Free Republic

Call it a buzzkiller from BuzzFeed. On Wednesday, online news site BuzzFeed reported that the Trump Administration is engaged in a "secret war on weed." BuzzFeed stated that the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee told multiple federal agencies to submit "data demonstrating the most significant negative trends" about marijuana use. The goal appears to be to try to prevent further support for relaxing federal anti-marijuana laws. If the committee is successful in its efforts, companies with U.S. marijuana operations such as Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE:SMG), CannaRoyalty (NASDAQOTH:CNNRF), and Kush Bottles (NASDAQOTH:KSHB) could see their hopes of operating in a fully legal environment...

So I'm coming out of the supermarket about an hour ago and am approached by this snot-nosed, rotten teethed, pony-tailed looking liberal (he looked like a meth tweaker) with a clipboard in his hand. He asks me, "are you a registered voter here in San Jose?" I answer him, "yes!" He then proceeds to tell me, "did you know the San Jose City Council just approved and closed down 10 dispensaries?" (Like I really cared) I then answered him with a "SO WHAT...as far as I'm concerned, they can close every goddamn one of them in San Jose!" He then...

Despite federal and state expenditures of billions of dollars per year, severe punishments, and frequent unconstitutional raids on private homes, the War On Drugs is a failure.  Since this futile war began, the number of drug users in the US has grown rather than shrink, and the rate of drug usage has grown along with the profits of drug cartels.  America's Southern border has become very dangerous as a result of the War, and Mexico is a failing state because wealthy, well-armed drug cartels can afford to fight a regular war in that country and bribe (or assassinate) its officials....

Police arrest 5 in pot swap at Burger King (Charlotte)Posted: Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 Police have arrested five people they say were involved in a scheme to swap large amounts of cash and marijuana at a Burger King in Matthews. In all, authorities say, they recovered more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana and $250,000 in cash. Investigators say the scheme included a former police officer from Mexico, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court on Wednesday. Ubaldo Sandoval, Ana Bertha Sandoval, Jaime Fregoso Arellano, Ciro Noe Guerrero-Rosales and Hector Tegeda Galvan have been charged with conspiracy and possessing...

Man arrested for crack use, because he had white mints in his mouth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_SBnZXCaGI&feature=email

Brothers Arrested On Charges Of Selling Drugs; Surveillance Tape Contradicts Police Claims; Investigation Leads To Arrest Of 2 Officers, $10 Million Lawsuit NEW YORK (AP) ― When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong. But proclaiming innocence wasn't going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof. "I sat in the jail and thought ... how could I prove this? What could I do?" Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview. As he glanced...

We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration is not likely to waste this opportunity to further expand government. Hopefully, we can take a deep breath and look at history for the optimal way to deal with this dangerous situation, which is not unprecedented. Alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s brought similar violence, gangs, lawlessness, corruption and brutality. The reason for the violence was not that making and selling alcohol was inherently...

ON A SWELTERING July afternoon in 2007, Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and his narcotics squad members raided an Olney tobacco shop. Then, with guns drawn, they did something bizarre: They smashed two surveillance cameras with a metal rod, said store owners David and Eunice Nam. The five plainclothes officers yanked camera wires from the ceiling. They forced the slight, frail Korean couple to the vinyl floor and cuffed them with plastic wrist ties. "I so scared," said Eunice Nam, 56. "We were on floor. Handcuffs on me. I so, so scared, I wet my pants." The officers rifled through drawers, dumped...

WEST MICHIGAN -- The family of injured shooting victim Derek Copp has hired a lawyer who is questioning why the Grand Valley State University student was shot by police and the basis of a search warrant to look for marijuana in his off-campus apartment. "We have some very important questions about what appears to be some shocking police activity," Grand Rapids attorney Fred Dilley said Monday. Dilley questioned the safety and necessity of raiding a student's apartment, entering through a rear slider, and the "manner in which it was served and executed." "The question is, is that a sufficient basis...

The SEC's fraud charges may be the least of accused financial scammer R. Allen Stanford's worries. Federal authorities tell ABC News that FBI and others have been investigating whether Stanford was involved in laundering drug money for Mexico's notorious Gulf Cartel. Authorities tell ABC News that as part of the investigation, which has been ongoing since last year, Mexican authorities detained one of Stanford's private planes. According to officials, checks found inside the plane were believed to be connected to the Gulf cartel, reputed to be Mexico's most violent gang. Authorities say Stanford could potentially face criminal charges of money...

DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — Sgt. Faron White's job running a squad that targeted drug dealers, gamblers and other organized crime in a northern Alabama city earned him accolades but was filled with pressure. Add a rocky marriage, ill father, unexpected household expenses and gambling losses, and somewhere along the way, the decorated veteran officer snapped, police said Tuesday. White is accused of staging his disappearance, staking himself with $2,500 in confiscated drug money and flying off to Las Vegas to try to win back thousands of dollars to pay his debts. He didn't act alone, police said. A Decatur police...

<p>THE DRUG raid by Prince George's County law officers on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week was a Keystone Kops operation from start to finish.</p> <p>Acting on a tip that a 32-pound package of marijuana had been sent by Federal Express from Arizona to Mr. Calvo's home (addressed to his wife, Trinity Tomsic), Prince George's police swung into action. Which is to say they got on the phone, calling law enforcement agencies to see who might have a SWAT team available to bust the unsuspecting Calvo family. (It seems the police department's own team was tied up.) After being turned down at least once, they finally struck a deal with the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, whose track record with domestic disputes is extensive but whose experience with drug busts is slight. And it showed.</p>

High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It, by Joseph A. Califano Jr., New York: Public Affairs, 270 pages, $26.95 The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World’s Most Troubled Drug Culture, by Richard DeGrandpre, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 294 pages, $24.95On the opening page of High Society, which aims to explain “how substance abuse ravages America,” Joseph Califano declares that “chemistry is chasing Christianity as the nation’s largest religion.” Although it is not always easy to decipher Califano’s meaning in this overwrought, carelessly written, weakly documented, self-contradictory, and deeply misleading anti-drug screed,...

Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later 92-year-old woman's death has done little to curb the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country. It was one year ago this week that narcotics officers in Atlanta, Georgia broke into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. They had earlier arrested a man with a long rap sheet on drug charges. That man told the police officers that they'd find a large stash of cocaine in Johnston's home. When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened...

WASHINGTON -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters. Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming. Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's...

Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix was appointed last month as head of a drug intelligence unit in Mexico's attorney general's office. Less than 30 days later, he was shot and killed in a sophisticated street ambush that is being characterized as a "planned execution" – another assassination presumably by one of the Mexican drug cartels. He hadn't even finished unpacking boxes in his new office. The list of atrocities of this kind in Mexico grows on a daily basis: Last weekend, two journalists for the Azteca television network who had previously covered the drug wars in Mexico were reported missing and...

The urge of lawmakers amid the unthinkable is to entertain the feel-good notion of legislation that could have prevented the awfulness.     The inclination to legislate the worst impulses out of the human condition is understandable in the wake of the horror at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead at the hand of a gun-toting sicko, who then shot himself. But as we know only too well, if only from anecdotal experience, laws have their limits.     To take the principle of gun-control measures to the ultimate level, let's say America decided in the coming weeks that it no longer could tolerate...

The narrow framework of criminal law doesn’t fit fatal police miscalculations.In late March, a Queens grand jury indicted three of the five officers who shot at Sean Bell’s car outside a Jamaica strip club last November, and exonerated the remaining two. The grand jury received widespread praise for careful reasoning. But the only thing that the indictments show is how inappropriate a criminal-law template is for police actions. It is probably too much to hope that Albany legislators will face down anti-police politics and correct that ongoing injustice. Nevertheless, we desperately need an alternative, non-criminal legal regime for responding to...

Last month, Mexican military officials in Matamoros, just south of Brownsville, Texas, stopped a tractor-trailer containing weapons and ammunition, along with a pickup truck fitted with armor and bulletproof glass. The weapons included 18 M-16 assault rifles, one equipped with an M-203 40mm grenade launcher. Also seized were several M-4 carbines, 17 handguns of various calibers, 200 magazines for different weapons, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, assault vests and other military accessories.

Fulton DA seeks charges in shooting of 92-year-old woman in her home The Fulton County district attorney will seek felony murder charges against at least one of the three Atlanta police officers who shot and killed an elderly woman in a botched drug raid, according to one of the officer's attorneys. Defense attorney Rand Csehy, who is representing Gregg Junnier, said he received an e-mail message from District Attorney Paul Howard's office today saying the DA would seek charges before a grand jury Feb. 26. "It's an overbroad indictment," said an angry Csehy. He said that Howard's office has "broken...