Free Republic

Legalizing pot does not appear to encourage teen use and might actually discourage it, a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1.4 million high school students between 1993 and 2017, collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its Youth Risk Behavior survey. The results show teen pot use both before and after medical marijuana laws were adopted in 27 states, seven of which also legalized recreational marijuana during the survey period. Teen marijuana use didn’t change much after medical marijuana was legalized, they found. In states that legalized recreational use,...

What is Illinois —the Shut Up and Take It State — truly known for? Tennessee, for example, is known for Jack Daniels, country music and that famous horse, The Tennessee Stud. Kentucky is known for bourbon and Republican Sen. Rand Paul. Wisconsin? The hated Packers. California is known for high taxes, liberal movie stars and piles of human feces on the sidewalks of its great cities. And Massachusetts is famed for the authentic Native American cuisine of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who once published her proud Cherokee recipe for “cold omelets with crab meat” in the cookbook “Pow...

The University of Washington is conducting an experiment in which pregnant mothers will use the drug cannabis, commonly known as marijuana, to see the effects on infants. The university has received roughly more than $190,000 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct the study, which recruits women to take marijuana from the first to last trimester of their pregnancy, according to KOMO-TV. As the project information details, 70 total subjects will participate in the study. Half of these women will be taking marijuana at least twice a week to combat morning sickness, while the other 35 will take...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — As more states legalize cannabis for medical use, the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy is launching the nation’s first master’s program to train students about the science and policies of medical marijuana. The two-year program, based at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville, is designed for health care practitioners, scientists, regulators, dispensary owners and industry professionals. Classes will be primarily held online, with an in-person symposium held each semester.

California is planning to intensify its enforcement against the state’s thriving illegal marijuana market, including launching an ad campaign Friday that urges consumers to seek out licensed shops with safe products. The state has been under pressure by the legal industry to do more to stop the illicit pot economy, which in Los Angeles and other cities often operates in plain sight. According to some estimates, up to 80 percent of sales in the state remain under the table, snatching profits from legal storefronts. “We are going to start having a more aggressive enforcement stance to come after the illegal...

(CNN) — Starting in 2020, Nevada employers cannot refuse to hire a job applicant for failing a marijuana screening test, making it the first state to pass such a law.....

A Sacramento-based Third District Court of Appeals has overturned the 2017 conviction of five men who were caught with marijuana in their prison cells, after California passed Proposition 64 legalizing recreational use of the drug. But that doesn’t mean inmates can light up joints while behind bars.

It took the state roughly three and a half years to reach the $500 million mark in total state revenue from marijuana sales, and just under two years to double the revenue source. Cannabis sales contribute to the state's general reserve fund, as well as education and health care, including mental health services, and youth drug-prevention programs.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China.In a complex of lofty tombs in the Pamir Mountains - a region near the borders of modern China, Pakistan and Tajikistan - excavators found 10 wooden bowls and several stones containing burnt residue of the cannabis plant. Scientists believe heated stones were used to burn the marijuana and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a burial ritual."It's the earliest strong evidence of people getting high" on marijuana, said Mark Merlin, a botanist at the University of Hawaii....

A bill to legalize recreational marijauna in Illinois needs only the signature of Gov. J.B. Pritzker to become law. Colorado has had legal recreational marijuana since 2014. The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice last year came out with an analysis of the effects of the state's legalization of retail sales of marijuana since it went into effect in 2014. It found teen use had not increased, but hospital visits and fatal accidents associated with marijuana use increased. The authors cautioned that many factors can influence the statistics in the report, including people's willingness to admit marijuana use now that it's...

Most of all, advocates have told you that marijuana is not just safe for people with psychiatric problems like depression, but that it is a potential treatment for those patients. On its website, the cannabis delivery service Eaze offers the “Best Marijuana Strains and Products for Treating Anxiety.” “How Does Cannabis Help Depression?” is the topic of an article on Leafly, the largest cannabis website. But a mountain of peer-reviewed research in top medical journals shows that marijuana can cause or worsen severe mental illness, especially psychosis, the medical term for a break from reality. Teenagers who smoke marijuana regularly...

What are the facts about recreational marijuana?  Are you sure pot is harmless?  And should it be legal? While the multi-billion dollar marijuana lobby insists that cannabis is harmless, more and more researchers and medical professionals are reaching a different conclusion. Based on facts and up-to-date science, this post will help you cut through the fog of misinformation and discover what recreational marijuana is doing to disrupt and destroy the moral and social fabric of America. 1. Marijuana Intoxication Warps Reality Marijuana is a form of intoxication. Anyone who becomes intoxicated surrenders their ability to make sound moral decisions.  Free...

Oregon is awash in pot, glutted with so much legal weed, that if growing it were to stop today, it would take more than six years by one estimate to smoke or eat it all. Now the state is planning to curb production. Five years after Oregon legalized recreational marijuana, lawmakers have given the Oregon Liquor Control Commission more leeway to deny new pot-growing licenses, based on supply and demand.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer threw down the gauntlet on Thursday for Michigan residents who are both sick of the state’s abysmal road conditions, and also not nearly high enough.“At its height, the taxes for marijuana will raise about $42 million dollar per year for infrastructure. We have a $2.5 billion dollar problem,” Whitmer said at the Mackinac Policy Conference, referencing the state’s 10% excise tax on its newly legalized recreational weed industry—a portion of which is allotted for infrastructure repairs. After explaining that she gets asked about using marijuana funds to fix the roads so often, she ordered her staff to crunch...

SPRINGFIELD -- The state of Illinois is one step closer to legalizing recreational marijuana. The Illinois Senate voted Wednesday to pass the bill, sending it to the House for consideration in the final two days of the session this week. The fast vote was 38-17, with two Republicans joining 36 Democrats in supporting it. "This bill is going to set the model, I believe, the gold standard for how to approach social equity issues, relating (to) cannabis legalization," Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, the bill's chief sponsor, said in her closing statement on the Senate floor. The action Wednesday came just...

About one in five Canadian adolescents uses cannabis and its recent legalization across the country warrants investigation into the consequence of this use on the developing brain. Cannabis use was linked to impairments in working memory and inhibitory control, which is required for self-control. Cannabis use was also linked to deficits in memory recall and perceptual reasoning. Alcohol use was not linked to impairments in these cognitive functions, suggesting cannabis could have more long-term effects than alcohol. Adolescent exposure to THC induces changes in specific a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in a brain circuit,...

The Salt Lake Tribune reports the state plans to charge a $10,000 application fee and an additional $100,000 annual licensing fee for those chosen, according to draft rules for Utah's new medical marijuana program published last week. State officials say the license fees are meant to offset the expense of adding personnel and equipment to inspect the growing facilities. If all 10 grower licenses are granted, revenues to the agriculture department could top $1.1 million the first year and hover around $1 million over the following years as cultivators pay the renewal fee. The state's agricultural department expects to spend...

Colorado is trying to help tamp down the opioid crisis by allowing doctors to recommend medical marijuana for any condition meriting a painkiller prescription, The Denver Post reported. Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 13 on Thursday, and the new law is scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 2, after passing through Colorado's General Assembly. “This will substitute marijuana for an FDA-approved medication — something that’s unregulated for something that’s highly regulated,” Stephanie Stewart, a physician in Colorado, told the news outlet. Under Colorado law, medical marijuana can be recommended for patients struggling with cancer, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS,...

Authorities said Friday they raided hundreds of black market marijuana operations in Colorado that flouted the state’s cannabis law by growing tens of thousands of plants in Denver-area homes and selling the drugs out of state. Investigators seized more than 80,000 plants and 4,500 pounds (2,040 kilograms) of harvested marijuana, state and federal prosecutors said at a news conference. Officers raided 247 homes and eight businesses and arrested 42 people in Denver and seven nearby counties. State law allows up to 12 marijuana plants per residence for personal use, but some of the homes had more than 1,000 and many...

A Lexington woman and a Columbia man have been charged and declared co-defendants in connection with a home invasion that led to the shooting death of a child. Linda Lyn Monette, 23, who was in the home at the time of the crime, is charged with murder, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, burglary and armed robbery, according to arrest warrants. Monette was previously charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and obstruction of justice in connection with the incident. Reynerio Rafael Romero Jr., 24, is charged with being an accessory to murder before the fact and criminal conspiracy, according...