Free Republic

Williams suspended one year Associated Press NEW YORK -- Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams was suspended for the 2006 season by the NFL on Tuesday for violating the league's substance abuse policy for the fourth time. The league announced the suspension after Williams' appeal of a his latest positive drug test was denied. Williams met with NFL counsel Jeff Pash on April 10 in an attempt to have the league overturn the test. Previous positive tests were for marijuana, which Williams acknowledged using. The latest test apparently involved a drug other than marijuana. Williams retired and sat out the...

<p>I got this in my email this morning showing how f'ing stupid nanny staters can be over the last couple of centurys. I wonder how many of these "highly intelligent" people went on to get cushy government jobs? Pay very close attention to the comic books qoute. Why anyone ever listens to people like this is a mystery but im sure there will be people right on this board agreeing with almost everything here and calling for big governemnt solutions to solve these societal ills.</p>

Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to “freedom, free enterprise, and limited government” and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle. One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’re ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on drugs? The conservative will respond, “Even though I believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited government, we’ve got to continue waging the war on drugs.” The libertarian will respond, “End it. It is an immoral...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although both marijuana and tobacco smoke are packed with cancer-causing chemicals, other qualities of marijuana seem to keep it from promoting lung cancer, according to a new report. The difference rests in the often opposing actions of the nicotine in tobacco and the active ingredient, THC, in marijuana, says Dr. Robert Melamede of the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. He reviewed the scientific evidence supporting this contention in a recent issue of Harm Reduction Journal. Whereas nicotine has several effects that promote lung and other types of cancer, THC acts in ways that counter...

Unlike their mellow brethren in San Francisco, the half-dozen or so medical marijuana clubs that have sprouted up in the urban no-man's-land between San Leandro and Hayward have turned into something out of the Wild West. There's been a rash of armed robberies, a shootout that left one robber dead, and the possible attempted hit of a worker for cooperating with police. "I don't think this is what the voters had in mind when they passed the medical pot law, but that's what we're dealing with," said Alameda County Sheriff's Lt. Dale Amaral, whose Eden Township beat includes the 2...

After at least five years of media hype warning that a tectonic societal shift was slowly taking place, it has hit home. Millions of parents who used to worry vaguely about what they'd do when their kids fled the nest are now fretting about the opposite: how to get them to leave. An estimated 18 million fledgling adults are now out of college but not out on their own. Parental nests are packed with offspring whose costly college educations so far have not equipped them to assume the traditional markers of adulthood: moving out on their own, finding jobs good...

Today I am writing from a sorta weird position. I am truly in a paradox, and need help and advice. I am writing about Rigo Garcia, my step-father now, but before a friend. He was introduced to me by my mother, and most times when this happens I end up either really not liking the person, or trying to ignore them due to a wanting to not like them. Neither occured with Rigo. Here comes the issue: Rigo was here illegally in the US. He was arrested several months back for being an illegal, and while in prison my mom...

NEWS ADVISORY U.S. Newswire / Medialink Worldwide 6/27/2005 10:15:00 AM Contact: Adam Eidinger, 202-744-2671 or adam@mintwood.com WASHINGTON, June 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- For the first time since the federal government outlawed hemp farming in the United States, a federal bill has been introduced that would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive Industrial Hemp. At a Capitol Hill lunch on June 23 to mark the introduction of H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005, about 100 congressional staff feasted on Bahama Hempnut Crusted Wild Salmon and Fuji Fennel Hempseed Salad. The five course gourmet hemp meal was prepared...

And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land. -- Ezekiel 34/29 THE REAL REASON CANNABIS HAS BEEN OUTLAWED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ITS EFFECTS ON THE MIND AND BODY. MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the...

A GREEN thumb who made a Burke's Backyard-style instructional video for dope growers about his own $1.5 million crop was behind bars last night. Gelu Pucea spent eight months lovingly cultivating 258 marijuana plants in remote bushland, growing some to 6m high. But Pucea's video recording of his horticultural skill was his downfall when police found it three years after his crop disappeared. Pucea, 39, yesterday pleaded guilty to nine charges including cultivating a commercial quantity of drugs and trafficking cannabis. An edited version of the three-hour video was screened to the County Court sitting in Bairnsdale yesterday. It details...

Even if you aren't one of the state's estimated 100,000 medicinal marijuana users, a dope dispensary could be coming to a corner near you. Just ask the very surprised resident of San Francisco's tony Pacific Heights neighborhood who phoned us the other day after stumbling across a recently sprouted pot club on Vallejo Street, with its blinds drawn and a freshly painted phone number on the awning. "I have two kids,'' said Angela Weber. "When we walked by the place, it just reeked of dope. "Neighbors are furious because it is essentially a residential area, and their property values are...

National Review, July 12, 2004, Volume LVI, Number 12, Pages 28 - 33 Cover Story "An End To Marijuana Prohibition: The drive to legalize picks up" by Ethan A. Nadelmann Mr. Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org). Never before have so many Americans supported decriminalizing and.even legalizing marijuana. Seventy-two percent say that for simple marijuana possession, people should not be incarcerated but fined: the generally accepted definition of "decriminalization." Even more Americans support making marijuana legal for medical purposes. Support for broader legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent, depending on how one...

The GOP knows that some Wisconsin voters are willing to vote Libertarian. Does that justify using Democrat-style tactics?

Our mayor, our premier, the opposition, restaurant and casino owners, the non-smokers and the smokers-rights types, they're all locked in a battle to the death over who gets to smoke -- cigarettes that is -- and who doesn't. Glen Murray to date won't let himself be pinned down on a citywide ban, ditto Doer on a provincewide ban. Restaurants that have bars attached continue to allow smoking while bar owners have nightmares at the thought that someday soon their establishments might have to go cold turkey. Meanwhile, booze is legal, cigarette smoking is legal and marijuana is not. There's something...

— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine. The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United States. The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts. Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug...

Grow houses, such as this residence raided in January on Inuvik Crescent in Kanata, are often dangerous firetraps because the growers bypass hydro meters to obtain the massive amounts of electricity to power the heat lamps and other paraphernalia to surreptitiously grow the plants. Homegrown marijuana has blossomed into a huge industry that collects billions of dollars annually, officials say. Police say there are at least 50,000 houses in Canada that are now used exclusively to grow marijuana, ranging from new homes worth as much as $600,000 in downtown Vancouver to more modest residences sprinkled through the suburban streets of...

e interrupt our coverage of the war on terrorism to check in with that other permanent conflict against a stateless enemy, the war on drugs. To judge by the glee at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug warriors have just accomplished the moral equivalent of routing the Taliban — helping to halt a relentless jihad against the nation's drug laws. Ballot initiatives in Ohio (treatment rather than prison for nonviolent drug offenders), Arizona (the same, plus making marijuana possession the equivalent of a traffic ticket, and providing free pot for medical use) and Nevada (full...

Should all Drugs be Legalized? A conservative Mormon’s solution Edward K. Watson Ladies and gentlemen, I have news that will shock you – the Drug War is a failure! Cost of the War on DrugsThe Western world has spent TRILLIONS of dollars fighting drug use over the past century and what do we have to show for it? Millions of addicts, billionaire drug lords, phenomenally wealthy drug cartels and drug dealers, a more than $500 billion global illicit drug industry, corrupt security and judicial officers, millions incarcerated in overcrowded prisons, astronomical drug-related assaults, murders, thefts and prostitution and criminal...