is much closer to the truth. In Canada, as in...

GRANVILLE -- Marijuana is about as harmless as a cup of coffee but far less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, an advocate for changes in marijuana laws told a Denison University audience of about 200 Tuesday night. Allen F. St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, often used the alcohol analogy to make his points favoring general decriminalization of marijuana. St. Pierre, 40, drew a curious contrast between the friendly neighborhood bartender pouring a beer and "pushers" who sell marijuana. "There is no functional difference between a bartender and a drug dealer," he...

Nate Norman was hanging out with his buddy Topher Clark when he came up with The Idea. At the time, Nate was a nineteen-year-old high school dropout who worked at a Pizza Hut in Coeur D'Alene -- a gorgeous but dull resort town in Idaho -- and sold the occasional dime bag on the side. Chubby and baby-faced, Nate had never been the type to come up with a million-dollar brainstorm. "He was one of those guys everybody used to pick on," says his friend Scuzz -- Ben Scozzaro, a year ahead of Nate at Coeur D'Alene High. "He looks...

It is this reporter's opinion that each generation in turn takes a new look at the marijuana question. Now it's this generation's turn. In a 6-to-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-marijuana statutes overrule the laws in ten states that allow the use of marijuana plants to ease pain or nausea. Fifty years ago, as a much younger television reporter, I did a series of interviews with Dr. Hardin B. Jones, Professor of Medical Physics and Physiology at the University of California Berkeley. Dr. Jones, in his thorough study, raised disturbing questions about marijuana's effects on the...

Washington, DC: Three out of four illicit drug users in the United States are marijuana smokers, according to survey data released today by the Department of Health and Human Services.According to the department's annual "National Survey on Drug Use and Health," an estimated 19.5 million Americans currently use illicit drugs (as defined as use within the past month). Of these, 14.6 million - or 75 percent - self-identify as marijuana smokers.By comparison, only 2.3 million Americans reported using cocaine, approximately one million reported using LSD, and fewer than 120,000 said that they currently use heroin. In addition, an estimated 97...

Since Marijuana is the main drug that is able to be tested for when on probation people often tend to switch to other drugs while on paper, this is what causes people to get attached to other drugs not marijuana itself. If Marijuana were legalized this i feel that this wouldn't be as much of a problem.

— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine. The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United States. The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts. Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug...