Free Republic

DENVER (MainStreet) — It's something Colorado's legalized marijuana industry did not want to see: a college student tried a cannabis edible product and inexplicably jumped to his death. ... "There is a groundswell building to repeal it," he said. "It's going to continue to lose support because there are going to be more harms coming from it, large and small." ... "Increasingly, we are contacted by parents, desperate to learn more," he writes on his blog. "Their typical and tragic messages go something like this: "We never knew. We thought marijuana wasn't even addictive and that it was less harmful...

MOSCOW, March 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian and US anti-drug agencies will continue their usual cooperation, the head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) Viktor Ivanov said. “This is the first meeting that I’ve chaired under the sanctions regime,” he said on Wednesday. At the same time, he said, “We are not planning to curtail cooperation. Our US colleagues share our view.” “I hope that these are temporary problems,” Ivanov said.

Was just watching the show and they played a clip of Rick Perry saying that Texas has lowered fines for first time offense for marijuana use. So far he has not said he would legalize it. So the members went around the table and all but Beckel (recovering addict) said they were for legalizing marijuana. Dana Pirino said Texas might as well legalize it because Texans are coming into Colorado to legally smoke the stuff. She also said that if a republican wants to get a hand in an audience full of hipsters all they have to say is they...

SEATTLE — More drivers tested positive for marijuana in Washington in 2013 -- the first full year after the state legalized pot -- but officials so far say there's been no obvious, corresponding jump in car accidents. The Washington State Patrol says 1,362 drivers tested positive for having active marijuana in their system -- a jump of just under 25 percent from the year before, even though the patrol had fewer troopers on the road and there was no overall rise in intoxicated driving arrests.

“In the military mind set, the “drug war” has moved from metaphor to real life, with American streets as the “front,” American citizens as the “enemy” and law enforcement officers as the warriors. At the direction of Congress, the Pentagon has spent the past 20 years providing military hardware free of charge to police departments throughout the nation, all for the stated purpose of fighting the War on Drugs. Billions of dollars worth of “surplus” military grade equipment has been transferred, literally enabling law enforcement in towns both large and small to serve warrants, control crowds and “keep the peace”...

As a hard-partying teenager, Patrick Kennedy met President Reagan at a fundraiser for the JFK Library, a meeting captured in a photograph that the former Rhode Island congressman now hangs in his home office. He used to think of it as a funny episode, a collision of Camelot’s cocaine kid and America’s foremost opponent of illegal drug use. But Kennedy took his last hit of anything in 2009, and he’s since honed an anti-drug message that sounds a bit like Reagan with a Boston brogue. Kennedy believes there is "an epidemic in this country of epic dimensions when it comes...

The recent commutation by President Obama of eight lengthy individual sentences for drug abuse is a tiny but significant gesture, as America’s long indulgence, spiked intermittently into passionate support, for draconian hypocrisy in its failed War on Drugs yields grudgingly to the forces of reason and decency. This follows the reduction in the disparity of sentences for crack as opposed to powder cocaine from 100 to one to 18 to one. There are a number of reasons for this change, but the principal one, apart from the absurd starting imbalance, is that the cocaine-using middle-class and university white people are...

after seizing control in rare war on drugs triumphVigilantes battling the ruthless Knights Templar drug cartel in Mexico have entered a gang-held city to clear it of gunmen, a leader of the movement said. The group has driven the quasi-religious cartel from a series of towns in the west entered the city of Apatzingan with government forces on Saturday, it was claimed. Dozens of vigilante group members, who wore white t-shirts to identify themselves, were seen speeding into the area in the back of pickup trucks. The city of 100,000 in Michoacan state has been under effective control of the...

I don’t like government bureaucrats. Actually, let me re-phrase that statement. I know lots of people who work for different agencies in Washington and most of them seem like decent people. So maybe what I really want to say is that I’m not a big fan of government bureaucracies and the results they generate. Why? Because a bloated government means overpaid bureaucrats, both at the federal level and state level (and in other nations as well). Because inefficient bureaucracies enable loafing and bad work habits. Because being part of the government workforce even encourages laziness! And it may even be...

The Justice Department should cross marijuana off the government's list of most dangerous drugs, says a House Democrat now trying to build congressional support for the action. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) is making the case to remove pot from the list of "Schedule I" drugs, a day after Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the Justice Department would adjust existing rules to allow legal marijuana businesses to access the banking system. Recreational pot use became legal in Colorado this month, and 20 other states allow it for medicinal purposes. Blumenauer said the Obama administration was “unquestionably making the right call”...

Heroin abuse has been getting more attention lately. Last week, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin spent his entire 34-minute State of the State address talking about the state's "full-blown heroin crisis," and law enforcement officials in small cities across New England have noted an increase in heroin use. Demand for the drug might be coming from people who are hooked on prescription pills.Health officials and drug experts have started noticing that heroin use has been exploding as states crack down on "pill mills," which get people addicted to Oxycontin and other pain killers even when they don't have a medical need...

after police raid in connection with vicious egg attack on neighbor's homeLos Angeles law enforcement officials found cocaine at Justin Bieber's mansion on Tuesday morning when they executed a felony warrant to search the property. The warrant was served at 8am local time and was related to allegations that the singer had been responsible for throwing eggs at a neighbor's home in an exclusive gated community in Calabasas, California, last Thursday - causing more than $20,000 worth of damage. Eleven L.A. County Sheriff's patrol cars were spotted entering Bieber's gated community to look for 'video surveillance or other relevant evidence'...

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20140112/NEWS01/301120061/A-cargo-plane-a-pickup-modified-to-conceal-dope-and-a-federa

City, county settle NM 'anal probe' lawsuit ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A city and county in southern New Mexico have settled a lawsuit filed by man taken to two hospitals and forced to have anal probes over suspicion of hiding drugs. Attorney for David Eckert said Monday that Hidalgo County and the city of Deming recently settled their portion of a lawsuit for a total $1.6 million. The lawsuit, filed against police and sheriff's officials in Deming and Hidalgo County, which borders Mexico, alleges Deming police sought a search warrant for Eckert because they thought he appeared to be clenching his...

The New Mexico and Texas chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union are suing border officers and a hospital after they allegedly subjected a U.S. citizen to numerous invasive body cavity searches without a warrant. Included in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in West Texas are four U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and the University Medical Center of El Paso, among others. The lawsuit alleges CBP officers frisked and strip-searched a 54-year-old woman and then delivered her in handcuffs to the hospital, where doctors observed a bowel movement and performed invasive rectal and vaginal probes, among...

A Ross County deputy sheriff has been placed on leave after authorities say he accidentally shot and killed a woman before a drug raid on Wednesday. Sgt. Brett McKnight was identified yesterday as the deputy whose gun went off outside a trailer that members of a drug task force were about to raid as part of a heroin bust. The bullet went through the exterior of the trailer before it struck and killed 35-year-old Krystal Barrows, according to a news release. In the release, Ross County Sheriff George Lavender’s office said that members of the U.S. 23 Task Force were...

“I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized.” These are the words of Terry Dehko, who since 1978 has owned Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Michigan. His daughter, Sandy, began working with her dad at the store when she was 12, and now helps him run the business. Last year, the IRS conducted an audit of the store, and...

A state trooper accused of triggering a three-car crash on Route 1 in Revere that smashed up a cruiser and put an on-duty trooper in the hospital has been suspended indefinitely without pay today, state police announced. Trooper Shawn D’Amato, 43, who authorities said told EMTs he had smoked crack within an hour of yesterday's crash, was arraigned in his Massachusetts General Hospital bed yesterday on charges of drunken and drugged driving, negligent operation; and failure to change lanes for an emergency vehicle. EMTs also observed "apparent track marks on (D'Amato's) arms, suggesting intravenous drug use," Jake Wark, spokesman for...

... David Eckert, a resident of Deming, NM, was pulled over by police officers after failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. For whatever reason, the officers decided Eckert was hiding something, or perhaps they were unsatisfied that a routine stop hadn't blown up into something bigger. ... 1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found. 2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to...

The number of drug users in Afghanistan is estimated to be as high as 1.6 million, or about 5.3 percent of the population, among the highest rates in the world. Nationwide, 1 in 10 urban households has at least one drug user, according to a recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In the city of Herat, it is 1 in 5. From 2005 to 2009, the use of opiates doubled, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, putting Afghanistan on par with Russia and Iran, and the number of heroin users jumped...