Free Republic

Molson Coors Brewing Co. (TAP) voiced concerns about the potential impact that cannabis legalization could have on its beer sales, in its latest 13F filing. Although it has been a slow process, the legalization of cannabis across various parts of the United States has ushered in new business opportunities and provided legitimate alternatives to once-clandestine industries. (See also: The Economic Benefits of Legalizing Weed.)Supporters of the marijuana legalization movement contend that this has a beneficial impact on everything from individual growers and distributors to secondary markets and governments, which could benefit from taxes on sales. However, there are also detractors...

What happens in Vegas really can stay in Vegas. Tourists catching a flight out of Sin City can now dump their leftover legal marijuana in metal containers set up at the airport. The 10 green bins dubbed “amnesty boxes” prevent federal transportation agents from finding pot on passengers during security screenings. The drug is legal in Nevada but still banned by the U.S. government. The containers were installed last week following a county ban on marijuana possession and advertising at McCarran International Airport, aiming to keep it in compliance with federal law. They are bolted to the ground and designed...

OTTAWA, February 13, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-family group has blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bill legalizing recreational cannabis as “monstrous” and a “devastating attack” on society and families, and is urging Canadians to lobby the Senate to reject the legislation. Most egregiously, Bill C-45 or the Cannabis Bill, poses significant risks for children, REAL Women of Canada vice president Gwen Landolt said in a critique posted on the group’s website. The Liberal bill allows children over age 11 to “freely possess, use, and even share marijuana up to five grams [10 joints] at a time,” she pointed out. “There...

With each mass shooting, calls rise from gun control advocates for tighter rules on firearms. The go-to policy prescription involves background checks. But a measure passed by the House and being considered in the Senate to expand the National Instant Criminal Background Check System would not only fail to fix major flaws in the system but would also probably introduce new ones.

A pro-family group has blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bill legalizing recreational cannabis as “monstrous” and a “devastating attack” on society and families, and is urging Canadians to lobby the Senate to reject the legislation. Most egregiously, Bill C-45 or the Cannabis Bill, poses significant risks for children, REAL Women of Canada vice president Gwen Landolt said in a critique posted on the group’s website. The Liberal bill allows children over age 11 to “freely possess, use, and even share marijuana up to five grams [10 joints] at a time,” she pointed out. “There is absolutely no recourse if a...

When will there be a serious discussion of the dangers of gun-free zones? When will the media point out in their discussions of the guns used or how the guns were obtained that another attack occurred in a gun-free zone? After listening to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) push for more gun control on Shepard Smith’s show on Fox News this afternoon, we decided to put up this post. Video above of when Senator Nelson made very similar comments later on during Special Report shortly after 6 PM EST. Here is a listing of mass public shootings in Florida where at...

California’s war on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution took a dramatic new step on Tuesday, as the city of Berkeley declared itself a “sanctuary city” for marijuana-related crimes. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to become a sanctuary city for legal adult-use marijuana, prohibiting city agencies and employees from turning over information on legal cannabis activities and assisting in enforcing federal marijuana laws. “I believe we can balance public safety and resisting the Trump administration,” Mayor Jesse Arreguin. “Berkeley is a sanctuary for people in our community.” The measure doesn’t prevent the...

I wrote here about the void in the Trump/Sessions, where four nominees for Assistant Attorney General positions are being held up due to Senate inaction. The four positions are crucial ones: Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division; Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division; Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division; and Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division. Why can’t these nominees get a vote? Apparently, it’s because of marijuana. Sen. Cory Gardner is vexed with Attorney General Sessions over enforcement of Federal marijuana laws in Colorado. Alfred Regnery, citing just one of the four major gaps at the Justice Department, points out the...

The Nickell family’s pastor told The Lexington Herald Leader that he had struggled with drug addiction for years...He and his parents attended morning and evening worship services together Feb. 4. That night, Nickell sat between his parents on the front pew, but was “out of it” on some substance, Caudill said.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has denied clemency for an Army veteran and green card holder with a felony drug conviction, according to both the man's lawyer and his mother, who said she got the news in a letter from the governor's office Wednesday. Advocates had hoped a pardon from the governor would encourage the government to grant citizenship to Miguel Perez Jr., retroactive to when he joined the military in 2001. His attorney, Chris Bergin, applied for citizenship on Perez's behalf in July. That retroactive application for citizenship is the only pathway left for Perez, 39, after a three-judge panel...

Liberal government's July 1 deadline for legal cannabis fast approaching The full implementation of legal cannabis could occur later than July 1, government officials told CBC News Tuesday. While the Liberal government is still hoping its legislation will pass Parliament before July — even though it faces entrenched opposition from some Conservative senators — it recognizes it may take some provinces 8 to 12 weeks of further work after the law passes before consumers can purchase legal, recreational marijuana from storefronts. Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, during an appearance before a committee of the whole inside the Senate Tuesday, said...

Abstract Recent work finds that medical marijuana laws reduce the daily doses filled for opioid analgesics among Medicare Part-D and Medicaid enrollees, as well as population-wide opioid overdose deaths. We replicate the result for opioid overdose deaths and explore the potential mechanism. The key feature of a medical marijuana law that facilitates a reduction in overdose death rates is a relatively liberal allowance for dispensaries. As states have become more stringent in their regulation of dispensaries, the protective value generally has fallen. These findings suggest that broader access to medical marijuana facilitates substitution of marijuana for powerful and addictive opioids....

The Association of German Criminal Officers (BDK) has spoken out in favor of ending the ban on cannabis, and has called for the decriminalization of all use of the drug. “The prohibition of cannabis has historically been seen as arbitrary and has not yet been implemented in an intelligent and effective manner,” the head of BDK, André Schulz, told Bild newspaper on Monday. “In the history of mankind, there has never been a society without the use of drugs; this is something that has to be accepted,” he added. “My prediction is cannabis will not be banned for long in...

Search for the nexus of a political debate over whether Florida should restore felons’ voting rights or purge its rolls and you’ll find a white, 71-year-old radiologist named Douglas Hornsby. A sitting commissioner in the sleepy Miami-Dade coastal town of North Bay Village, Hornsby was removed from office Monday after government officials determined he was never eligible to take his post. Turns out, the septuagenarian omitted an unresolved, 25-year-old felony cocaine conviction in Tennessee from his voting registration forms after he moved to Florida in the ’90s, making him an illegal voter and an illegitimate elected official. Hornsby, whose reason...

Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis.The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the massive shipments of hydrocodone and oxycodone — two powerful painkillers — to the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, amid the panel’s inquiry into the role of drug distributors in the opioid epidemic.“These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia,” said committee...

PHOENIX — A Lake Havasu City senator says he's still has yet to be convinced that marijuana has any legitimate medical uses. But Republican Sonny Borrelli said Monday the fact remains that voters did approve legalizing the drug for medical uses in 2010 and more than 150,000 Arizonans have state permission to buy and use it. So he figures it's the state's obligation to ensure that buyers are getting a product that's not tainted and, in fact, has the amount of psychoactive THC that buyers are promised. SB 1420 would give the state Department of Agriculture the same authority over...

Two-year old Maverick Hawkins sits on a red plastic car in his grandmother's living room in the picturesque town of Nevada City, Calif., in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. His playpal Delilah Smith, a fellow 2-year old, snacks on hummus and cashews and delights over the sounds of her Princess Peppa stuffie. It's playtime for the kids of the provocatively named Facebook group "Pot Smoking Moms Who Cuss Sometimes." Maverick's mother, Jenna Sauter, started the group after he was born. "I was a new mom, a young mom — I was 22 — and I was just feeling...

‘Healers become dealers’ Opioids kill first by slowing down breathing, then by depriving the brain and body of oxygen, the very stuff of life. By 2009, drug overdose deaths had become the leading cause of accidental deaths in the U.S., surpassing traffic fatalities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that the nation faced an opioid epidemic. Overprescribing has fueled much of this epidemic, said Dr. Anna Lembke, an associate professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences and anesthesiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “So how did healers become dealers?” she asked. It happened as medicine became an industry,...

While we’ve had over fifty Super Bowls with each accompanied by a more frenzied, fantastic wave of hype and mass marketing than the last, there is an annual event that is actually closing the gap on the NFL’s crown jewel when it comes to over-the-top hyper-marketing and product merchandising to Americans.Enter: The Flupocalypse.Each year it just gets bigger and bigger, with literally billions on the line as vaccine companies look to seize every opportunity to further their narrative that “vaccines are safe and effective, we should all vaccinate ourselves and our children, and anyone not getting with the State/Corporate program...

The hippies of the 70s are old. Time is merciless and none of us get out of here alive. My dad is a baby boomer born in 1944. He enjoyed his time as a 20 and 30 something in the '60s and '70s of America. It was a crazy time marked by free-love, tie-dyed shirts, pot-smoking, a free-wheeling youth, and the chaos of Vietnam. That was a long time ago. Until a year ago, my dad, now in his early 70s, was diagnosed with ParkinsonÂ’s Disease. My dad was a strong man who worked construction much of his life. His...