Free Republic

Overwhelmingly, voters just saying no to legalization Mason Tvert, campaign director for the marijuana initiative, Amendment 44, waves at passing motorists on Election Day from the corner of Colfax and Lincoln avenues. By about a 2-1 ratio, voters snuffed out a measure that would have allowed adults 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. With 701 precincts reporting, it appeared to be doomed to defeat, especially since it was barely getting a split vote in traditionally liberal Boulder County. That was the news Robert McGuire, spokesman for the Colorado Chapter of Save Our Society from Drugs,...

NEW YORK — In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door _ groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food _ pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction. An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners. Among the legions of home delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery dispatcher...

THC, the key compound in marijuana, may also be the key to new drugs for Alzheimer's disease. That's because the marijuana compound blocks the formation of brain-clogging Alzheimer's plaques better than current Alzheimer's drugs. The finding — in test-tube studies — comes from the lab of Kim Janda, Ph.D., director of the Worm Institute of Research and Medicine at Scripps Research Institute. "While we are certainly not advocating the use of illegal drugs, these findings offer convincing evidence that THC possesses remarkable inhibitory qualities, especially when compared to [Alzheimer's drugs] currently available to patients," Janda says in a news release....

AUSTIN — Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman today called for the decriminalization of marijuana to avoid further clogging state prisons with nonviolent offenders. ADVERTISEMENT He also said he would favor a review of people already imprisoned on marijuana charges to "rehab them, try to get them back into society." "We've got to clear some of the room out of the prisons so we can put the bad guys in there, like the pedophiles and the politicians," said Friedman, a humorist and author. Friedman said he doesn't yet have specifics on how decriminalization would work, including what amount of marijuana a...

Drug use up for boomers, down for teens By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Some moms and dads might want to take a lesson from their kids: Just say no. The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year — from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9...

The dime bags seized in Cranford were called "Bloody Money" and "Superman." The drug samples found in Hillside during a vehicle stop were called "Dunkin Donuts." But more ominous than the names were what authorities announced yesterday they found inside: fentanyl-laced heroin. It's the first confirmed appearance in northeast New Jersey of a drug cocktail that has in recent months become a public health scourge, trigging a rash of overdoses and deaths in South Jersey, Philadelphia and New York. "Of all the drugs available on the street right now, fentanyl-laced heroin is the deadliest of the deadly," said Jim O'Brien,...

POP diva Whitney Houston is reportedly hooked on crack and spiralling hopelessly out of control, according to an exclusive online report by Victoria Newton in The Sun. Pictures obtained by Britain's biggest-selling newspaper are believed to show Houston, 42 and mother to 13-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina, looking "haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and a deranged look on her face". Shots of the singer's bathroom also reveal signs of heavy drug use, with assorted drug paraphernalia "including a crack-smoking pipe, rolling papers, cocaine-caked spoons and cigarette ends are strewn across the surface tops", the report said. The bathroom photograph...

Yes, We're Addicted--To Economic GrowthBy Thomas Bray I admit it. I am addicted to oil. Parson Bush has found me out. But I have something else to confess. I am addicted to food as well. I eat every day, often three times a day. I am addicted to houses; my wife and I own two of them. I am addicted to water; I drink it all the time, even swim in it. Of course America is addicted to oil, in the sense that it uses a lot of the stuff. But as Bush also pointed out, the American economy is...

A gene that helps fruit flies develop alcohol tolerance has been found – and named “hangover”. The gene also controls the flies’ response to stress, and the researchers say that a similar pathway linking alcohol tolerance and stress probably functions in humans. The findings may explain why people who have been in a stressful situation often have a blunted response to alcohol and may drink more to feel inebriated, experts say, putting them at greater risk of becoming addicted. Ulrike Heberlein at the University of California at San Francisco, US, and Henrike Scholz from the University of Würzburg in Germany,...

I think about it all the time. I crave it when I'm not doing it. I wake up and want to do it. No matter how much I do it, I always want more. I can't stop. It's computer games. My name is InHisService, and I am an Acroholic. My favorite computer game in the world is "Acrophobia" which I've been playing for about 6 months. You are given letters, and you make acros; example: WTHIGOWA, What the hell is going on with Acrophobia? The game began freezing all the time, every time you'd go in. There's a chat room,...

I light the candles, as I have all the nights before, setting the stage - the pink night-shirt, the furry slippers, the rose-scented ungent with which I anoint my fingers. I loosen my waist-length hair from its clasp and approach the keyboard with anticipation. Who will it be tonight? Bush? Cheney? Kerry? Edwards? They all present delights, but it's not so much the man as the act of campaigning itself that thrills me so. Memories of Reagan suddenly stir - ahh, that brings a jaded tear. How innocent that first fling seems - The bedroom door bursts open; my husband,...

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...