Free Republic

By way of preamble, I know a lot of you folks are more or less down on the SSD program. Either that it's being abused or it shouldn't exist. That being said, a Marine buddy of mine whose attorneys expected him to have a slam dunk SSD case (multiple back injuries with multiple medical documentation) went into a Chicago courtroom this morning and left it wondering where Kansas went, so to speak. He got grilled and scoffed at and was told to go to a clinic where they do "wacky tobaccy." Federal judge, mind you, and this was all on...

Dear wrote that “herb” was created by God, so man’s laws against the drug are against God. He also ranted against women, posting, “god made the woman out of the mans side sorry but womans lib cant change it.”

He seemed to have a separate life online. An online personals ad seeking women in North Carolina interested in bondage and sadomasochistic sex showed a picture that appeared to be Mr. Dear and used an online pseudonym associated with him. The same user also appeared to have turned to online message boards to seek companions in the Asheville area with whom he could smoke marijuana. On Cannabis.com, the writer said in December 2005: "AIDS, hurricanes, we are in the end times."

Since his 2000 divorce, Dear seems to have become a loner who lived a quiet life - but he appears to have been much more aggressive online - seeking bondage and sadomasochistic sex online and companions to smoke marijuana with...He also appears to have posted a series of Biblical ramblings on the message boards of Cannabis.com ten years ago under a username apparently linked to Dear.

The suspect accused of killing three people in an attack on a Planned Parenthood in Colorado was once a happy father and art dealer who painted and listened to rock music, a report has revealed. Robert Dear, 57, who allegedly burst into the clinic in Colorado Springs on Friday and opened fire, was a recluse who moved to a remote cabin in the state a year ago, his neighbors have told Daily Mail Online. But a new report by the New York Times has revealed that Dear was once a happily married family man who lived with his wife and...

Dazzan said that when they looked at the corpus callosum of those who smoke high-strength cannabis, they found that there was a significant difference in the white matter compared to people who have never tried the drug, and people who smoke low-strength cannabis. The THC chemical acts on cannabinoid receptors which the corpus callosum contains. The team utilized two scanning methods to examine the corpus callosum in the brains of 56 patients who reportedly experienced a first episode of psychosis, and 43 healthy participants from the local community. One method required the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) while the...

[...] Last week a group of 12 House members led by Ted Lieu of California wrote to House leadership to push for a provision in the upcoming spending bill that would strip half of the funds away from the DEA's Cannabis Eradication Program, and put that money toward programs that "play a far more useful role in promoting the safety and economic prosperity of the American people:" domestic violence prevention and overall spending reduction efforts.Each year the DEA spends about $18 million in efforts with state and local authorities to pull up marijuana plants being grown indoors and outdoors. The program has...

Transients are everywhere in Garberville, a tiny town with fewer than 1,000 residents. Dozens have set up a tent city on a hill just outside of town, dubbed “Hippie Hill.” The problem has given rise to a movement in Garberville to take back the town from vagrants and drug addicts who vandalize and burglarize homes and businesses, do hard drugs in public, urinate in the streets and harass tourists, who are now shunning the town. “There is a bit of a community revolt,” said Humboldt County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jesse Taylor, who is based in Garberville. Allen said she carries a...

Marijuana legalization advocates want the support of Black Lives Matter activists in 2016. But a debate on tactics is brewing legalization groups and Black Lives Matter activists who worry people of color are being left out of the burgeoning legal marijuana industry. WASHINGTON — Leading up to his meeting with the Black Lives Matter group Campaign Zero at the Frederick Douglass House in September, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders steeled himself for an argument. He’d only previously come face-to-face with Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to interrupt him. But over the course of the meeting, the activists spoke authoritatively...

It turns out that Denver, Colorado may not be the only major American city seeing an increase in crime following marijuana legalization. Seattle, Washington looks to be experiencing some blowback as well. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, "[a]dult possession of marijuana became legal [in Washington State] on December 6, 2012, 30 days after the passage of I-502, the voter-approved initiative legalizing marijuana for adults 21 and older. A year-and-a-half later, the first retail marijuana store opened its doors on July 8, 2014." When we look at the number of total and property crimes in Seattle from 2008 through 2014,...

Another day, another controversy. Medical marijuana activists are rightly upset over comments DEA head, Chuck Rosenberg, made to reporters last week.During a Q&A, he talked about his stance on medical marijuana. "What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal because it's not. We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don't call it medicine -- that is a joke." Right, so you want to have an intellectual debate prefaced with medical marijuana is a joke. Want to clarify that bit a more? "There are pieces...

Canada was recently ranked the freest country in the world, but newly installed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn't about to let it rest on its maple leaves. He won the October national elections after proposing something no major American presidential nominee has ever dared to endorse: legalizing marijuana. His Liberal Party argued that because of the current ban, "proceeds from the illegal drug trade support organized crime and greater threats to public safety, like human trafficking and hard drugs." Its platform called for legalizing, regulating and taxing cannabis. The Liberals probably benefited from Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hysterical claim...

Hillary Clinton on Saturday called for looser federal regulations governing marijuana, to boost scientific research on a drug that many tout for relieving pain, among other medical benefits, according to media reports. Speaking at a campaign event in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the Democratic presidential candidate said changing U.S. rules would acknowledge the drug's potential for medical uses and give scientists access to the drug for further investigation. "Universities, (the) National Institutes of Health can start researching what is the best way to use it, how much of a dose does somebody need, how does it interact with other medications," Clinton...

XLR-11, PB-22, AB-FUBINACA, MAB-CHMINACA, 5F-AMB. These are the cryptic and sometimes unpronounceable names of the most dangerous drugs you’ve never heard of. They are responsible for kidney injury, psychosis, seizures, coma and death. For instance, AB-FUBINACA was responsible for a spate of recent poisonings at Wesleyan University. And MAB-CHMINACA was associated with more than 100 hospitalizations in Baton Rouge. Neither of these drugs were known to the scientific community until late last year. These drugs are synthetic cannabinoids – several of the hundreds that have been identified as new “designer drugs” in the past five years. More than 150 were...

(CNSNews.com) - "Drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States, ahead of motor vehicle deaths and firearms (deaths)," the Drug Enforcement Agency announced on Wednesday. In 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 46,471 people in the United States died from drug overdoses, and more than half of those deaths were caused by prescription painkillers and heroin. That compares with the 35,369 who died in motor vehicle crashes and 33,636 who died from firearms, as tallied by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Sadly this report confirms what we’ve...

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a Senate bill today that would legalize recreational marijuana use on a federal level, The Hill reports. This is the first Senate bill ever to propose completely legalizing recreational marijuana. The Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act would remove marijuana from the Drug Enforcement Administration's list of "most dangerous drugs" and from the Controlled Substances Act, which regulates the manufacture, possession and use of certain drugs, according to The Huffington Post.

Ohio voters have rejected a ballot measure seeking to legalize recreational and medical marijuana use in the state. Failure of the proposed constitutional amendment follows an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording and an investigation into the proposal's petition signatures.

Sen. Bernie Sanders brought marijuana into the national conversation last week, calling for legalizing and regulating the drug. Under his plan, people in possession of the substance would be treated no differently than people smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. By removing marijuana from the list of dangerous drugs, Sanders' move would allow states to legalize the marijuana without Washington having a say. Beyond campaign speeches meant to appeal to young voters, a host of state ballot initiatives on marijuana will be greeting voters next November. In California, which became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, residents may...

Myths about marijuana are apparent in college papers, online, and in the media. The users are eager to believe they don’t have a problem, so an entire mythology has grown up around the plant. But here are the counterarguments

Agents found a hole in the floor near a warehouse in Otay Mesa -— a city south of San Diego -- that led to a shaft descending almost 32 feet down in the ground. The shaft connected to an underground passageway, which included lighting, ventilation and a rail system, leading to the U.S.-Mexico border. We see a super tunnel open for business once every year or so,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy told ABC News today. “Just when they think they’re ready to move, we put it out of business.” The Tunnel Task Force conducted a six-month investigation that revealed the...