Free Republic

Four years ago, Pennsylvania allowed patients suffering from any of 17 serious medical conditions to relieve their symptoms with marijuana. But there was a catch: If they used cannabis as a medicine, they could no longer legally drive. Last week, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved a bill that would eliminate that legal disability by requiring evidence of impairment to convict medical marijuana patients of driving under the influence. That reform points the way to an overdue reevaluation of DUI laws that irrationally and unfairly punish cannabis consumers who pose no threat to public safety. Thirty-three states have legalized medical...

PUEBLO, Colo.—It’s a common story across America: A city loses its main employer, usually a manufacturing company with well-paying, blue-collar jobs (that often go to China). The city’s economy crumbles, and those who can move out, do. Decades later, and looking peeling-paint tired, the city hasn’t managed to recover, but drugs have found a permanent home. In Pueblo, Colorado, the manufacturer was a steel plant beleaguered by a market crash in the 1980s and worker strikes in the 1990s. And one drug was given a red-carpet welcome. For years, Pueblo has been looking for industries to revive its economy, and...

As a libertarian, I think it’s reprehensible that liberals are against medical marijuana, and also reprehensible that they tried to raise the price of wheat at a time when millions of Americans were hungry. I hope Amy Coney Barrett will help overturn these rulings. In the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich, the court ruled that a person who grew and smoked their own medical marijuana was engaging in interstate commerce, even thought the marijuana never crossed state lines, and no money changed hands.Voting for the majority were Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Scalia.The dissenters were O’Connor, Rehnquist,...

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is proposing that the state legalize recreational marijuana in an effort to raise tax revenues lost during the Covid pandemic. Ironically, his draconian shutdown of much of the state over the past six months has seriously impacted the PA economy, and hence the state’s tax revenue. But it’s a pipe dream. In Colorado, for every dollar gained from marijuana taxes, taxpayers spend $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization. For Pennsylvania, any short term revenue increase will be swallowed up by the serious long term social and economic effects of legalization.In fact, if the governor is...

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday called for marijuana use to be legalized, which he said could help shore up the state’s economy. Wolf said on Twitter that he would be renewing calls on the state legislature to legalize adult-use to provide a new revenue stream as the state battles a multibillion-dollar coronavirus-related budget deficit. During a press conference on Tuesday, Wolf acknowledged that so far there has been no movement among Pennsylvania lawmakers to advance corresponding legislation.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A 20-year-old woman is accused of carrying 85 pounds of marijuana in two pieces of luggage at Nashville International Airport, authorities said. Tomisha Hamm was arrested Wednesday night and charged with a felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, WKRN reported. She was booked into the Nashville Metro Jail and her bail was set at $100,000, the television station reported. At 3 p.m. Wednesday, a drug dog at Nashville international Airport alerted detectives to possible narcotics in luggage on a Southwest Airlines flight that originated from Los Angeles and was bound for Cleveland, WZTV reported. The...

Smoking weed is the newest worry for California firefighters as the state’s biggest wildfire races toward the nation’s biggest marijuana-producing region. The wildfire is headed for Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, two small communities northwest of Sacramento that lie in the heart of cannabis country. And many of the locals — up to 1,000 — are refusing to evacuate because they want to protect their pot. Law enforcement officials went knocking on doors, but can’t make anybody go, Trinity County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Nate Trujillo told the AP. “It’s mainly growers,” Trujillo said. “And a lot of them, they don’t...

The wildfire called the August Complex is nearing the small communities of Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento, the Los Angeles Times reported. Law enforcement officers went door to door warning of the encroaching fire danger but could not force residents to evacuate, Trinity County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Nate Trujillo said. As many as 1,000 people remained in Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, authorities and local residents estimated Thursday. The threatened marijuana growing area is in the Emerald Triangle, a three-county corner of Northern California that by some estimates is the nation’s largest...

California’s largest wildfire is threatening a marijuana-growing enclave, and authorities said many of the locals have refused to evacuate and abandon their maturing crops even as weather forecasters predict more hot, dry and windy conditions that could fan flames. The wildfire called the August Complex is nearing the small communities of Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento, the Los Angeles Times reported. Law enforcement officers went door to door warning of the encroaching fire danger but could not force residents to evacuate, Trinity County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Nate Trujillo said.

The Legal Marijuana Now Party’s candidate in the race for the Second Congressional District has died, prompting a special election in February. Adam Charles Weeks died earlier this week, said Kevin O’Connor, the party’s candidate for U.S. Senate. “It’s a sad and sudden thing. We are pretty much taken aback,” he said. Weeks was facing off with Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Republican candidate Tyler Kistner to represent the district. That election will now be postponed. “The law is clear on what happens next,” Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement Thursday. “If a major party nominee...

Some Florida parents have turned to booze and weed to get through remote learning with their kids..."...parents...with joints in their hand and cigarettes in their mouth," Pride told Fox News. "Sometimes the joints are as big as cigars...Elysa Grossman, a Johns Hopkins University professor, and Susan Sonnenschein, a UMBC professor, polled parents earlier..."We found that parents who are stressed by having to help their children with distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic drink seven more drinks per month...

AUSTIN, TX--Donald Trump is stirring controversy after a recent appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast in which both of them got completely stoned. In the newly released video, Trump and Rogan are seen talking for over seven hours while smoking an entire bag of weed. During the seven-hour conversation, in which Trump's demeanor and speaking style never changed even though he was blitzed out of his gourd, they talked about everything from immigration policy to the reality that cosmic particles from other galaxies are always invisibly pelting our scalps and no one really talks about it. "I got this stuff in...

Democrats are taking an unprecedented gamble this month: voting to legalize cannabis at the federal level.The MORE Act would remove the penalties for marijuana, erase some criminal records and create grant programs for people hit especially hard by the war on drugs.Democrats say the timing is perfect: Support has been building for loosening marijuana restrictions over the last decade, with the most recent Gallup poll showing 66 percent of Americans favor legalization, including more than half of Republicans.The demands for racial justice that have ratcheted up following the killing of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd gave the bill the final...

More than 20 people lived on the property, which had several makeshift dwellings, a nursery and vehicles used in production, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said. Marijuana was processed to honey oil, a highly potent concentrate made by extracting the high-inducing chemical THC from cannabis. All seven victims and witnesses were Laotian, Bianco said. Six people were found dead on the property, and a woman who was shot there died later at a hospital. Partially eaten pizza sat in boxes in a circular dirt driveway of the dilapidated two-bedroom house where the shootings occurred. Three cars were parked outside —...

Detectives on Tuesday investigated what prompted the Labor Day killings of seven people at an illegal marijuana growing operation in a small, rural Southern California community known for its horse ranches and nurseries along dirt roads

Deputies responded to an assault with a deadly weapon call in the 45000 block of Highway 371 just after 12:30 a.m. Monday... A woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds was found at the location and transported by paramedics to a local hospital for treatment...was later pronounced dead at the hospital. A search of the property revealed six additional victims, all suffering from gunshot wounds. All six of those victims also died from their wounds... Investigators say evidence at the location indicated it was being used as an illegal marijuana growing facility. More than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and several hundred...

A highly decorated U.S. Forest Service police dog suffered nine stab wounds during a marijuana raid in Northern California. But he survived after he was airlifted to a veterinary clinic, the agency said Friday. What's more, it's the second time the dog, an 11-year-old Belgian Malinois named Ice, recovered after being seriously injured on the job. Ice was wounded Aug. 27 in the Klamath National Forest south of the Oregon border when he was released to catch a suspect who had fled down a steep hill to escape the raid that unearthed more than 5,500 marijuana plants. He kept hold...

In fiscal year 2019, the Office of Field Operations seized some 68,585 points of meth nationwide, compared to 118,153 pounds so far this year...since the borders have remained closed to only essential travel because of the coronavirus pandemic, officers said it’s forcing criminals to use other routes and methods of concealment.

Portland rioter Phillip Lawrence Nelson is now a suspect in a double-stabbing murder that occurred just one week after he was caught and let go by local law enforcement. The original charges against Nelson of interfering with a peace officer were dropped the day after his first arrest in early June, and he was released. Cassy Leaton and Najaf “Nate” Hobbs were found stabbed to death in Portland on June 16 after an apparent dispute over the building Nelson had been squatting in. Nelson faces two murder charges and is being held without bail. Nelson is hardly the first —...

The bags were dropped by the "green drone" Telegram group, which advocates for the legalization of cannabis in Israel, with "free love" being the group's slogan. A drone dropped hundreds of bags of cannabis on Thursday afternoon over Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, attracting dozens of confused people, who rushed to pick up as many bags as they could carry. The bags of cannabis were dropped by the "green drone" Telegram group, which advocates for the legalization of cannabis in Israel, with "free love" being the group's slogan. Before dropping the cannabis over Tel Aviv, the group published a message...