Free Republic

New York City is going green — with ganja. Pot arrests and seizures are plummeting as low-level offenders duck jail and cops ease off dealers, who are racking up record profits, police sources say. Gov. Cuomo vowed in January to wipe out the lowest marijuana charge — fifth-degree criminal possession — for those caught lighting up in public or flashing their stash. The crime, which currently calls for an arrest if the pot is in public view or weighs more than 25 grams, accounted for 149,951 of 155,048 marijuana busts in New York City since 2010 — 99.2 percent of...

Colorado is set to become the first U.S. state to regulate and tax sales of recreational marijuana, after lawmakers approved several bills that set business standards and rules. Legislators expect enforcement of the rules to be paid for by two taxes on marijuana — a 15 percent excise tax, and a 10 percent sales tax. Other measures included in the package set limits on how much marijuana visitors to Colorado can buy (a quarter of an ounce), as well as a limit on how many cannabis plants a private citizen can grow (six). Gov. John Hickenlooper has indicated he will...

Where are today’s rebels?  Where is the counterculture? Ear-budded hipsters, with their sheep-like devotion to Apple products and the Obama administration, sit in on the April 20 “Day of Pot” in Denver, content and satisfied with their free birth control and legalized maryjane.  Meanwhile SWAT teams descend on Watertown, Massachusetts, trampling Fourth Amendment rights in search of a “person of interest”– while a Saudi National is quietly sent back to his homeland.These hipsters champion the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado while the war on Big Tobacco rages on.  Since 1997 the FDA inherited control over the $365.5 billion global...

Here’s a new edition of my “you be the judge� series. These are posts designed to explore some of the more challenging aspects of a pro-libertarian philosophy. Today’s example comes from Colorado, which had displayed a libertarian streak on issues ranging from school choice to drug legalization. But the latter issue is the source of today’s quandary. Should marijuana be legal if it means more tax revenue that will be used by the political elite to expand the burden of government spending? Here are the details from the Denver CBS station.A draft bill floating around the Capitol late this week...

Yesterday Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper signed a bill that gives illegal aliens in-state college tuition as long as they can prove that they are residents of Colorado. You don’t have to prove you’re a resident of the United States now, just a resident of Colorado, and you get an education subsidized by taxpayers on the federal, state and local level. This follows a bunch of recent “reform� legislation, passed by the circus that they call the Colorado legislature, such as the legalization of marijuana, the restriction of the right to bear arms and proposals to get rid of the death...

DENVER (AP/CBS4) — Marijuana legalization could be going back to the ballot in Colorado — a prospect that infuriated pot legalization activists Friday. The proposal for a marijuana ballot measure came as the House started debate Friday evening on bills to regulate and tax pot. One bill would state how pot should be grown and sold, and the other would tax recreational marijuana more than 30 percent. A draft bill floating around the Capitol late this week suggests that a new ballot question on pot taxes should repeal recreational pot in the state constitution if voters don’t approve 15 percent...

My thought is certain recreational drugs, such as marijuana, should remain off legal limits for the under 18 year olds, but become legally available when used in the proper environment. In many ways, pot is quite similar to alcohol, in that they should be used responsibly. My thought is to make the sale of marijuana less profitable by making it legal for home use. Personally, I don't smoke anything now, and do not want the smell of tobacco or pot on my clothes should I visit a public place, such as a shopping mall or bus stop. I know this...

<p>Police in Tacoma could soon be in real trouble over pot.</p> <p>The department could be found in contempt if they continue to refuse to return a small amount of marijuana seized from a man after a traffic stop. Municipal Court Judge Jack Emery repeated an order to police Thursday to return the drug to Joseph L. Robertson within seven days or they could be found in contempt.</p>

Pictured: The Jamaican-born Fiancé of John Boehner's Daughter - Who Has Been Arrested For Possessing Marijuana 25 April 2013 This is the Jamaican-born fiancé of House Speaker John Boehner's daughter, pictured just weeks before their upcoming nuptials. The construction worker was spotted enjoying a McDonalds in Florida recently, with his dreadlocks piled high on his head underneath a knitted cap. Dominic Lakhan, 38, has been arrested for possessing marijuana in the past. This may not have gone down well with Boehner - who is a staunch opponent to legalizing the drug. Lindsay Marie Boehner, 35, is set to marry Lakhan...

CBS News reported last night that investigators believe that the unemployed Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have financed his terrorist plot through the sale of marijuana — an interesting occupation for a fanatical Muslim.  The composition of the bomb has come into clearer focus as well.  The triggering device came from a remote-control car, and the fed still think the gunpowder may have come from fireworks. Most interesting, though, is the acknowledgment that the Tsarnaevs only had one firearm on them during their gunfight with police: The search through landfills should remind us that bombers need quite a bit of practice in...

Peter Sagal, host of NPR's highly entertaining "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," is planning a new PBS special on the US Constitution. In an interview with Politico, Sagal explains that he will be using the show to "educate" Americans about our government's framing document . The tax-payer funded show, "Constitution USA with Peter Sagal," sounds harmless enough: … We talked to people who were basically living the Constitution whether they wanted to or not, as opposed to the usual array of pundits or activists who have opinions about it. But as Sagal reveals his personal views of the constitution, a...

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers and suspects in last week's Boston Marathon bombing attack, may have financed their plot through drug sales, investigators believe.

ST. LOUIS - Marijuana, the most prevalent illicit drug in America, seems to be getting less illicit by the day. Among recent developments that would have been unfathomable during the “War on Drugs” begun under President Ronald Reagan: • The states of Colorado and Washington voted last fall to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the first states ever to do so. Though technically still a violation of federal law, the administration of President Barack Obama has responded with a shrug. • The Illinois House voted last week to join the 18 states that have already legalized marijuana for medical use....

Susan Sarandon: ‘War on Drugs’ Is ‘Completely Racist’ April 22, 2013 By Melanie Hunter (CNSNews.com) – Actress Susan Sarandon on Wednesday called the war on drugs “completely racist,” arguing that only lower level drug defendants get locked up – “mostly people of color.” “The war on drugs is ridiculous, because you’re only getting—you’re spending a huge amount of money. It’s completely racist. You’re picking up everybody at the lower level because mandatory minimum drug laws let you trade in to get off, so if you don’t have anyone to trade in, if you’re at the bottom, you’re going to jail,"...

San Francisco park workers and volunteers spent much of Sunday picking up and hauling away 10,000 pounds of garbage strewn all over the eastern part of Golden Gate Park known as Hippie Hill, the remnants of Saturday's annual yet unofficial pot-smoking bacchanalia. But this year's annual celebration - which falls each year on April 20 and is known as "420" - drew a larger-than-average crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers on the warm weekend day. They proceeded to smoke, drink, eat and rack up more than $10,000 in costs for city crews to clean up the mess, ironically just...

..gunfire scattered thousands attending Saturday's 4/20 counterculture holiday, the first since Colorado legalized marijuana.

Shots were fired in the area of the 4/20 marijuana rally being held at Civic Center Park in Denver, KDVR.com reports. Denver police say one person has been shot in the leg and another is down with unknown injuries. Witnesses say they heard three or more shots about 20 minutes after 4:20 p.m. Police swarmed the scene, and crime tape was around the pavilion where the celebration was being held. Aerial footage showed the massive crowd frantically running from the park. The pot celebration Saturday was the first since Colorado and Washington made marijuana legal for recreational use. Read more:...

Lax marijuana laws may soon become a reality in the United States. ... National support is rising for this cause.[5] Cohen’s proposal comes as a bipartisan coalition of House representatives have sponsored the Respect Marijuana Laws Act.[6] It would exempt businesses that comply with state marijuana laws from federal prosecution.[7] Moreover, Kentucky senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul recently supported the passage of a regulatory framework allowing industrial hemp in their state.[8][9] McConnell is a figurehead for the GOP establishment. Paul represents the rising libertarian caucus. Ergo, the Republican Party may soon change its position on pot.

According to Chris Barry, a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, said that Tsarnaev “didn’t seem like a dangerous person at all … He was a pothead, a normal pothead. I couldn’t even imagine him being mad at someone, let alone hurting someone.”

Boston bombing suspect and fugitive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a “normal pot head” who supported President Obama for re-election last November, according to friends and his Twitter account.

Today the new print quarterly Modern Farmer published a lengthy piece on the crop of marijuana farmers’ markets popping up in states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational purposes. Penned by your humble editor, the feature focuses on the Organicann Harvest Market in Sonoma County – an elite member of the new crop of legal marijuana markets that are similar to the trendy, open-air vegetable markets of our time. “Still federally illegal, of course, such markets are legal under California state law, provided vendors and customers join a collective with a valid doctor’s recommendation for pot and a...

President Barack Obama's drug czar toed a strict line on marijuana Wednesday, saying federal laws will prevail regardless of state-level efforts to legalize pot. Gil Kerlikowske said enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 -- which ranks marijuana as a Schedule One drug alongside heroin, LSD and ecstasy -- remains in the hands of the US Department of Justice. "No state, no executive can nullify a statute that has been passed by Congress," the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy told a National Press Club luncheon. "Let's be clear: law enforcement officers take an...

There's a new congressional push to end the federal War on Pot in the states – and it's being spearheaded by some of the most conservative members of the Republican conference. The "Respect State Marijuana Laws Act" introduced in the House last week would immunize anyone acting legally under state marijuana laws from federal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act. Depending on the state, the legislation would cover both medical marijuana and recreational pot, and would protect not only the users of state-legal cannabis, but also the businesses that cultivate, process, distribute and sell marijuana in these states. The legislation...

The Illinois House of Representatives voted narrowly on Wednesday to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, bringing the state a step closer to becoming the 21st in the United States to allow some form of pot use to treat illness. [...]

When confronted with the Republican Party’s poor standing among minority communities, GOP politicians have usually taken one of two approaches: claim these communities constitute “natural conservative constituencies” or advocate a broad change in policy or ideology to attract minority voters. Neither one of these tactics has been effective, for various reasons–chief among those reasons is that the communities under consideration are usually not “natural conservative constituencies.” Take Hispanics, for example. It is often noted by GOP politicians that Hispanic immigrants are hard-working, family-oriented strivers who tend to be religious. That may be true, but polls showed that while Mitt Romney...

All full of his normal bombast and bluster, on 4/11/13, Bill O’Reilly once again proved he hadn’t a grasp on the subject at hand, whether or not to legalize marijuana. His plan is to put responsible adults or children who smoke into the legal system, destroying them and their families. He wants to keep feeding the corrupt legal system that thrives off of these “offenses/freedoms” (depending on your point of view). He wants these draconian punishments because he feels that pot will destroy anyone trying it, a view responsible for turning more people into...

Last year, the University of Colorado-Boulder made national headlines for its efforts to stamp out what has historically been one of the most popular days on campus — the 4/20 marijuana smokeout, which in the past has drawn up to 11,000 pot smokers who toke up on the university’s quad at 4:20 p.m. on April 20. Determined to see an end to the tradition, university officials took the unusual step of closing the campus to nonstudents and hosing down the lawn with a fish-based fertilizer that made the quad smell as appealing as an Alaskan pier. Activists were outraged, but...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday he has introduced a bill to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing for drug use and told the story of two young men—Barack Obama and George W. Bush—who were said to use drugs but did not go to jail. “In this story, both young men were extraordinarily lucky. Both young men were not caught using illegal drugs, and they weren’t imprisoned. Instead, they went on to become presidents of the United States. Barack Obama and George Bush were lucky,” Paul said in a speech at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, DC. “The law...

COSTA MESA [California] (CBSLA.com) — Several students at an Orange County middle school were sickened Wednesday after eating pot brownies. Firefighters were sent to TeWinkle Intermediate School on California Avenue in Costa Mesa around 12:45 p.m. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials said five seventh-graders went to the school’s nurse and complained of stomach aches. Other classmates confessed those students ingested brownies laced with marijuana, according to Sky9’s Gil Leyvas. Three children were transported to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach as a precaution. Their conditions are unknown. Two other kids went home with their parents. Costa Mesa police later...

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- If you think 2013 will be a half-baked year for tourism in Seattle, you haven't been paying attention to the curiously pungent smoke signals emanating from this city. On a recent chilly evening, an unmistakable smell has drifted across the street from an industrial space in the SODO neighborhood. Inside, a DJ spins an eclectic mix of rock while a man in a tie-dyed hoodie distributes cannabis-infused buttered rum and root beer-flavored hard candy to a diverse crowd of revelers. Another volunteer passes around a 12-foot-long "vape bag" filled with marijuana vapor -- one way to...

Criminologist Professor Alex Stevens has refuted media reports that reducing penalties for cannabis possession has led to increased drug use, crime and health problems. He said published data shows that these claims are unfounded and in fact highlight that cannabis use and crime have gone down since the 2004 declassification of cannabis to a class C substance.He said: ‘Government policy on cannabis hit the headlines again recently, when both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph ran articles on it claiming reductions in penalties for users of the drug have increased both crime and drug-related hospital admissions. If cannabis declassification...

Vet Wants to Legalize Pot for Dogs Polls show the majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, but should dogs have it too? It sounds crackpot, but Veterinarian Doug Kramer thinks that the THC in marijuana could help dogs and other pets with painful conditions that don't respond to other treatments. VICE chatted with Kramer about his pot-for-pets campaign. "A client first brought it to my attention," Kramer told VICE. "She had a pet that was not responding well to any of the pain medications or the steroids that we were giving it, and she wanted to talk about getting medical...

A Leawood couple says heavily armed Johnson County deputies barged into their home last year, turning it upside down and detaining them and their children for more than two hours in a fruitless search for marijuana. “This is how we were awakened: banging, pounding, screaming,” the mother, Adlynn Harte, said Friday. “My husband opened the door right before the battering ram was set to take it out.” The father allegedly was forced to lie shirtless on the foyer while a deputy with an assault rifle stood over him. The children, a 7-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy, reportedly came out of...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - - As of midnight, Rhode Island became the 15th state to decriminalize non-medical marijuana possession, meaning that anyone caught with up to one ounce will get a $150 ticket instead of facing a misdemeanor criminal charge. The softened penalty is the state's latest move to regulate use of a drug that has become more acceptable. The ball began rolling in 2006, when the General Assembly passed a law establishing a state medical-marijuana program, allowing patients to grow their own cannabis or get it from caregivers, or growers, certified by the state.

Two former CIA employees whose Kansas home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Wall Street sees opportunity in marijuana BELVIDERE, N.J. — Amid the whir of fans and the glow of soft white light, workers tended to bright green seedlings sprouting in a giant greenhouse. Located about an hour's drive from Manhattan in the hills of northwestern New Jersey, the facility produces basil, chives, oregano and other herbs that are sold in grocery stores around New York City. But if Ken VandeVrede has his way the facility will one day be growing a much more valuable plant: marijuana. VandeVrede is chief operating officer at Terra Tech, a hydroponic equipment maker based in Irvine....

As the New York Legislature considers a bill to allow medical marijuana, a couple of Rhode Island business journalists are reaping the profits. Anne Holland and Ron Perry founded Medical Marijuana Business Daily two years ago in Providence to cover the emerging industry of legitimate marijuana sales, as total black market business continues to represent the single largest cash crop in America at more than $35 billion. The trade in illegal marijuana - mostly for recreational use - trumps the second-largest cash crop, corn, at a mere $23.2 billion, of which $4.5 billion worth is exported from America's breadbasket to...

Genghis Khan Found Guilty in Rockland Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe announced Tuesday, March 26 that Genghis Khan (DOB 06/01/89) of 1008 St. Marks Avenue, Brooklyn, New York was found guilty following a jury trial of: One count of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Second Degree, a class “A-II” Felony One count of Unlawful Possession of Marijuana, a Violation On April 30, 2012, at approximately 4:40 p.m., Khan was traveling on the New York State Thruway (I-87) in the Town of Clarkstown. During a traffic stop, state troopers found the defendant in possession of approximately...

The female Texas trooper who performed a roadside cavity search on two Irving women has been indicted by a Dallas County grand jury. The two women from Irving are suing Trooper David Farrell, Trooper Kelley Helleson and the director of the Department of Public Safety for what they call an unconstitutional search without probable cause. The Department of Public Safety terminated Trooper Kelly Helleson. Dallas County District Attorney spokeswoman Debbie Denmon confirmed on Monday that a grand jury indicted Helleson on two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression. NBC 5 contacted Helleson's attorney for comment. "The...

GLENDALE, Ariz. — There may be very few times that six elected officials surround themselves with pounds of marijuana and invite in photographers, television stations and newspaper reporters. But the cameras were rolling as six Nevada state legislators huddled Friday around a lit display case at Arizona Organix. They peered at an array of green cannabis buds with names like Gucci, Blue Elephant, Purple Kush and Platinum Dream.

SEATTLE -- The passage of I-502 made things difficult enough for the humans tasked with creating and enforcing the laws for legal marijuana. Now, try explaining the difference between "personal use" and "intent to sell" or the gray area between state and federal law to a dog. That's why many law-enforcement agencies around the state, including the Seattle Police Department and Washington State Patrol, will no longer be training their drug-sniffing dogs to alert for marijuana. “Moving forward, it makes most sense not to train dogs to alert to marijuana as that would likely lead to unwarranted investigatory detentions of...

Westchester County Republican Assemblyman Steve Katz was pulled over yesterday morning for speeding and hit with a possession charge when an officer recognized the distinct smell of marijuana. "He was alone and cooperative," said the police, who ticketed him for a small baggie and going 80 in a 65 mph zone. Katz was oddly arrested twice for allegedly mishandling dogs when he worked as a veterinarian, but both cases were dismissed. Last year, he voted against legalizing medical marijuana, although maybe this will be his Portman moment. The assemblyman sits on Assembly committees for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, as well...

In his column of March 12, 2013, my beloved friend wrote on the issue of legalized marijuana in the state of Colorado. On his radio show, he justifiably bemoaned readers of his column who had written comments questioning his sanity and their relationship over this one issue despite years of being Prager groupies. I will not do any of that. But for only the second time in our long relationship, Mr. Prager, you are dead wrong on a topic … but I still love you. We Baby Boomers grew up in a generation where marijuana made the jump from the...

A Washington mother has been arrested and her 22-month-old child put into care after shocking footage of her feeding the boy marijuana from a bong was anonymously handed into police. The cell phone footage shows the young boy taking a hit from the top of the device while his 24-year-old mother, Rachelle Braaten laughs uproariously with a group of adults.

The federal government should stop enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, with its draconian definition of marijuana, in Washington and Colorado, which voted last November to legalize and tax the growing and sale of cannabis, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told interviewers Monday. “The state (Colorado) has spoken: The law has been passed. There are issues with taxation and regulation, and we should get on with it,” Pelosi told the editorial board of the Denver Post.

SEATAC, Wash. -- One person was killed and another person was wounded in a shooting at a marijuana grow operation in SeaTac early Monday. King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said a woman called 911 just before 3 a.m. to report the shooting. Deputies found one person dead inside the home in 3000 block of South 146th Street, and another person who had been shot was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition. West said the two attackers got away. No description was immediately available, but West said they believe the victims knew the attacker and it wasn't a...

Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since voters passed Amendment 64 last November, legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is “an electoral first not only for America but for the world.” That means two American states are to the left of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and every other liberal country regarding marijuana. CBS4 quotes a number of local high-school students: “I’ve seen a lot more people just walking down the street smoking (joints),”...

Ex-DEA heads: Feds should nullify Colorado, Washington pot laws CHICAGO — Eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs say the federal government needs to act now or it might lose the chance to nullify Colorado and Washington's laws legalizing recreational marijuana use. The onetime DEA heads plan to issue joint statements today saying the Obama administration has reacted too slowly and should immediately sue to force the states to rescind the legislation. The Associated Press received an advance copy of the statement Monday. One of the former DEA administrators, Peter Bensinger, told the AP that the more time goes by, the...

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews calls Obama the ‘perfect American’ — again MSNBC host Chris Matthews just can’t say enough nice things about President Obama. Already remembered for 2008 remarks about Mr. Obama’s speech sending a “thrill” up his leg, Mr. Matthews has now suggested the president may be “the perfect American.” Mr. Matthews‘ comments on Wednesday’s episode of “Hardball” came in context of discussion of Southern Poverty Law Center findings of a correlation between White House pushes for gun control and a rise in patriot group memberships. “I look at Obama as perfect American,” Mr. Matthews said, according to the show’s...

SPRINGFIELD — A panel of state lawmakers Wednesday approved legislation to legalize medical marijuana in Illinois. Supporters of the plan say it would be the most tightly regulated marijuana law in the country, restricting who can use the drug to people suffering from specific diseases and limiting the total number of marijuana dispensaries statewide to 60. "This is clearly model legislation for the country if we pass it," said state Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat sponsoring the plan. An Illinois House committee approved it by an 11-4 vote this morning, sending the legislation to the full House. "Why would...