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U.S. pop star Lady Gaga admitted on radio's "Elvis Duran and the Z100 Morning Show" she was addicted to marijuana for years. "I just want young kids to know that you actually can become addicted to it," she said on Monday's edition of the popular radio program. "I have been addicted to it and it's ultimately related to anxiety-coping and it's a form of self medication and I was smoking up to 15-20 marijuana cigarettes a day with no tobacco," she recalled. "I was living on a totally other psychedelic plain, numbing myself completely and, looking back, I do see...

It is no wonder that with Christie’s 22.5 point reelection victory in the New Jersey governor’s race on Tuesday the national press has christened him a star. Other than Christie, there is not one political adult being mentioned as a serious candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Rand Paul values property rights over civil rights, which should be reversed. Ted Cruz wants to close the federal government and seal the boarder from immigrants, which is odd for a Canadian. And Rick Santorum. Enough said. Truth be told, the GOP has not fielded many attractive candidates of late. ---snip--- Here...

A proposal to impose hefty taxes on recreational marijuana, whose use was okayed by Colorado voters in last year’s election, was an easy sell in the state Tuesday. About two-thirds of those casting ballots approved a 15 percent excise tax plus a 10 percent sales tax on pot sales that begin next year. The taxes are projected to bring in $70 million a year. The money will be used for school construction and regulating pot sales. … Also in Colorado, ten rural counties refused to approve secession from the state in an effort to form a 51st state called North...

If we learned one thing from Election Day 2013, it's that we learned nothing at all. The most-watched races of the day left in their wake a myriad of mixed messages and differing priorities that demonstrate no clear trend and no unified direction driving America forward.

He went from tokens to toking. “Subway vigilante” Bernie Goetz has turned to peddling pot, cops say, decades after he pumped five shots into four black teenagers, skyrocketing him to national fame and infamy. The gunman, who divided the city after shooting four black teens in 1984, was arrested in Manhattan after selling a small amount of marijuana to an undercover narcotics cop Friday evening, police said. Goetz, who will be celebrating his 66th birthday next Thursday, reportedly chatted up the undercover female officer at Union Square Park at about 5:30 p.m. and “asked her if she wanted to get...

(CNSNews.com) - Decriminalize marijuana possession before legalizing it, says a man who wants to be the next mayor of Washington, D.C. City Councilman Tommy Wells, a Democrat, has introduced a bill that would fine people a maximum of $100 for possessing less than an ounce of pot in the nation's capital. The city passed a medical marijuana law in 1998, but Congress didn't approve that measure until 2009. Wells told WMAL-Radio on Tuesday that he's "open to legalization," but he sees "decriminalization" as the first step. He also said he doesn't envision a city full of stoned federal workers: "Legalization...

Libertarians have long supported the legalization of marijuana and putting an end to the expensive War on Drugs program on constitutional grounds, arguing the federal government has no business regulating drug use. But, the legalization of marijuana has an attractive side benefit as well – it would flood government coffers with billions in additional revenue. According to a Cato Institute study, legalizing marijuana will result in an additional $8.7 billion in yearly federal and state tax revenue. In a time of excessive national debt and threats of a credit default, the prudent and expeditious dismantling of drug prohibitions is a...

Uruguay’s drug czar says the country plans to sell legal marijuana for $1 per gram to combat drug-trafficking, according to a local newspaper. The plan to create a government-run legal marijuana industry has passed the lower house of Congress, and President Jose Mujica expects to push it through the Senate soon as part of his effort to explore alternatives in the war on drugs. The measure would make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers. …

It’s easy these days to spot people smoking electronic cigarettes – the battery-powered, pen-sized inhalers marketed as cleaner alternatives to their traditional tobacco-packed counterparts. What may be harder to detect, experts say, is what exactly is inside some of those discreet devices. More and more, people are smoking marijuana out of e-cigarettes and vapor pens -- right out in the open with little or no fear of getting caught, users and experts say. "I was on the train from New York to Baltimore and I enjoyed the pen the whole way there and back with no one noticing," said one...

A cure for marijuana abuse could be on the horizon thanks to a new finding. Researchers found that increasing the levels of a naturally-occurring acid in the brain could stop addicts who are trying to give up from relapsing. The scientists discovered that kynurenic acid reduces the kick monkeys and rats get from THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. … Kynurenic acid, which can be produced from bananas and turkey, is thought to cause fewer side effects than other treatments that have been considered because it occurs naturally in the brain. …

If the Devil had his own bible, it would probably take the form of a computer game. It would be sly and witty, enjoyable and slick. It would start with small, almost funny misdeeds. It would offer the player the joys of money, successful violence and easy, responsibility-free sex. There would be drugs which didn’t fry your brain or burn holes in your nose. You would be made to feel brave, while not actually needing to be. None of your pleasures would be paid for in coin, pain or grief. Everyone else in the game would be disposable and forgettable....

So I saw this Drudge headline and figured he must have taken Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom out of context, because there’s just no way Wiggleroom thinks we’re that stupid, or is that stupid himself. But out of fairness to Drudge, I clicked on the link to see what the Professor had actually said, and here are his actual words: “Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy....

Every year, millions of Americans watch the Super Bowl, some just for the fabulous new commercials. Next year, it's quite possible there's going to be an ad for marijuana. This bizarre story begins with the company Intuit. USA Today reported in July: The minuscule budgets of small businesses often hinder their marketing power. But now, one small firm will join mega marketers on the biggest advertising stage of all: the Super Bowl. On Wednesday, software provider Intuit kicks off a contest that will award one small business with a 30-second Super Bowl XLVIII commercial. The third-quarter ad will likely be...

As more U.S. states increase legalization and increased accessibility of marijuana a recent scientific study reveals that the negative impact on the brains of teenagers is being ignored.

A teenage babysitter is behind bars after he allegedly smoked marijuana in front of a baby he was supposed to be taking care of. Harlingen police arrested 19-year-old Mark Anthony Gonzales on child endangerment and marijuana charges early Saturday morning. Investigators told Action 4 News that officers were called to a disturbance at an apartment complex on the 800 block of North 27th Street around 2:20 a.m. Saturday. Officers investigating the disturbance allegedly spoke to a Gonzales but noticed a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the apartment. Police looked inside and learned Gonzales had been smoking marijuana in...

Napa and Sonoma have their wine tours, and travellers flock to Scotland to sample single malt whiskies. But in Jamaica, farmers are offering a different kind of trip for a different type of connoisseur. Call them ganja tours: smoky, mystical - and technically illegal - journeys to some of the island's hidden cannabis plantations, where pot tourists can sample such strains as "purple kush" and "pineapple skunk." The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, the tiny hometown of reggae legend, and famous pot-lover, Bob Marley. Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm...

The old folks are showing the kids these days how it's done. That is, people over 50 are turning to drugs more so than their kids and grandkids. Drug use among people aged 50 to 64 has "doubled" over the past decade, according to the U.S. government. Of the 23.9 million Americans who are current drug users, 7.2 percent of people between 50 and 64 years old reported using illicit drugs -- which is still less than the nearly 10 percent of "children and teenagers" who use illegal drugs, according to an annual survey of drug use. The most-popular drug...

Drug war hawk John McCain is turning pot dove. McCain appears open to making a dramatic shift on marijuana policy, saying during a town-hall meeting in Arizona that he's open to potentially legalizing weed. “Maybe we should legalize. We're certainly moving that way as far as marijuana is concerned,” McCain said in comments first reported by Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller. “I respect the will of the people." In the past, McCain has been a hard-liner on federal drug policy. During his 2000 presidential primary campaign, the Arizona Republican suggested increasing penalties and sentence guidelines for those convicted of...

The Rim fire, which has burned into Yosemite National Park and threatened a vital water supply to San Francisco, was started by a hunter who let an illegal fire “escape,” the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday. The fire was not started by a marijuana growing operation, despite rumors to the contrary, the U.S. Forest Service’s investigation unit and the Tuolumne County district attorney’s office concluded. The hunter has been identified and his name is being withheld pending further investigation, officials said. The hunter has not been arrested. The Rim fire began Aug. 17 near Jawbone Ridge in the Stanislaus National...

Ron Kelly didn’t do it, even if he thought he did. Kelly, who lives in Tomball, was outraged a few months ago when he failed a computerized background check required to buy a gun over a minor pot charge from 1971. At the time of the rejection, he insisted that he’d been convicted of a misdemeanor, not a felony, and there was no justification for denying a right that he defended with a 20-year career in the Army. This is a portion of a June 25, 2013 letter from the FBI to Ron Kelly letting him know about what appeared...

US DOJ announces pot enforcement not a priority... WASHINGTON -- The federal government says it will not sue to stop the states of Colorado and Washington from allowing recreational marijuana use. In a sweeping national policy announcement, the Justice Department outlined eight top priority areas for its enforcement of marijuana laws....

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta admitted earlier this month that he had been wrong in his opposition to medical marijuana during the rollout for his documentary "Weed." Gupta reported on research that demonstrated the proven benefits of marijuana in treating neuropathic pain. Medical marijuana was the only drug that helped a 5-year-old girl with Dravet syndrome live without constant seizures. It calmed the constant hiccuping of a 19-year-old. Israelis use it to treat Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Gupta took on the federal government's classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which has no accepted medical use but has a...

An unprecedented D.C. government program will require medical marijuana dispensaries to put aside 2 percent of their profits in order to subsidize pot purchases for poor patients. Under the proposed rule, which was published in the D.C. Register last week and is in the midst of a 30-day review period, dispensaries will give at least a 20 percent discount on marijuana to low-income people at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Clinics often offer discounts to poor patients, and other states mention low-income provisions in medical marijuana legislation. But Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National...

The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office says journalist Michael Hastings, who won fame writing the Rolling Stone article that ended General Stanley McChrystal's career, had drugs including amphetamines and marijuana in his system when he was killed in a fiery car crash in June. However, a toxicology report states the amphetamines, likely meth, were "unlikely to have an intoxicative effect at the time of the accident,” and that Hastings likely ingested the marijuana hours earlier. Hasting’s cause of death was massive blunt force trauma, and the coroner determined he likely lost consciousness upon impact and died within seconds.

Ohio Man Orders Empty Gun Safe, Finds 300 Pounds of Pot Inside 8:35AM Saturday August 17, 2013 e 8:35AM Saturday August 17, 2013 ) (SHELBY COUNTY, Ohio) --An Ohio man expected the gun safe he ordered online to be empty, police said. But instead, he found $425,000-worth of tightly wrapped marijuana bricks inside. “I’ve been in law enforcement for 47 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Shelby County, Ohio, Sheriff John L. Lenhart said. ”It’s quite effective if you think about it: wrapped airtight to withstand high temperatures. Drug-sniffing dogs probably couldn’t smell it.” It turned out the...

SCOTCH PLAINS, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — A campaign visit to Scotch Plains led to a confrontation between Gov. Chris Christie and a local father over the use of medical marijuana for children. The parents of little Vivian Wilson, who’s 2 and a half, wrote a letter earlier this month to the governor, urging him to sign a measure that would make medical marijuana easily accessible to children like their own. “Please don’t let my daughter die, Governor. Don’t let my daughter die,” Brian Wilson implored Gov. Christie on Wednesday.

Oregon is legalizing medical marijuana dispensaries. Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a bill on Wednesday giving the state authority to license, inspect and audit stores selling marijuana. … Dozens of marijuana dispensaries exist already, but they are not explicitly allowed and operate in a legal gray area. Authorities have moved to shut them down in some areas. …

Several residents at the “Garden of Eden� sustainability garden in Arlington, Texas, claim that local police raided their farm because they thought tomato plants were marijuana plants. The police reportedly damaged the garden's property and the crops during the Aug. 2 raid, which included a SWAT team (video below). “They came here under the guise that we were doing a drug trafficking, marijuana-growing operation. They destroyed everything,� said garden owner Shellie Smith to WFAA-TV. Apparently, an undercover officer and a helicopter surveillance crew believed there was probable cause that the wrong kind of plant was being grown in the garden and...

President Obama knows something about being a low-level, nonviolent drug offender, such as the kind the Justice Department today exempted from harsh mandatory prison sentences. In a sense, he was one himself once, although the young Barry Obama was never arrested or charged with a crime. Obama wrote openly in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” about using marijuana and “maybe a little blow” during his high school days in Hawaii in the 1970s. Biographer David Maraniss reported that Obama was even a pot-smoking trend-setter and leader in the “Choom Gang.” But decades later, openly reflecting on the “stupid”...

DENVER — The amount of illegal marijuana from Colorado and seized elsewhere quadrupled in the past few years, according to a report by a network of law enforcement organizations. The report found that in 2012, there were 274 seizures where the marijuana was destined for other states. In 2005, the number was 54. The most common destinations for the marijuana were Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Texas. The size of the seizures also increased. From 2005 to 2008, the total average number of pounds seized was 2,220. From 2009 to 2012, it increased to 3,937. Most of the marijuana came from...

The Gulfport, Florida Police released a video a couple of weeks ago from a school bus surveillance camera that shows three, weed-dealing black teenaged thugs beating the shitake out of one, thirteen-year-old white kid. It was an unholy smack down of demonic proportions. If you haven’t seen it you can watch the gruesome video here. Satan must be so proud. The kid got his clocked cleaned because he told his school officials that the three, black teens tried to sell him a dime bag of weed. After they pummeled him, breaking his arm and blackening his eyes, they stole his...

(CNN) -- By most standards Matt and Paige Figi were living the American dream. They met at Colorado State University, where they shared a love of the outdoors. After getting married, the couple bought a house and planned to travel the world. They did travel, but their plans changed when their first child was born in 2004. Max was 2 when they decided to have another child. The couple got the surprise of their lives when an ultrasound revealed not one but two babies. Charlotte and Chase were born October 18, 2006. "They were born at 40 weeks. ... Charlotte...

A family was surprised to find a pipe stuffed with marijuana inside a Kids Meal box that was purchased from the Burger King in Dundee Tuesday night, police said. The investigation led to charges being sought against an employee and two other young men all from the Dundee area. The marijuana was not intended to be sold in the children’s meal box, police said. Dundee Police Chief Dave Uhl said a 23-year-old employee admitted to placing the pipe inside a Kids Meal box in an apparent effort to hide the pot while he was working.

The charges include human trafficking, false imprisonment and molesting a childPolice connected a third suspect to two men accused of forcing a 15-year-old runaway from Los Angeles to work in a Northern California pot farm and using her as a sex slave, officials said on Saturday. Eric Edgar, 45, was arrested in LA in May on a sex assault charge after the girl identified him as one of her assailants, said Cmdr. Andy Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department. Edgar is connected to a case involving two suspected pot growers who allegedly sexually abused a girl who was trimming...

INDIANAPOLIS — Where’s the best place to market marijuana to people already buzzing from alcohol? At a NASCAR race, of course. The pro-marijuana advocacy group has a video billboard promoting marijuana as an alcohol alternative. That ad — which boasts “Marijuana: Less harmful than alcohol and time to treat it that way" — is being shown outside the grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway the next three days as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes to the track for Sunday’s Brickyard 400.

A teen who went missing in Los Angeles in April was discovered a month later in Northern California, having been kidnapped and used as a sex slave on a marijuana farm. The Los Angeles Police Department decribed the 15-year-old girl as a runaway. They believe she was kidnapped by Ryan Balletto, 30, and his associate Patrick Pearmain, 25, and taken to their growing operation in Lake County, California. According to a criminal complaint, when the girl wasn't being used to harvest marijuana she was locked for days at a time in a 4-foot by 2-foot metal toolbox.

DUNDEE (WWJ/AP) - Police say a family found a pipe stuffed with marijuana inside a Kids Meal bought for a 4-year-old boy at a Burger King restaurant in southern Michigan.

Two men were fatally shot inside a medical marijuana shop on Chester Avenue Wednesday, marking what may be the first homicides to occur inside a pot dispensary in Kern County. Bakersfield police spokeswoman Michaela Beard said the department received a call at 9:49 a.m. of a shooting inside First Reliable, a medical marijuana collective at 217 Chester Ave. Officers found two people dead inside. Beard said a dark-colored SUV was seen speeding from the area with a black male driver and an unknown race female passenger.

California's marijuana advocates need to inhale a breath of fresh air and take a long look at their judgment -- or lack thereof. On Monday, I attended the "International Summit on Cannabis" news conference at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco to hear why Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, supports legalizing marijuana as a means of curbing drug cartel corruption and violence. Also onstage were Oakland medical marijuana biggie Steve DeAngelo, a Washington state lawmaker, a budding marijuana venture capitalist, an attorney -- and Oaksterdam University Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones and her 2 1/2-year-old son. What,...

Honolulu -- An Hawaii Island minister in jail for three years on drug charges is treated more like a terrorist than a free-spirited minister whose religious beliefs include the cultivation and use of marijuana, some lawmakers and civil rights advocates say. The minister, Roger Christie, is being held in Honolulu's Federal Detention Center, without bail and, as of yet, without a trial. Roger, his wife, Share Christie, and 12 others -- the "Green 14" -- in 2010 were charged with the sale and possession of cannabis, but only Roger Christie has been held at the jail since July 8, 2010....

Judge Debra Nelson ruled Monday that jurors in the George Zimmerman trial will be allowed to hear about marijuana found in Trayvon Martin’s system the night he was fatally shot. Prosecutors argued the amount was so minimal that “we just don’t know” what effect it had on Martin. They also accused the defense of trying to "backdoor some very negative character evidence” into the trial. But the defense said the amount found in Martin’s system would have had an impact on his judgment that night and is therefore relevant to the case. The judge ruled she would allow the testimony...

Jurors in the George Zimmerman murder trial will be able to hear defense testimony that Trayvon Martin had small amounts of marijuana in his system at the time he was shot to death in February 2012. In a ruling this afternoon, Judge Debra Nelson rejected a prosecution request to ban a portion of a toxicology report that revealed Martin had been smoking pot at some point prior to Zimmerman killing him with a single gunshot to the heart. Nelson, who previously granted a prosecution motion to limit testimony about the government toxicology report, reversed herself in the wake of last...

Defense lawyers will be permitted to show that Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system when he and George Zimmerman had their fateful encounter in a gated community in Florida last year, the judge in Zimmerman’s murder trial ruled Monday. Judge Debra Nelson denied a motion by prosecutors to keep toxicology results showing THC in Martin’s system from the jury, paving the way for Zimmerman’s lawyers to argue the drug may have influenced the teen’s behavior. Defense attorney Don West noted that in Zimmerman’s statement to the non-emergency 911 dispatcher that it appeared the person he was observing in the...

OLYMPIA — Marijuana could be grown outdoors in the sunshine — no grow lights or greenhouses required — under draft rules for the state’s new marijuana industry. The rules, approved by the state Liquor Control Board during a meeting last week, establish regulations for pot producers, processers and retailers and set the stage for legal recreational marijuana use to begin early next year. The decision to allow outdoor grows also increases the potential for pot as a crop in Washington’s sunny side east of the Cascade Range, where irrigated fields of apples, hops and wine grapes dot the landscape, though...

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward making lots of money. That's Jamen Shively's thesis, anyway. The former Microsoft manager, 45, is embarking on a publicity tour for the marijuana enterprise he's happy to label the "Starbucks" of pot. "Yes, we can" is for Shively "yes, we are big marijuana" -- and he's getting ready for what he believes is The Next Big Thing: legal pot -- everywhere. With his trusty sidekick, former Mexican president Vicente Fox -- a partner of Shively's in Diego Pellicer, Inc., the nation's first "premium marijuana" retail brand -- in...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – A new study finds that longtime marijuana use lowers motivation and reward-seeking behavior as the brain produces less dopamine. In a small sample test, researchers in the United Kingdom scanned the brains of 19 long-term marijuana smokers along with 19 nonusers of the same age and sex, measuring the distribution of chemicals throughout the brain via positron emission tomography. Marijuana smokers were found to produce less of the “feel good” chemical dopamine than their counterparts over time.

Fireworks won’t be the only thing flying high over the Capitol during the Fourth of July celebration. An American flag made of hemp, a non-psychoactive variant of marijuana, will be flown over the Capitol on July 4 for one day. Industrial hemp–which is considered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be a Schedule I substance along with ecstasy and heroin–is a type of cannabis plant that cannot legally be grown in the U.S. but is legally imported and used in hundreds of products ranging from rope to clothing.

If you're near the Capitol on the Fourth, celebrating your patriotism and whatnot, or if you see images from Washington of the building during broadcasts of John P. Sousa performances, take a look at the flag on top of the dome. That flag, ladies and gentlemen, will for the first time in decades be made of hemp. The Washington Post reports on the patriotic move. (Its headline includes the word "high," do you get it?) Colorado hemp advocate Michael Bowman is the man responsible for getting the flag, made from Colorado-raised hemp and screen-printed with the stars and stripes, up...

It took 50 years for American attitudes about marijuana to zigzag from the paranoia of “Reefer Madness” to the excesses of Woodstock back to the hard line of “Just Say No.” The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously “didn’t inhale,” to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did. And now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and states are moving to approve the drug—for medical use and just for fun. … Washington policymakers...

he possibilities when it comes to marketing meat made from marijuana-fed animals are close to endless, but the man who came up with the idea has decided to simply call them “Pot Pigs.” William von Scheneidau, owner and founder of BB Ranch in Seattle, didn’t come up with the idea to feed pigs and other animals weed while sitting around a bong in the basement with his buddies. In fact, he doesn’t even smoke, he said. Von Scheneidau said the notion came to him when he met the owners of a weed dispensary who told him that, ever since marijuana...