Free Republic

TOPEKA, Kan. -- A white Kansas state lawmaker arguing against the legalization of marijuana suggested that it and other drugs were originally outlawed in part because blacks were predisposed to abusing drugs because of their "character makeup - their genetics and that." State Rep. Steve Alford, a 75-year-old Republican from Ulysses in the state's southwestern corner, apologized Monday for remarks he made Saturday during a public meeting at a hospital in Garden City. One NAACP leader called Alford "an idiot" over the remarks.

If you live in a place where recreational pot use is legal, you’re probably wondering whether you need to start worrying about getting prosecuted for it. The answer is probably not, at least according to initial indications from the dozen or so U.S. attorneys general who get to make that call. [...] Of the 13 U.S. attorneys presiding in the eight states with laws making recreational use legal, several have indicated they’re interested only in going after marijuana distributors or users with ties to crime or violence. [...]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a “cataclysmic mistake” by rescinding Obama-era federal marijuana policies, according to Roger Stone, President Trump’s former campaign adviser. Mr. Stone, 65, formed a bipartisan, pro-marijuana lobbying group earlier this year, the United States Cannabis Coalition, “dedicated to influencing federal level decision makers, including the president, so they honor state’s rights and state mandated marijuana laws as well as reform our antiquated and failed federal drug laws,” according to its website. Mr. Stone, the president’s campaign adviser through August 2015, criticized the attorney general’s recent decision to roll back marijuana protections during a luncheon Friday at...

Cite car accidents, opioid epidemic, rule of law as reasons for support Law enforcement and prosecutor organizations gave their support to Attorney General Jeff Sessions's Thursday decision to rescind Obama-era guidance which discouraged prosecutors from enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in states which had legalized the drug. Sessions's guidance most prominently overturned a 2013 memo from then-Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. Issued in the wake of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington state, the memo instructed U.S. Attorneys to not enforce marijuana's schedule I status in states where its recreational consumption had been legalized and regulated. In its...

Excerpts - Forty-six states — including Sessions' home state of Alabama — have legalized some form of medical marijuana in recent years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eight of those states also allow recreational marijuana. The only legal protection now for medical marijuana growers, processors, sellers and users is a temporary measure sponsored by Republican California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Democratic Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer prohibiting the U.S. Department of Justice from using government funds to target them.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams on Friday said he's troubled by the overproduction of marijuana in Oregon and the black market exportation of the crop to other states, though he declined to detail how his office will carry out a new federal directive stripping legal protections for marijuana businesses. In his first public comments since Thursday's announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice, Williams told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he's awaiting additional guidance from federal officials. He offered a cautious response, saying he doesn't "believe in overreacting."' "I want to be methodical and thoughtful about what we do here in the District...

Former Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson reacted angrily to President Trump's apparent abandonment of a campaign pledge to leave pot policy to the states, saying he hopes the pivot ends Trump's shot at re-election. Johnson, who served two terms as a Republican governor of New Mexico, said the Trump administration is "grossly underestimating the anger this will create." "I hope it dooms his re-election. Trump promised to leave marijuana to the states," Johnson told the Washington Examiner.

We are supposedly a nation of laws, not men, but our lawmakers have ensured over the years that we are increasingly at the whim of men, elected or appointed, instead of the law. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has declared that he will reverse an Obama Administration position allowing states to decide on marijuana legalization. Now, local United States Attorneys will be empowered to decide. But neither the Obama Administration nor Jeff Sessions should do anything other than enforce the law, and federal law criminalizes marijuana. The solution here is not to ignore the federal law, but to repeal it. To...

Scott Adams has an interesting take on Sessions' recent announcement regarding federal pot laws enforcement. It's interesting on a couple of levels. It implies that Sessions is doing that 4D chess thing that the pro-Sessions people like to think, and if that's so, it makes me wonder (and desperately hope) that the Freep Sessions-cheerleading-section are right about his ability to work at a higher level than we Never-Sessions people can appreciate. ...but I dream.

Starting later this year, residents of Pennsylvania will be allowed to seek out medicinal marijuana products as a treatment option for 17 health conditions. There’s just one catch: Any patient who also happens to be a proud gun owner must first relinquish or trade in his weapons before receiving his medicine, according to a statement from the Pennsylvania State Police. “It’s unlawful to keep possession of firearms obtained prior to registering (for medicinal marijuana),” said state police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The Pennsylvania State Police is not in the business of offering legal advice, but it...

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado on Thursday said he is prepared to retaliate against Attorney General Jeff Sessions' move to rescind 2013 federal guidance that discouraged prosecutors from pursuing cases involving marijuana in states that have legalized the drug.

Colorado’s top federal prosecutor said his office won’t alter its approach to enforcing marijuana crimes after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew a policy Thursday that allowed pot markets to emerge in states that legalized the drug. The statement by U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer came amid bipartisan outrage over Sessions’ decision to end the so-called Cole memorandum, which sharply limited what charges prosecutors could pursue in legal pot states. He will allow federal prosecutors to decide how aggressively to enforce longstanding federal law banning pot. Troyer said his office will continue to focus on “identifying and prosecuting those who create...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will roll back an Obama-era policy that gave states leeway to allow marijuana for recreational purposes. Two sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Hill that Sessions will rescind the so-called Cole memo, which ordered U.S. attorneys in states where marijuana has been legalized to deprioritize prosecution of marijuana-related cases. The Associated Press first reported the decision. Sessions, a vocal critic of marijuana legalization, has hinted for months that he would move to crack down on the growing cannabis market. Sessions, since taking over as head of the Justice Department, has appeared to show...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded an Obama-era policy that paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, creating new confusion about enforcement and use just three days after a new legalization law went into effect in California. President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement official announced the change Thursday. Instead of the previous lenient-federal-enforcement policy, Sessions’ new stance will instead let federal prosecutors where marijuana is legal decide how aggressively to enforce longstanding federal law prohibiting it. Sessions’ plan drew immediate strong objection from Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, one of...

I thought I had it all figured out: self-driving cars are being developed to enable the entire population to be stoned and still arrive at their jobs, assuming they have a job, safely. Honey, I’m home!In the interim, a fierce PR campaign has been conducted via the media echo chamber to ensure everyone that legal pot is having absolutely no negative effect on vehicular accidents in order to continue our progressive march towards the Brave New World. “Public safety doesn’t decrease with increased access to marijuana, rather it improves,” Benjamin Hansen, one of the authors of the previous study, said...

Mike Tyson is starting the New Year with green on his mind, because he’s leading the charge on a cannabis resort that aims at not only producing high quality strains of THC and CBD, but also implementing cutting-edge technology to advance the research on the health benefits of marijuana...California City is expecting a big boom in cannabis production and development as the “Green Rush” hits California now that marijuana is officially legal as of midnight. We’re told Tyson Ranch will be dedicating 20 acres of their land for cultivation facilities that “will allow master growers to have maximum control of...

The DUI arrests,increase in college users, youth consumption, marijuana-related hospitalizations, and increasing emergency room visits of Washington and Colorado will only be amplified in California. Voters legalized pot several years ago in Colorado and Washington State. They were promised increased tax revenue increases and better-educated children for their vote. For the love of money and claims of liberty, disasters are now unfolding in both states. Now California is embarking on likely the same disastrous path, if not worse, despite copious amounts of destructive evidence.

CNN reporter Randi Kaye, sporting large marijuana leaf styled earrings, lit a bong for a pot smoker during a live report from Denver broadcast on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show Sunday night that was hosted from Times Square by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. Kaye was also seen several times holding lit joints on air.

It was six hours past midnight, but the crowd inside the Berkeley Patients Group counted down the seconds. “Happy New Year,” they yelled at precisely 6 a.m. as a cashier rang up the cost of three joints, a $45.37 purchase representing one of the first recreational marijuana sales in the state. The moment marked the launch of a new industry in California, one that’s heavily regulated and taxed, with revenue reaching several billion dollars per year. The day has been long anticipated by cannabis advocates who pushed for voters to pass Proposition 64 in November 2016, largely decriminalizing marijuana and...

The new year in California brings broad legalization of recreational marijuana – a much-anticipated move two decades after the state was the first to allow the use of the drug for medicinal purposes. California joins states such as Colorado -- as well as Washington, D.C. -- where pot is permitted for recreational purposes even as the federal government continues to regard the drug as a controlled dangerous substance, like LSD and heroin.