Free Republic

In a little noticed hearing of the House Government Reform Commnittee last week, Indiana Congressman (my homeotwn's Congressman actually) and longtime drug warrior Dan Burton made some stunning comments. In a hearing entitled "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia," Burton stopped just a hair short of advocating the decriminalization of drugs. Watch the video here (cut forward to 1 hour, 18 minutes into the hearing). Here's the transcript: Dan Burton: I want to tell you something. I have been in probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty hearings like this at various times...

Eugene, Oregon's, Whiteaker neighborhood sounded like a war zone around dawn on October 17, and residents are fighting mad. It wasn't a terrorist attack, though, just another example of a drug war run amok. Police serving a search warrant for an alleged marijuana grow enlisted an armored personnel carrier and 45 SWAT team officers armed with shotguns and automatic rifles to raid a cluster of houses in Whiteaker. But after throwing flash-bang grenades, kicking in doors, and handcuffing four people -- including one nude woman and one woman dressed only in underpants and a t-shirt -- for hours in a...

Medical marijuana and the feds Debra Saunders If the federal government were right that medical marijuana has no medicinal value, why have so many doctors risked their practices by recommending its use for patients with cancer or AIDS? Marcus Conant, the doctor who identified the first cases of Kaposi's sarcoma among San Francisco AIDS patients, can answer that. Imagine you're the doctor for a 40-year-old lady with breast cancer. They put her on chemotherapy, and every time she takes her therapy, she throws up. She can't sleep; she's up sick all night. She has trouble caring for her children. Medical...

This week's winner is Nevada's Lander County Sheriff Michael Kranovich. He was found guilty of embezzling asset forfeiture funds given to the county by the federal government in federal court in Reno on October 25. He is not seeking re-election to a second term, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. Sheriff Kranovich was convicted of taking $12,000 and $5,000 from the asset forfeiture fund after failing to adequately explain where the money had gone. At one point, he told KOLO-TV in Reno that some of the cash might have been thrown away when he cleaned his desk. Kranovich faces...

The drug czar is ready for pro wrestling. He already has the name, and now he's got the prefight talk down cold. In every speech he makes in Nevada, where Bush appointee John Walters has traveled to fight an initiative that would legalize marijuana, he calls out his three sworn enemies as if he were Tupac Shakur. The czar has a problem with billionaire philanthropists George Soros, Peter Lewis and John Sperling, who have bankrolled the pro-pot movement, and he wants everyone to know he's ready for battle. At an Elks lodge meeting in Las Vegas, he ticks off their...

Marijuana Arrests For Year 2001 Second Highest Ever Despite Feds' War On Terror, FBI Report Reveals Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 723,627 persons for marijuana violations in 2001, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the second highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprises nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. "These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "In fact, the war...

<p>In the latest show of defiance against the federal government's crackdown on medicinal marijuana, San Francisco could get into the business of growing and distributing pot for sick people under a first-in-the-nation proposal on next month's local ballot.</p> <p>San Francisco's Proposition S would direct city officials to explore cultivating and dispensing the plant in light of the federal government's crusade against medical-cannabis clubs.</p>

ELVY MUSIKKA, 63, says she's one of only seven people in the nation to receive legally prescribed medicinal marijuana from the federal government. She earned that distinction after being arrested for growing pot at her Hollywood, Fla., home in the late 1980s. She decided to cultivate and use the controlled substance, she said, to alleviate the effects of severe glaucoma. Since winning a 1988 court battle, she has traveled the country calling for marijuana's legalization for medical use. In Wisconsin recently for the Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival in Madison, Musikka talked with Journal Sentinel reporter Jesse Garza about her...

The “worst Drug Warrior in Congress” has lost his seat -- and the Libertarian Party appears to have played a small role in making it happen. U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, an outspoken opponent of medical marijuana, was defeated by Rep. John Linder in a Republican primary election in Georgia on August 20. With 82% of precincts reporting, Linder had 67% of the vote to Barr’s 33%, prompting Barr’s concession. Over the past two weeks, Barr had been the target of a barrage of television ads produced by the Libertarian Party. The ads were run by Carole Ann Rand, the LP...