Free Republic

Canada has passed a landmark law that legalises the recreational use of marijuana nationwide. The Cannabis Act passed its final hurdle on Tuesday in a 52-29 vote in the Senate. The bill controls and regulates how the drug can be grown, distributed, and sold. Canadians will be able to buy and consume the drug legally as early as this September. The country is the first in the G7 to legalise the drug's recreational use.

As legalisation spreads across the US, the web is lighting up with advice on how to mix marijuana and motherhood. She looks like a model suburban housewife, beaming into the camera as she sifts through a pink leather handbag, explaining to her youtube viewers that she carries her children's inhalers with her at all times because "you gotta be prepared". Inside Kathryn VahEaton's own "medicine bag", though, is a pink pipe and a set of dainty purple pots-where she stores her stash. To her fans she is the Stoner Mom, a 34-year-old mother of four from Colorado whose blogs, videos...

A 21-year-old Gwinnett man allegedly under the influence of bath salts was arrested this week after he tried to fight a police officer and consumed his own feces, police said. Officers arrived at a residence on the 2100 block of Worrall Hill Drive around 4 p.m. on July 3 after a woman told police her son, Matthew Hammond, was "walking around out of his mind, armed with a knife," according to a police incident report. When the officer pulled up to a house, the man sprinted towards his car. Hammond chased after the car as the officer pulled away. When...

Whether you spell it with an 's' or a 'z', I don't like the word. It is used so lazily and it starts with a rather dubious (French) assumption. Let's assume that you favour the legalisation of something that is currently illegal. Shouldn't you be campaigning for its legalisation? Well, not really. You have surrendered before you start. You make it sound as though the default position should always be the status quo unless there is a good reason to change it. That's problematic. People will ask you to spell out all the possible consequences. Might there not be a...