Free Republic

US veteran's children taken away over his use of medical marijuana When Raymond Schwab talks about his case, his voice teeters between anger and sadness. "People who don't understand the medical value of cannabis are tearing my family apart," says the Kansas father and US veteran, who has a prescription for marijuana in neighboring Colorado, where it is legal. Nine months ago, Schwab tried to move to Colorado to grow medical marijuana for fellow veterans. While he and his wife were there preparing for the move, the state of Kansas took five of their children, ages 5 to 16, into...

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to consider the role legal marijuana could play in the prescription opioid epidemic.Warren asked for more research into medical marijuana and painkiller addiction in a letter to the CDC director, Thomas Friedan."Opioid abuse is a national concern and warrants swift and immediate action," Warren wrote. Her request comes as politicians, including the presidential nominees, search for the best response to the opioid epidemic. The use of prescription opioids doubled between 2000 and 2014, according to the CDC. And Massachusetts experienced its highest number of unintentional opioid...

Donald Trump's position on cannabis appears to have flip-flopped wildly over the years. (No comb-over jokes - promise.) "Legalized marijuana is always a very difficult question - for medicinal purposes and medical purposes, it's fine," says Trump in the video. Earlier this year, Trump told FOX's Sean Hannity he supports medical users "100 percent," but added that overall, marijuana legalization has been "a bad thing for Colorado." He added the Evergreen state is now facing some "big, big problems." But back in 1990, Trump told the Sarasota Herald America's drug policy was "a joke," and legalizing all drugs was the...

Just after Uncle Ike's Pot Shop opened in Seattle's Central District, it boasted in an ad, "Our weed cures Ebola." Knowing that merchants in the new industry weren't allowed to make any medical claims about pot, the fine print disclaimer winked: "If you believe this ad, you are a (expletive) moron." That in-your-face Vern Fonk-on-weed sensibility has helped make Uncle Ike's the state's top-selling pot store, with $1.4 million in monthly sales. It's also changing the personality of 23rd Avenue and East Union Street, once a predominantly African-American corner, with neon signs, a wall-mural ad, food truck, sign-waving mannequin and...

Obama's war against medical marijuana is the biggest of any president, which is the exact opposite of what he had promised Campaign promisesIn May 2008, Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt said that Obama would end DEA raids on medical marijuana in states where it's legal.Also in 2008, Obama said that he supported the "basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs" and that he was "not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws."Federal raids against medical marijuana in states where it's legalDespite Obama’s campaign...

California's largest organization of practicing physicians, the California Medical Association, announced Monday that it is backing a proposed 2016 ballot initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. A coalition of entrepreneurs, activists, environmentalists and state politicians are backing the initiative, led by billionaire technology investor Sean Parker. CMA said in a statement that its members believe controlling, tracking and studying pot will better protect public health than "ineffective prohibition." Spokeswoman Molly Weedn said the medical association is most interested in provisions of the proposal that would expand marijuana research. "We feel that this initiative specifically is in line with...

New research published today in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine confirms what many of us have suspected for some time: If you smoke a lot of weed -- like a lot of it -- it can potentially do permanent damage to your short-term memory. Professor Reto Auer of the University of Lausanne led a team of researchers who examined data on the marijuana habits of nearly 3,400 Americans over a 25-year period. At the end of the study period, the subjects took a battery of tests designed to assess cognitive abilities -- memory, focus, ability to make quick decisions, etc....

Floridians will decide this November whether to allow medical marijuana in the state. On Wednesday, a constitutional amendment to legalize the drug gained enough signed petitions to qualify for the ballot next November. If passed, the amendment would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for people with “debilitating conditions” such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article56931218.html#storylink=cpy

Topeka - Navy veteran Raymond Schwab started treating symptoms from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with a slew of prescription medications that he said nearly ruined his life. But he found relief in cannabis therapy that helped him to get a degree and be a more effective parent, Schwab told a panel of Kansas senators on a second day of hearings. The Kansas Senate's Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee heard Schwab - who was deployed during the Bosnian War in the 1990s - and other opponents testify about a bill that would soften criminal penalties for marijuana possession, allow for hemp oil...

One person is brain dead and five others are seriously ill after taking part in a drug trial for an unnamed pharmaceutical firm at a clinic in north-west France. The French health ministry said the six patients had been in good health until taking the oral medication. It did not say what the new medicine was intended to be used for, but a source close to the case told AFP that the drug was a painkiller containing cannabinoids, an active ingredient found in cannabis plants. The health minister, Marisol Touraine, said on Friday the six had been taking part in...

AUSTIN, Texas – A black Texas middle-school student threw a temper tantrum in a video that also shows adults seemingly unwilling to do anything to restore civility. User bklynblke posted a nearly 3 minute tirade to LiveLeak Monday showing the young girl climb on top of tables in the Westview Middle School cafeteria before going off on a profanity-laced rant against school officials and law enforcement, repeatedly challenging them to "touch me, I dare you." VIDEO The video appears to have been recorded by a student sitting at an adjacent table, where other students seem unconcerned, as if it's just...

Townhall's Steve Chapman advocates marijuana legalization to combat El Chapo of the Sinaloa Cartel and other narcotraficatismos.If we truly want to hurt the major drug traffickers, there is a simple way: legalize the use, sale and production of marijuana. - El Chapo Got Caught. So What? Legalization in Netherlands has really solved their problems--right. Legalziation there merely puts organized crime in a different court of play. Netherlands has pulled back from some its legalization policies in the wake of the failures.Marijuana is the least problematic, so lets count some of the ways... Is It Worth Losing Your Manhood?Does smoking pot...

All across America last weekend, panicked drug users rushed to their dealers to stock up on marijuana, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine for fear of running out. The arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the biggest drug cartel in Mexico, was sure to cause a sudden shortage of illegal substances in this country. That's right. And I'm Queen Latifah. In reality, the capture of the narcotics kingpin is likely to have about as much impact on drug supplies as Martian solar storms do. You wouldn't expect long lines at the gas pump if the CEO of Exxon Mobil...

A couple weeks ago, I posted about a case in Kansas in which a couple was wrongly raided by a police tactical team. Robert and Addie Harte and their two children were held in their home by armed officers for over two hours as the officers searched the house for marijuana. They found no drugs. After spending $25,000 to get a judge to order the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department to turn over documents related to the search and investigation leading up to it, the Hartes discovered that Robert Harte, along with hundreds of other people, became a suspect when Missouri...

A couple weeks ago, I posted about a case in Kansas in which a couple was wrongly raided by a police tactical team. Robert and Addie Harte and their two children were held in their home by armed officers for over two hours as the officers searched the house for marijuana. They found no drugs. After spending $25,000 to get a judge to order the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department to turn over documents related to the search and investigation leading up to it, the Hartes discovered that Robert Harte, along with hundreds of other people, became a suspect when Missouri...

Through the use of images… I’ll show you what it brings. But before I do that (just to be fair), I will say that the drug has its medicinal benefits, there’s no doubt about that, but medicinal patients are hardly the bulk of the enthusiasts or the consumers. They might represent 10% or less of that base. The other 90% represents the following: Filthy dirty homeless drug addicts hanging out on your street corners. Pan handling, and when asked to leave… they respond, hey man I thought this place was cool man? I thought I could just sit here and...

Some state-certified marijuana labs testing for microbes such as E.coli and mold appear more friendly to pot merchants than others, according to an analysis by a Woodinville data scientist. Four labs rejected none of the pot they tested over a three-month period last year, according to the analysis by Jim MacRae. Four other labs failed more than 12 percent of samples tested over the same time, with two labs rejecting 44 percent of samples for microbes. “It’s almost impossible for that to happen,” said David Lampach, co-founder of Steep Hill Labs in Tukwila, of the disparity. After sifting through public...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) A deputy who works for a Northern California anti-narcotics task force is facing felony drug charges after he was arrested delivering $2 million worth of marijuana to someone in Pennsylvania. According to a criminal complaint, officers arrested Yuba County Sheriff Deputy Christopher M. Heath, along with 2 other men, driving across the country with 122 packages of marijuana. Each package weighed about a pound. The trio was stopped on December 29 after police received a tip. All three were booked into York County Prison. Heath, 37, was also carrying his badge, his duty firearm and $11,000...

<p>LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) - As the price of marijuana continues to drop, Washington pot businesses are struggling to keep up with the changes.</p> <p>The Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1O6nqKx ) that since legal marijuana entered the market in July 2014, prices have dropped from $25 to $30 per gram to about $10 a gram now.</p>

“If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism…The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” – Ronald Reagan We’re entering an unusual time in politics. It used to be conservatism versus liberalism; that was the standard by which everything was judged. There was little to no nuance within the two groups. I’m not saying that was incorrect. For the time, it was perfectly appropriate. Now, however, we’ve become a less...