Free Republic

Yesterday I visited our local bookstore and was struck by the abundance of magazine covers promoting marijuana. Later my wife commented that she’s received two ads this week for cannabis products, something she’s never received before! What’s going on? In case you haven’t noticed or are simply distracted by the busyness of life, propaganda promoting marijuana and its legalization is bombarding us. Should we be concerned about something that is celebrated as a “harmless recreational” indulgence that progressive people should embrace excitedly? Recently our state newspaper ran a prominent piece by a young woman calling for weed to be legalized....

BISMARCK, N.D. - Supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana in North Dakota have succeeded in getting the measure on the November ballot. Secretary of State Al Jaeger says proponents submitted more than enough valid petition signatures. Supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana failed on a petition drive in 2016.

https://khn.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/ By Shefali Luthra 08/07/2018 When the American Medical Association — one of the nation’s most powerful health care groups — met in Chicago this June, its medical student caucus seized an opportunity for change. Though they had tried for years to advance a resolution calling on the organization to drop its decades-long opposition to single-payer health care, this was the first time it got a full hearing. The debate grew heated — older physicians warned their pay would decrease, calling younger advocates naïve to single-payer’s consequences. But this time, by the meeting’s end, the AMA’s older members had agreed...

Deliberately taking a small child’s life is unlawful everywhere in the world, even when the child is terminally ill and asks a doctor to end his or her suffering once and for all. There is an exception to this rule: Belgium. In 2014, that country amended its law on euthanasia, already one of the most permissive in the world, authorizing doctors to terminate the life of a child, at any age, who makes the request. For a year after the law passed, no one acted on it. Now, however, euthanasia for children in Belgium is no longer just a theoretical...

Dry Leaf Medical Marijuana Available To Pennsylvanians Next Week HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) - Medical marijuana in dry leaf and flower form will be available to registered patients in Pennsylvania for the first time, beginning next week. Gov. Tom Wolf's office said dry leaf cannabis will be available at about a dozen dispensaries starting Aug. 1. More dispensaries will offer the dry leaf and flower form over the coming weeks. The Health Department is expected to announce which dispensaries are carrying it sometime next week. The change was recommended by an advisory panel and accepted by Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine...

President Trump blasted the cost of medication in the US as part of his ongoing trade war, promoting German drug firms to make concessions and abandon price increases across America. A spokesman for Darmstadt-based pharmaceutical and chemical group Merck said: “We are currently planning no price increases in the US for the rest of the year 2018. They insisted their choice to cap medication prices in the US was one made “independently”. Pharmaceutical giant Bayer has followed Merek’s lead by signing an agreement to not increase prices for any prescription drugs till the end of 2018. According to German newspaper...

Long term, the goal of 3D bioprinting is to be able to 3D print fully functioning organs which can be used to replace the failing biological organs of humans in need of a transplant. That may still be years off, but Chicago-based biotech startup Biolife4D this week announced a major new milestone: Its ability to bioprint human cardiac tissue. The scientific landmark followed shortly after the company opened a new research facility in Houston. It involved the printing of a human cardiac patch, containing multiple cell types which make up the human heart. It could one day be used to...

We’re seeing an experiment in action. Over the past few years, more and more countries and states have been legalizing marijuana, and we’re finally getting to see what effect it really has. There have been all kinds of predictions. The naysayers have been sure that legalizing pot will all but bring the world to its doom, with drug abuse and crime running rampant. And on the other side, pot advocates have all but suggested that it’ll usher in a new era of peace and prosperity, where mankind finally settles its differences over a toke. Enough time has passed now, though,...

Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine. The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a muddled prosecution of a muddy case. Or it may have been...

A judge will hear arguments this week on a decision by the Rincon Valley Elementary School District to bar a 5-year-old girl from taking cannabis-based medication onto campus with her, a case that highlights issues with state and federal rules prohibiting medical marijuana in schools. Brooke Adams lives in Rincon Valley and has Dravet Syndrome, a rare disease that causes frequent and long-lasting seizures. Other complications include problems with controlling body temperature and developmental delays, the Dravet Syndrome Foundation website says. Brooke’s mom, Jana Adams, said her daughter relies on cannabidiol, otherwise known as CBD, to fend off her seizures...

sharetweetshareemail PETS & ANIMALS Dutchess County teen continues growth, recovery 9 years after dog mauling Ad Duration00:00 Current time01:44 Seek % buffered 00:14 Duration02:15 Volume EMBED More Videos AJ Ross reports on the fourth death from the Union City fire. By Tim Fleischer Updated 1 hr 48 mins ago ARLINGTON, Dutchess County (WABC) -- Nine years after he was viciously mauled by a dog, Frankie Flora is going in for more surgery but still with an amazingly positive attitude. "It's laser surgery," he said. "So it will take this and like some of the red spots like that and just...

World's most cloned dog 'Miracle Milly' has been copied 49 times by scientists in a bid to find the reason behind her record-breaking tiny size The dog, named 'Miracle Milly', weighed less than one ounce at birth She has become a global sensation, with more than 300,000 followers online Because of her diminutive stature, she was cloned a record 49 number of times Milly now stands less than 10cm (3.8in) tall and weighs the same as a large apple The smallest dog on the planet has been cloned a record-breaking 49 times – making her a two-time world record holder....

(FOX 26) - Scientists have taken a giant step towards curing cancer, according to a new study. Stanford university researchers have found a way to clear cancer in mice with immune-system stimulating injections. The report published in the Science Translational Medicine Journal last week shows promise in terms of destroying tumors. The new approach is a form of immunotherapy, which uses the body's own disease-fighting power to battle cancer. Scientists report using compound injections to effectively eradicate cancer tumors in mice. According to the study, their approach worked startlingly well -- even in mice who had lymphoma in two different...

Summary Background Interest in the use of cannabis and cannabinoids to treat chronic non-cancer pain is increasing, because of their potential to reduce opioid dose requirements. We aimed to investigate cannabis use in people living with chronic non-cancer pain who had been prescribed opioids, including their reasons for use and perceived effectiveness of cannabis; associations between amount of cannabis use and pain, mental health, and opioid use; the effect of cannabis use on pain severity and interference over time; and potential opioid-sparing effects of cannabis. -SNIP- Interpretation Cannabis use was common in people with chronic non-cancer pain who had been...

The drug, which is legal for medical use in the majority of US states, is mainly prescribed to ease pain. But this new research conducted in Colorado - which was the first state to legalize - suggests that short-term pain relief could weaken the body's resilience to pain over time. The researchers, from the Swedish Medical Center, Colorado, analyzed around 260 people who were involved in minor vehicle accidents and admitted to trauma centers. Of these, 54 tested positive for recent marijuana use while 16 claimed they used the drug more or less every day.

An emergency room doctor at a Northern California hospital has been suspended after she was caught on video allegedly ridiculing a patient after he collapsed from an apparent anxiety attack. Samuel Bardwell, a 20-year-old student at West Valley College in Saratoga, made a trip to the El Camino Hospital Los Gatos after passing out during a basketball practice on June 11, The Mercury News reported. Beth Keegstra, the ER doctor who attended to Bardwell — who reportedly was unable to speak and was numb at the time — seemingly didn't take the man's health claims seriously when she was caught...

Delegates at the Republican Party of Texas convention on Saturday voted to approve platform planks endorsing marijuana decriminalization, medical cannabis and industrial hemp. They are also calling for a change in cannabis's classification by the federal government. "We support a change in the law to make it a civil, and not a criminal, offense for legal adults only to possess one ounce or less of marijuana for personal use, punishable by a fine of up to $100, but without jail time," reads one of the party's new positions. "Congress should remove cannabis from the list of Schedule 1," says another....

With frustration mounting over lawmakers’ inaction on gun control, the American Medical Association on Tuesday pressed for a ban on assault weapons and came out against arming teachers as a way to fight what it calls a public health crisis. At its annual policymaking meeting, the nation’s largest physicians group bowed to unprecedented demands from doctor-members to take a stronger stand on gun violence — a problem the organizations says is as menacing as a lethal infectious disease. The action comes against a backdrop of recurrent school shootings, everyday street violence in the nation’s inner cities, and rising U.S. suicide...

The American Medical Association has formally — and overwhelmingly — endorsed a slate of gun control measures, calling gun violence a public health crisis. Why it matters: The AMA isn’t as powerful as it once was. But in the uphill climb to frame gun violence as a public health issue, having the AMA on board certainly can’t hurt.

President Trump said he likely will support a congressional effort to end the federal ban on marijuana, a major step that would reshape the pot industry and end the threat of a Justice Department crackdown. Trump’s remarks put him sharply at odds with Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on the issue. The bill in question, pushed by a bipartisan coalition, would allow states to go forward with legalization unencumbered by threats of federal prosecution. Trump made his comments to a gaggle of reporters Friday morning just before he boarded a helicopter on his way to the G-7 summit in Canada. His...