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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers from Spain have found a strong and independent link between cannabis use and the onset of psychosis at a younger age. The association, they say, cannot be explained by chance, and is not related to gender or the use of other drugs. It is, however, related to the amount of cannabis used.

U.S. growers produce nearly $35 billion worth of marijuana annually, making the illegal drug the country's largest cash crop, bigger than corn and wheat combined, an advocate of medical marijuana use said in a study released on Monday. The report, conducted by Jon Gettman, a public policy analyst and former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, also concluded that five U.S. states produce more than $1 billion worth of marijuana apiece: California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington. California's production alone was about $13.8 billion, according to Gettman, who waged an unsuccessful six-year legal battle to...

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz — A 61-year-old woman found with a trunkful of marijuana was convicted of drug running in what prosecutors said was an attempt to earn cash for a bingo habit. State troopers found 10 bundles of pot totaling 214 pounds hidden in Leticia Villareal Garcia's car trunk last year when they stopped her outside Bisbee, in far southeastern Arizona. Villareal told jurors before they convicted her Thursday that her only regular income was a $275 monthly welfare check, but she frequently played bingo and occasionally won thousands of dollars. Prosecutor Doyle Johnstun said the game was Villareal's undoing.

Marijuana may help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by reducing inflammation in the brain, researchers reported yesterday. Tests on rats indicated that a compound found in marijuana stopped the loss of brain cells caused by inflammation and improved the animals' memories. The findings, presented to a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, may help explain some studies that suggest people who regularly smoked marijuana in the 1960s and '70s are now less likely than others the same age to develop Alzheimer's. [SNIP] ``The baby boomers are just getting old enough now that we can just see this,"...

ASHEVILLE (AP) — A South Carolina man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for cultivating a marijuana garden in the Nantahala National Forest in Macon County. Timothy Olin Bennett, 47, of Walterboro, S.C., was sentenced Tuesday at a hearing in U.S. District Court before Judge Lacy Thornburg. He had pleaded guilty earlier to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana. The office of U.S. Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert said Bennett, James Patrick Davis and Josh Lee Flynn maintained a marijuana garden inside the national forest between October 2001 and November...

Leon Nunn stepped out his front door one recent afternoon only to be waved back by a squadron of drug agents using a battering ram on a neighbor's home. The half-million dollar home in the quiet subdivision was stuffed with high-grade marijuana, plants covering nearly every square foot. The bust is one example of a phenomenon that has come to light recently in subdivisions around the state's capital. Marijuana growers with suspected ties to Asian organized crime have been buying suburban homes — many in newer developments — because of the anonymity the drug dealers believe the neighborhoods afford. They...

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - A woman admitted to smoking marijuana daily with her 13-year-old son to reward him for completing his homework. Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several charges Monday and will be sentenced Nov. 27. Livelsberger, of Conewago Township, admitted in Adams County court that she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11, and that she often gave it to him as a reward. The boy told police that he was required to do his homework as soon as he got home from school, and then was allowed to smoke marijuana with his mother,...

VALENCIA — A Tracy man stopped Thursday afternoon for not wearing his seat belt in Southern California was found carrying about 400 kilograms — about 880 pounds — of cocaine in the back of his pickup, California Highway Patrol officials said. Juan Alvarez, 31, was arraigned Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on two felony charges: possession for sale of a controlled substance and transportation of a controlled substance, according to court documents. Both charges carry an enhancement for exceeding 80 kilograms and could net Alvarez a maximum of 50 years in prison. Alvarez did not enter a plea...

Generally, there are two types of marijuana users. First is the most commonly stereotyped “stoner,” depicted in the media of movies (e.g. Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and television (e.g. Shaggy from Scooby Doo). These are the dead-end job, ambitionless abusers who ingest marijuana to escape their already dismal lives. They represent the image which is most often associated with marijuana use. Certainly, the average American high school is teeming with similar directionless pot-smoking losers, further cementing this public perception.

It's election season again, and, in the world of drug-law reform, that can mean only one thing: Time for federal narcos at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy – home to the nation's "drug czar," John Walters – and their buddies in the Drug Enforcement Administration to get busy spending your hard-earned tax dollars – and using their official titles, offices, and government e-mail addresses – to get out on the campaign trail in an attempt to thwart citizen-driven – and thus, also taxpayer-supported – ballot initiatives that seek to reform marijuana-related laws. Revising his 2002 role...

It turns out that alcohol is legal for the simplest, most nostalgic, and most American reason of all. Despite its risks and harmful side-effects, adults are reserved right to drink because they are independent adults in a free country. For all of the empty rhetoric about economics and black markets, the end of Prohibition was due to a single principle: even if drinking may be bad for society, government has no right to keep the people from doing it. The ability to get drunk is an inalienable right that we have forever confirmed with the 18th Amendment.

Denver DEA Rep: Don't Legalize It Colorado -- The Drug Enforcement Agency is stepping into the political fray to oppose a statewide ballot issue that would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. In an e-mail to political campaign professionals, an agent named Michael Moore asks for help finding a campaign manager to defeat the measure, which voters will consider in November. If passed, it would allow people 21 and older to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana. In the e-mail, which was sent from a U.S. Department of Justice account, Moore also writes that the group has $10,000...

White House Sends Money To Fight Pot Growing Washington, DC -- The White House is sending money and some momentary manpower to reinforce the fight against California marijuana growers. When national drug czar John Walters lands in Fresno on Tuesday, he'll be bringing a commitment of an additional $2.2 million in law enforcement funding. The money will include $100,000 grants for Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties, as well as more support for a coordinated anti-pot campaign. He'll also be bringing the extra attention that comes along with the job of directing the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy....

WASHINGTON -- The government's anti-drug ad campaign has not been proven to deter children from using drugs, and lawmakers should consider reducing funding for the $1.2 billion program, congressional auditors said Friday. The Government Accountability Office based its recommendation on its review of an independent evaluation of the media campaign by Westat Inc. The government has spent about $1.2 billion since 1998 on scores of television, print and radio ads designed to discourage drug use among youth. The ads also describe parents as the anti-drug. President Bush requested another $120 million for next year. Westat found the ads had no...

The reporters made their way through the dim lights and small huts of Virginia City's Chinatown. In the huts, one of the reporters later wrote, "A lamp sits on the bed, the length of the long pipe-stem from the smoker's mouth; he puts a pellet of opium on the end of a wire, sets it on fire, and plasters it into the pipe much as a Christian would fill a hole with putty; then he applies the bowl to the lamp and proceeds to smoke--and the stewing and frying of the drug and the gurgling of the juices in the...

In a large raid preceding the harvest season, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department has seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million. Two men found at the scattered gardens near Hyatt Lake on Monday remain in Jackson County Jail on immigration holds and the investigation is continuing, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. Officials had watched the growing operation, believed to be linked to a Mexican drug cartel, and swept in Monday to destroy it just before harvest time, sheriff's Lt. Pat Rowland said. SWAT teams from Jackson and Douglas counties and Oregon State...

Marijuana Amendment Will Be On Ballot Denver -- Coloradans are to decide this fall whether to make it legal under state law for anyone age 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Secretary of State Gigi Dennis said Wednesday that backers of that initiative had turned in enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 7 general election. The proposal will be Amendment 44 on the state ballot, Dennis said. Under Colorado law, anyone in possession of an ounce or less of marijuana can be charged with a Class 2 petty offense, punishable by a fine of...

Would you support the creation of safe-injection sites for drug users in your community? * Yes * No

Voters have been losing their taste for the war on drugs lately; in the past few years, states from Arizona and Alaska to California and Hawaii have moved toward making marijuana, in particular, a low priority for law enforcement, with first-offense possession cases often dismissed with small-time fines and medical-marijuana measures on the books in several states. But the initiative voters in Nevada will be considering this fall goes much further: The “tax and regulate” measure, whose supporters got it on the ballot by collecting 86,000 signatures, would allow anyone over 21 to possess up to one ounce for personal...

ederal agents arrested more than 130 alleged drug traffickers from coast-to-coast Tuesday who U.S. officials said smuggled heroin from Mexico and offered phone-up home delivery like a takeout pizza shop. Beginning before dawn, Drug Enforcement Administration agents conducted arrest raids and searches, seeking up to 150 people, about half of them illegal aliens, according to senior drug enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the official announcement. By early afternoon, the investigation had produced 131 arrests in 15 cities, from Charleston, S.C., to Los Angeles, based on 10 federal indictments and state charges, the officials said. Known as...