Free Republic

Judge: PTSD approved for medical marijuana use PHOENIX — State Health Director Will Humble acted illegally in denying access to medical marijuana to people — many of them former soldiers — suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, an administrative law judge has ruled. Judge Thomas Shedden said Humble relied solely on the lack of scientific “peer-reviewed” studies in determining that PTSD should not be added to the list of conditions for which marijuana could be made available. But the judge said the health chief should also have considered the testimony of doctors and nurses who said the drug has helped their...

Madison — Felon and former state Sen. Gary George will be able to mount his long-shot primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore after all. The state elections board voted unanimously to reject a challenge to George's nomination signatures and allow him on the ballot to challenge fellow Democrat Moore for Congress. The Government Accountability Board met at the Capitol on Tuesday to certify candidates for the Aug. 12 ballot. Milwaukee union official Sheila Cochran had challenged hundreds of the signatures George submitted on his nomination papers, saying they were collected by convicted felons, among other problems. Board staff said,...

Two people have been arrested in connection with the seizure of 19 marijuana plants, growing equipment and prescription pills at their Mandeville home, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office said. Members of the St. Tammany Parish Narcotics Task Force executed a search warrant May 21 on the home at 543 Cedarwood Drive after receiving information about a man named "Scooby'' selling marijuana at a Mandeville area car wash, the sheriff's office said.Scooby was later identified as Deshun Jones, 25. Detectives observed him at the car wash, then followed him home and arrested him. Jones initially provided authorities with a fake...

Smoking cannabis as a teenager lowers IQ into adulthood and could have a lifelong impact, researchers have warned. U.S. researchers found the damaging effects of the drug remained even if users stopped smoking marijuana as adults. They said teenagers face increased risks from smoking cannabis, because the brain is rapidly developing at this time. The scientists, from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the U.S., added that smoking cannabis affects critical thinking and memory during use, with the effects persisting for days. Reviewing a range of studies on marijuana smoking, they reiterated that cannabis impairs driving and increases...

Tobacco industry once had high hopes for marijuana business USA -- Richard Nixon was in the White House, his "war on drugs" was in full swing, yet Big Tobacco was secretly exploring the possibility of becoming Big Pot. Newly discovered documents from tobacco company archives at UC San Francisco show that major companies in the cigarette industry investigated joining the marijuana business in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The companies were driven then by the same shift in public attitudes that is now pushing legalization around the country. One company even asked a federal counter-narcotics official to secretly secure...

Drug smugglers pretend to be federal agency TUCSON, Ariz. — It looked like a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service truck. But the U.S. Border Patrol says it was actually the latest in a long line of creative attempts by smugglers to get illegal drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Agents spotted the white truck with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decals along a boundary fence in Douglas, Arizona, on Monday, while responding to reports of possible drug smuggling. When agents tried to contact those inside, the vehicle suddenly stopped and two people fled into Mexico. Agents say they found 3,200...

Maureen Dowd, author of “Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk”, speaks during a panel discussion during a luncheon at the Book Expo America convention, Saturday, June 5, 2004, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey) I never smoked marijuana before, and Maureen Dowd‘s haphazard experience with a weed-laced candy bar in her Denver hotel room certainly isn’t motivating me to book a plane ticket to what is soon to be dubbed the “Mile High State.” The New York Times columnist was in Colorado reporting on the state’s first months of legalized marijuana use when she decided to take what she later learned...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted. Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something...

Analysis Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, hero to the tea party and villain to liberals, predicted Saturday that Republicans will win control of the Senate in November, then went on to edge out Dr. Ben Carson in a straw poll taken on the last day of the 2014 Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. Cruz had uplifting words for the party faithful in attendance. “I am convinced we are going to retake the United States Senate in 2014,” the junior senator from Texas said, no equivocation whatsoever in his distinct voice. Cruz is the latest in a long line of polarizing...

Several Silicon Valley cannabis clubs to offer free weed to those who can prove they votedFree marijuana is the reward in store for certain voters on Tuesday in San Jose's municipal election. San Jose is in the process of choosing a new mayor -- and also passing new, more-restrictive rules on medical marijuana. A proposal the City Council is still considering would zone dispensaries out of business, weed supporters say -- so Tuesday's election is important. Half of the City Council's 10 seats are at stake. Select Silicon Valley medical marijuana dispensaries will give free discounted and in some cases...

The GOP-controlled House voted early Friday in favor of blocking the federal government from interfering with states that permit the use of medical marijuana. The somewhat surprising 219-189 vote came as the House debated a bill funding the Justice Department’s budget. The amendment by conservative GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California—the first state to legalize medical marijuana—came as almost half the states have legalized marijuana for medical uses, such as improving the appetites of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. …

Where The War On Pot Will Go To Die In some states, there's an untenable mismatch between the crime and the time, but does anyone think that pot—medical or recreational—will still be illegal in 10 years? Now that a majority of Americans—54% and climbing, according to Pew Research—believe that marijuana should be treated like beer, wine and liquor, it’s time to ask: where does the war on pot go to die? What episode will trigger that final skirmish that kicks over the hollowed-out edifice of marijuana prohibition like the Berlin Wall? What will be the final outrage against common sense...

Nearly five months into Colorado’s great pot experiment, the early returns are good. In Denver, home to the bulk of the first-in-the-nation retail stores, violent crime fell by 5.6 percent over the first four months of the year, with major property crimes down nearly twice that, according to the city’s police. State coffers, meanwhile, are flush with tax revenues from the nearly $50 million worth of recreational weed that was sold through March, the last month for which official estimates are available. Those sales translate into $7.3 million for the state, a number that jumps to $12.6 million when you...

MISSOULA, Mont. - A Montana man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage pleaded not guilty to murder Wednesday, Reuters reports. Last month, 29-year-old Markus Kaarma, of Missoula, allegedly shot and killed 17-year-old Diren Dede, of Hamburg, Germany, after the teen broke into his garage. The former U.S. Forest Service firefighter has been charged with deliberate homicide, according to the news agency.

Throwing a heavy net of restrictions over gun users was always going to entangle law abiding Coloradans’ Constitutional rights. But Sara Warren couldn’t have guessed how it would trip up her ability to make a living. No one foresaw her plight because no one thought through the battery of gun controls conceived in Washington DC and New York City and imposed on the Rocky Mountains.The President insisted; Joe Biden insisted; Michael Bloomberg insisted; and governing Democrats saluted: If we can grab guns here in western, purple Colorado, we can do it anywhere. The state’s malpractice was hasty, deliberate, and cowardly....

How The One Percent Will Legalize Marijuana BY MIKE ADAMS · FRI FEB 21, 2014 The federal government, along with anti-drug groups, would like to paint a portrait for the American public that stoned supporters of the legalized marijuana movement are all saggy-pant thugs and unemployed hippies -- nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is there are some very wealthy and influential people out there are working the system in an effort to legalize the leaf. People with LOTS of money have swooped in like stoner superheroes and written fat checks so that America can finally be...

A federal lawsuit is challenging Washington state’s authority to tax marijuana as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The case arises from the state’s attempt to collect sales taxes from a medical marijuana dispensary. But lawyer Douglas Hiatt, who filed it late Thursday, said it could throw a wrench in Washington’s plans for collecting taxes on recreational marijuana, too. The author of Washington’s recreational pot law, Alison Holcomb, disagreed. She doesn’t expect the lawsuit to get very far. …

Marijuana reform advocates hope Oklahoma will live up to its nickname – the Sooner State – by becoming the first U.S. jurisdiction to both legalize cannabis for personal use and allow it to be exported as a cash crop. In the best-case scenario for pro-pot campaigners, there will be two initiatives on the November ballot: One that would allow medical marijuana and another more far-reaching initiative that would comprehensively dismantle status quo pot policies. The medical marijuana initiative is further along. On May 18 supporters will begin collecting the required 155,216 signatures for ballot access – if opponents do not...

Colorado lawmakers approved the first financial system for the marijuana industry Wednesday, a network of uninsured cooperatives designed to give pot businesses a way to access basic banking services. The plan seeks to move the marijuana industry away from its cash-only roots. Banks routinely reject pot businesses for even basic services such as checking accounts because they fear running afoul of federal law, which considers marijuana and its proceeds illegal. The result: Pot shop owners deal in large amounts of cash, which makes them targets for criminals. Or they try to find ways around the problem, like drenching their proceeds...

Search warrant: Missoula man may have been high when German student shot Markus Kaarma may have been under the influence of marijuana when he shot and killed German exchange student Diren Dede, according to a search warrant requested by Missoula police. The search warrant also indicates that during previous burglaries of the Missoula home, unknown suspects had taken all the marijuana and marijuana pipes out of the garage. Kaarma, 29, is charged with deliberate homicide for the shooting of the foreign exchange student, who was finishing his junior year abroad at Big Sky High School. According to the affidavit, Kaarma...