Free Republic

A CHANGE IN MARIJUANA PROSECUTION EYED Chicago Considers Bid To Issue Fines In Certain Cases CHICAGO -- Mayor Richard M. Daley has endorsed a proposal to issue fines for possession of small amounts of marijuana rather than clog the courts with cases that tend to be thrown out by judges. Daley said the volume of marijuana cases that are tossed out by local courts -- upwards of 90 percent, according to one recent study -- mean minor possession is virtually decriminalized in Chicago now. "If 99 percent of the cases are thrown out, when is there a credible arrest for...

Few Americans typically give much thought to the $200 million hemp industry: a $200 million market that includes such wide-ranging products as bread, clothing and soap. But this week hemp producers are getting a powerful marketing boost from an unlikely source—the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Nearly two and a half years ago, the put a chill into the hemp marketplace by interpreting the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act to include hemp food products. Their logic was that ingestible hemp contained THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and therefore was a Schedule 1 controlled substance, just like marijuana. Never mind that hemp...

Washington, DC: Three out of four illicit drug users in the United States are marijuana smokers, according to survey data released today by the Department of Health and Human Services.According to the department's annual "National Survey on Drug Use and Health," an estimated 19.5 million Americans currently use illicit drugs (as defined as use within the past month). Of these, 14.6 million - or 75 percent - self-identify as marijuana smokers.By comparison, only 2.3 million Americans reported using cocaine, approximately one million reported using LSD, and fewer than 120,000 said that they currently use heroin. In addition, an estimated 97...

I had to laugh the other night as my wife and I walked our dog. We were strolling through our nearly all-white upper-middle-class suburb singing, "No, no, no, no I don't smoke it no more/I'm tired of waking up on the floor," from the "No No Song" by Ringo Starr, when what to our wondering eyes did appear but a neighbor sporting a joint in his pickup truck. Spying us, he finished his drag and quickly slid the roach into his truck's ashtray. It did not take "Dragnet's" Joe Friday to crack this case. Any American who came of age...