Free Republic

(Javonnie McCoy and Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard after his acquittal) Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine. The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a...

Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine. The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a muddled prosecution of a muddy case. Or it may have been...

Cynthia Nixon took heat Monday from black leaders over her comments that creating a legalized pot industry in New York could serve as a form of reparations in black communities. Nixon on Saturday told Forbes magazine "now that cannabis is exploding as an industry, we have to make sure that those communities that have been harmed and devastated by marijuana arrests get the first shot at this industry." "We (must) prioritize them in terms of licenses. It's a form of reparations." The comments came under fire from some community leaders.

On January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment became law when five state legislatures (North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, and Wyoming) passed it. In the end, 46 of 48 states passed it, with only Connecticut and Rhode Island voting it down. The text of the amendment set into motion what became known as Prohibition: Here we are, almost 100 years later and marijuana legalization is proceeding apace, despite the efforts of the current attorney general. What lessons might we draw from Prohibition, which was repealed in 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment? They are many, for sure, but here...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is being attacked on both sides of the aisle for rescinding the Obama policy that opened the floodgates to marijuana addiction. Funded by libertarian billionaires such as the Koch brothers, pro-pot senators like Cory Gardner are demanding that AG Sessions stand down and continue Obama’s misguided policy. Sessions rescinded Obama’s command that the Department of Justice ignore federal law against marijuana production and sales, and instead Sessions instructed U.S. Attorneys to begin enforcing well-established federal statutes against large-scale cultivation and distribution of marijuana. These federal laws preempt state law, particularly in Colorado and California where a...

TOPEKA, Kan. -- A white Kansas state lawmaker arguing against the legalization of marijuana suggested that it and other drugs were originally outlawed in part because blacks were predisposed to abusing drugs because of their "character makeup - their genetics and that." State Rep. Steve Alford, a 75-year-old Republican from Ulysses in the state's southwestern corner, apologized Monday for remarks he made Saturday during a public meeting at a hospital in Garden City. One NAACP leader called Alford "an idiot" over the remarks.

Outlaw country legend Willie Nelson was forced to abort a concert after just a single song on Saturday night due to breathing difficulties, and now the 84-year-old has canceled upcoming dates for this week. According to reports in The San Diego Union-Tribune, Nelson was halfway through his opener, “Whiskey River,” while performing at Harrah’s Resort SoCal in San Diego when he abruptly stopped. Eyewitnesses say that he was coughing and wheezing as he left the stage.

Excerpts - Forty-six states — including Sessions' home state of Alabama — have legalized some form of medical marijuana in recent years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eight of those states also allow recreational marijuana. The only legal protection now for medical marijuana growers, processors, sellers and users is a temporary measure sponsored by Republican California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Democratic Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer prohibiting the U.S. Department of Justice from using government funds to target them.

The major problem is federal law, so change itHaving abandoned much of the Reagan way — the sunny disposition, free trade, the unshakeable commitment to America’s global leadership — the Trump administration has now embraced the worst of the Reagan legacy: deficits, for one thing, and the so-called war on drugs, which Attorney General Jeff Sessions means to fight with atavistic rigor. In the 22 years since the editors of this magazine declared “The War on Drugs Is Lost,” the United States has lurched, spasmodically, toward a new settlement on drugs, especially on marijuana. Republicans, ranging from libertarian-leaning figures such...

Former Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson reacted angrily to President Trump's apparent abandonment of a campaign pledge to leave pot policy to the states, saying he hopes the pivot ends Trump's shot at re-election. Johnson, who served two terms as a Republican governor of New Mexico, said the Trump administration is "grossly underestimating the anger this will create." "I hope it dooms his re-election. Trump promised to leave marijuana to the states," Johnson told the Washington Examiner.

Congress is ending the year with battles over tax reform and how to fund the government into next year. Another battle being fought is over the future of medical marijuana in America.The Justice Department is working overtime to remove a restriction in current law that prevents the federal government from prosecuting medical marijuana businesses in states where it has been made legal. The problem is that if the Department of Justice is successful, it would undermine a number of promises that President Donald J. Trump made on the campaign trail.A coalition of federalist-minded conservatives and libertarians have voiced strong support...

The war on drugs has been going on since 1971, and we have a winner: marijuana. Back then, possession of pot carried heavy penalties in many states -- even life imprisonment. Today, 29 states sanction medical use of cannabis, and eight allow recreational use. Legal weed has become about as controversial as Powerball. One sign of the shift came in Wednesday's debate among the Democrats running for governor of Illinois. The state didn't get its first medical marijuana dispensary until 2015, and it decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot only last year. But most of the candidates endorsed legalization...