Free Republic

Remember the Santa Ana, California, cops who were caught on video munching on what seem to be cannabis-infused chocolate bars after raiding an unlicensed medical marijuana dispensary in May? The Orange County Register reports that three officers who were suspended after the incident are trying to stop the Santa Ana Police Department from using the footage in its internal investigation. Among other things, their lawsuit argues that the officers thought they had disabled all of the security cameras at Sky High Holistic and therefore had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The cops complain that the dispensary never got their permission...

Some news accounts report that Dylan Roof had been arrested for felony drug possession a bit over a month before he bought a gun. Others disagree, saying the arrest was for a misdemeanor. Here’s what FBI Director James Comey said: On April 11, Roof attempted to purchase a handgun from a store in West Columbia, South Carolina, a near suburb of Columbia. That day was a Saturday. On the next business day, April 13, an examiner in our West Virginia facility was assigned the case and began to process it. Her initial check of Roof’s criminal history showed that he...

DENVER — Colorado already is being sued by two neighboring states for legalizing marijuana. Now, the state faces groundbreaking lawsuits from its own residents, who are asking a federal judge to order the new recreational industry to close. The owners of a mountain hotel and a southern Colorado horse farm argue in a pair of lawsuits filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver that the 2012 marijuana-legalization measure has hurt their property and that the marijuana industry is stinky and attracts unsavory visitors.

Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday. Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be. If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “You don't want to be the first person to do something like this,” he said. He said that he tells other governors to “wait...

DENVER -- Chris Easterling was sick of relying on drug dealers in Minneapolis when he needed marijuana to help ease the pain of multiple sclerosis. They were flaky, often leaving the homeless man without the drug when he needed relief the most. So he moved to Denver, where legal pot dispensaries are plentiful and accessible. Easterling is among a growing number of homeless people who have recently come to Colorado seeking its legal marijuana, and who now remain in the state and occupy beds in shelters, according to service providers. While no state agency records how many homeless people were...

WICHITA, Kan. — The Sedgwick County District Attorney is alleging that a foster father was high while a baby was left in a hot car last week. She later died. Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett read the allegations during a bond reduction hearing for Seth Jackson on Friday afternoon. Bennett said that Jackson had run out of marijuana on the morning of July 24. That afternoon, he reportedly took two children to meet with his drug dealer where he bought more. When he got home, Bennett said he left the 10-month-old girl in the car, went inside and smoked...

Urban Outfitters Pinpoints Hairroin Salons With Free Hypodermic Pens Urban Outfitters has teamed up with the NYC Hairroin Salon in glamorizing drug use at a time when heroin has devastated the city. Pinpointing Hairroin Salons in their stores that give away free hypodermic needle pens, it’s clear that Urban Outfitters has failed to learn their lesson. After previously pulling shot glasses designed as prescription medication bottles from its shelves after an uproar, the teen-focused store has actually teamed up with a hair salon with the name Hairroin in its latest New York City location. The so-called cutting edge salon glamorizes...

Medical marijuana dispensary guard shoots self in foot SAN BERNARDINO - A medical marijuana dispensary guard shot himself in the foot for unknown reasons Friday night, according to police. Just after 9 p.m. officers went to the 3300 block of East Highland Avenue to investigate the shooting. “On our arrival, we found that the security guard for the business, for some reason, had his weapon out, discharged his firearm, striking himself in the foot one time,” said Lt. Travis Walker. The security guard was transported to a hospital to be treated for the gunshot wound, according to Walker. “We plan...

7 elementary school staff hire lawyers Fallsburg police investigating the reported discovery of heroin and drug paraphernalia in a faculty bathroom at Benjamin Cosor Elementary School say the refusal by a group of teachers to cooperate is hampering their probe. No one has been charged, but six teachers and an aide were identified as having used the men's room before a school staff member reportedly found a heroin baggie on Feb. 11. Just before the winter break in December, heroin and needles were reportedly found in the same bathroom. Each of the seven faculty members initially agreed to give urine...

SEATTLE (CBS Seattle) – According to a recent study, fatal car crashes involving pot use have tripled in the U.S. “Currently, one of nine drivers involved in fatal crashes would test positive for marijuana,” Dr. Guohua Li, director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia, and co-author of the study told HealthDay News. Researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health gathered data from six states – California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and West Virginia – that perform toxicology tests on drivers involved in fatal car accidents. This data included over 23,500 drivers that...

For a magazine that styles itself Reason, it’s surprisingly unreasonable. Nick Gillespie of Reason attacks Truth Revolt’s Ben Shapiro for writing that “Philip Seymour Hoffman['s] self-inflicted death is yet another hallmark of the broken leftist culture that dominates Hollywood, enabling rather than preventing the loss of some of its greatest talents. Libertarianism becomes libertinism without a cultural force pushing back against the penchant for sin; Hollywood has no such cultural force.”It’s a point that’s rather hard to argue with. Freedom opens up the arena for individual character to define how people will use it. Freedom alone is a blank slate...

For the past four months, Sarah Callaway has had to watch as her daughter Greylynn’s body has been wracked by uncontrollable spasms several times a day. “They don’t hurt her. But they scare her, and she cries. And you can’t do anything for her except comfort her,” said Callaway, a Chatsworth resident. “That’s the most frustrating part. I just say to her, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you. I’m sorry.’” When Greylynn was born six months ago, doctors diagnosed her with a brain malformation and gave her only weeks to live. She survived, but her condition has left...

How did we end up in a world where Big Gulps are being banned in New York while the welcome mat for potheads is being rolled out in Colorado? How is it that cigarette smokers are pariahs, while people smoking weed are being cheered? This is despite the fact that potheads are almost universally recognized as unmotivated, low class, degenerate – and, yes, smelly failures. Even the ones that get somewhere in life, like Barack Obama, usually turn out to be mediocrities. Moreover, we all recognize that smoking is a dirty habit that makes you die younger and while drinking...

Several Nevada municipalities are issuing moratoriums on medical marijuana dispensaries, but Harry Reid really thinks they should be moving in the opposite direction – toward making medicinal pot legal. “If you’d asked me this question a dozen years ago, it would have been easy to answer – I would have said no, because (marijuana) leads to other stuff,” the Senate majority leader told the Sun today. “But I can’t say that anymore.” “I think we need to take a real close look at this,” Reid went on. “I think that there’s some medical reasons for marijuana.” Reid, who is a...

Pot-smoking travelers at one Colorado airport who need to ditch their stash before boarding can deposit their marijuana in an "amnesty box." The boxes began cropping up at Colorado Springs Airport on Wednesday to give passengers unaware it is illegal to carry pot on a plane the opportunity to dump their weed, The Gazette newspaper reported. While Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use on Jan. 1, major airports in the state have banned it on their facilities to comply with federal agencies, which still consider it illegal. ~snip~ Greg Phillips, aviation director of the Eagle County Airport near Vail, said the...

DENVER — Saying some neighborhoods have more pot shops than banks, Colorado Democrats on Wednesday rejected a proposal to ban the use of public assistance cards to obtain cash at marijuana-shop ATMs. The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted 3-2 along party lines against a GOP proposal to add marijuana shops to the list of places where recipients of public assistance can’t use their government-issued EBT cards to access cash. ~snip~ “Already we are operating an industry which is not allowed under federal law,” said Marble, one of the chief lawmakers involved with Colorado’s marijuana regulation bills. If...

DENVER - While marijuana may be legally purchased, legally possessed and legally smoked as of January 1, under Colorado law, it can also get you legally fired. There is already a precedent for this in the state courts. In 2010 a Colorado man was fired by his employer, Dish Network, for using medical marijuana off-duty. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the firing which is now being heard by the Colorado Supreme Court. Amendment 64 gives employers the same discretion, allowing them to prohibit marijuana use both on and off the job. Marijuana proponents believe it's a double-standard. "No business...