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...

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...

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...

In a historic vote, Congress voted to support states on legalized medicinal marijuana. The measure will not allow the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to spend federal funds to interfere with states that have legalized medicinal marijuana. "The states have spoken, the American people have spoken and now for the first time the U.S. House of Representatives have spoken on allowing medical marijuana," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the sponsor of the measure, in a press conference on Friday.

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...

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...

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...

A study recently came out analyzing the damage to the brain caused by pot smoking. Unfortunately, it came out during the week of the Triduum, and a Catholic blog like this had another focus at that time. But it’s time to circle back and have a look.I wrote some time ago of my anecdotal observation that the pot smokers I knew all developed serious problems with motivation, and that the effects of being “high” lingered long after toking a joint and went on to become semi-permanent. It involved a glazed look, a shuffling gait, and a lethargic attitude largely exemplified...

DENVER - Federal agents and local officers are raiding four marijuana businesses tied to an alleged international money-laundering scheme. U.S. marshals arrested a suspect, Gerardo Uribe, a 33-year-old Colombian. Uribe was the last of four suspects arrested under a federal indictment unsealed Monday. The indictment charged Gerardo Uribe and his younger brother, Luis Uribe, along with another Colombian, Hector Diaz, and Denver attorney David Furtado with money-laundering crimes related to the illegal cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

The State of Colorado will start phasing in mandatory lab testing of marijuana edible products on May 1. Currently, marijuana product testing of any kind has been performed strictly on a voluntary basis. As Colorado ramps up its lab testing, CBS4 requested permission to perform independent lab tests of edible products but was forbidden by the Marijuana Enforcement Division. In a letter banning independent lab testing, MED Director Lewis Koski states, “licensed labs are only allowed to accept samples from ‘Retail Marijuana Establishments’ only.” (snip) But according to the labs, potency is just one issue with marijuana products. “We’ve found...

A gunbattle inside a North Park marijuana dispensary midday Friday left a robber dead and a security guard wounded, police said. Two men with handguns held up the shop to steal marijuana San Diego police homicide Lt. Manual del Toro said. Del Toro described the fleeing robber as a black man in his 20s, about 6 feet tall, 190 pounds, and wearing a blue hoodie. Around the corner, at Holistic Health Gurus, office worker Michael Adams arrived after the shooting and was surprised to hear what happened. "Ray Street is very artsy," Adams said. "It's very surprising to have any...

WASHINGTON – Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says he thinks the federal government should legalize marijuana. The 94-year-old retired justice tells NPR that public opinion has changed on the issue. Stevens also says that there isn't much distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages.

FRIDAY, April 25, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- American teens' use of marijuana doesn't increase when states approve the drug for medical use, a new study finds. "Any time a state considers legalizing medical marijuana, there are concerns from the public about an increase in drug use among teens," principal investigator Dr. Esther Choo, an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, said in a hospital news release. Choo's team examined 20 years of data from states that do and don't permit medical marijuana use. They found that legalizing medical marijuana did not lead to increased...

Young adults who smoke marijuana may be at risk for serious or even fatal heart problems, according to a study by French researchers on Wednesday. The findings in the Journal of the American Heart Association raises new concerns about the safety of marijuana, just as many parts of the world are relaxing laws on its use and medicinal marijuana is gaining popularity for treating certain health conditions. ...

While Americans of all ages in Colorado happily celebrate the legalization of marijuana in various forms on April 20, 2014 as a “smoking holiday” the mental health and safety risks are being ignored by the media.

Prosecutors have filed a first-degree murder charge against a 47-year-old Observatory Park man accused of killing his wife while she pleaded for help on a call with a 911 operator. Richard Kirk purchased marijuana candy about 6:40 p.m. Monday and is accused of shooting his wife to death about three hours later. ... The 44-year-old woman spent 13 minutes on the phone with the 911 operator. According to dispatch recordings, it took officers more than 15 minutes to arrive at the brick Tudor home. ...

Whoopi Goldberg is the newest columnist for The Denver Post’s site on marijuana, The Cannabist. Her first column published today, focused on her vape pen named Sippy which, she says “changed her life.” Whoopi gets “glaucoma-induced headaches” and a few puffs on her pen does wonders.

It's a sunny afternoon at Kelly's Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and Nikki Esquibel is getting stoned. But you wouldn't know it. Nikki Esquibel, 19, has a medical prescription for marijuana. She uses a vaporizer pen around her neighborhood in Los Angeles. The 19-year-old, who has a medical prescription for marijuana, is "smoking" pot with a handheld vaporizer, or a vape pen. It's sleek, black, and virtually indistinguishable from a high-end e-cigarette. That's the point, says Esquibel. "I use it mostly around my neighborhood. It's easy to hide." The vapor coming from the device doesn't even have...

Every day, the push toward national legalization of marijuana seems more and more inevitable. As more and more politicians and noted individuals come out in favor of legalizing or at least decriminalizing different amounts of pot, the mainstream acceptance of the recreational use of the drug seems like a bygone conclusion. But before we can talk about legalization, have we fully understood the health effects of marijuana?