Free Republic

Even before it was revealed that Bedell had shot two Pentagon guards and was a marijuana addict/psychotic, questions were being raised about how doctors in California were approving access to the drug. Left-wing California politicians have been talking about legalizing and taxing marijuana to save the state from bankruptcy. But thanks to the state's most notorious pothead, Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell, that vision may now go up in smoke. Bedell's easy access to "medical marijuana" in California is quickly becoming a scandal that threatens the well-funded movement to increase access to the weed by legalizing it statewide-and perhaps nationwide.

Smoking a single joint of cannabis has the same impact on breathing capacity as up to five cigarettes, a new study shows. The researchers say this may be because cannabis users tend to inhale more deeply and, because joints are smoked without a filter, the smoke is hotter when it hits the lungs. Researchers from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand publish their findings online in the journal Thorax. Doctors recruited 339 volunteers who were divided into four categories: those who smoked only cannabis, those who smoked only tobacco, those who smoked both, and those who smoked neither. Cannabis-only...

Heard the latest buzz about cannabis? Word on the street is that today’s pot is exponentially more powerful, and thus more dangerous, than the marijuana available some 20, or even 10, years ago. The nation’s drug czar says so. (“We’re no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s,” John P. Walters recently warned Reuters; “this is Pot 2.0.”) Law enforcement says so. (Speaking to the Associated Press in June, United States Drug Enforcement Agency special agent Mark R. Trouville, who heads the agency’s Miami office, said, “This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will...

Nevada is known for gambling, 24-hour liquor sales and legal prostitution. Yet the main group opposing Question 7, an initiative on the state's ballot next month that would allow the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 or older, is called the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable. In Colorado, opponents of Amendment 44, which would eliminate penalties for adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, are equally certain of their own rectitude. "Those who want to legalize drugs weaken our collective struggle against this scourge," declares the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "Like a...