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The driver of a box truck that struck and killed five bicyclists on a stretch of Nevada highway last week, and told investigators he fell asleep at the wheel, had a high level of methamphetamine in his system, prosecutors said Wednesday. Jordan Alexander Barson, 45, of Kingman, Arizona, faces 12 felony charges, including driving under the influence and reckless driving, in a criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas. "Choices have consequences," Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said after a Las Vegas judge issued a warrant for Barson's arrest in the Dec. 10 crash on U.S. 95 between Boulder City...

Members of the House of Delegates expect it to pass. In the Senate, they give it “slightly better than 50-50 odds.” And Gov. Ralph Northam’s office says he’s “certainly open to it.” Proposals to legalize recreational marijuana in Virginia are set to get their first serious hearings when the General Assembly convenes in January and, at least for now, it looks like there’s a decent chance they could succeed... The movement in Virginia comes after voters in four states overwhelmingly approved referendums legalizing marijuana, bringing the total nationwide total to 15. If lawmakers in Virginia move forward, the state would...

Lloyd Eddie Lasker Jr., 49, was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a gun by a convicted felon...Mayflower is a town of less than 2,000 people about 30 minutes north of Little Rock, according to the latest U.S. Census records. The House of Refuge and Deliverance Ministries church, where Lasker is the pastor, is on a rural stretch of highway within the town’s city limits...Little said she found an emaciated 21-month-old child “with multiple bruises from head to toe,” his mother and Lasker at the church. The child is now in the...

In fiscal year 2019, the Office of Field Operations seized some 68,585 points of meth nationwide, compared to 118,153 pounds so far this year...since the borders have remained closed to only essential travel because of the coronavirus pandemic, officers said it’s forcing criminals to use other routes and methods of concealment.

Ford Motor Company Employees have asked the company’s leadership to stop making and selling police vehicles. According to Verge, the internal discussion came as the demands for racial justice raged across the country. In response, Ford CEO Jim Hackett has told employees in a letter that he doesn’t think it’s “controversial that the Ford Police Interceptor helps officers do their job” and that Ford will continue the business. Ford has the market when it comes to making police cars, accounting for two-thirds of the cop cars on the street. Despite Ford’s success in the police car market, employees, including black...

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is calling for the U.S. to legalize currently illicit drugs. “If we take that step to legalize and regulate, then we're no longer treating people who are struggling with substance addiction and abuse as criminals and instead getting them the help that they need,” the 2020 presidential candidate said at a campaign stop in Merrimack, New Hampshire on Friday. She was responding to a voter who asked whether her plan to end the war on drugs centered on more harm reduction and treatment or if it involved moving to “legalize and regulate narcotics so that you're...

Two citizens campaigns to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida are headed in opposite directions, with one contending it’s close to getting on the 2020 ballot and the other saying it’s unlikely to get the needed signatures in time. Make It Legal Florida, backed and financed by the medical marijuana industry, has gathered close to 600,000 signatures, chairman Nick Hansen said Tuesday. That would be more than 75% of the 766,200 needed to get on the ballot in November 2020, though only about 119,000 had been verified Tuesday. But Karen Goldstein, vice-chair of Regulate Florida, which backs more sweeping legal marijuana...

When the most popular medical marijuana dispensary in Chicago begins selling recreational pot on New Year’s Day, it will operate like a busy restaurant. Dispensary 33 plans to take names from those in line and page customers by phone when they can get in. The North Side cannabis shop will take that unusual step due to the huge crowds expected when weed sales become legal under state law at 6 a.m. Jan. 1, 2020. The celebration will be similar to the unofficial pot holiday of April 20, or 4/20, when a Dispensary 33 street fest and special deals this year...

Cash, fentanyl and marijuana, along with three weapons each containing a 30-round magazine, were recovered from the scene...Nathan Goddard, 39, was charged with felonious assault on an agent...Cahke Cortner, 39, and Lionel Combs III, 40, were charged with conspiring to distribute drugs...Courtney Allen, 34, also was in custody...

When the alarm went off at Jennifer Hrobuchak's work, the 22-year-old district manager didn't think twice. She got in her car in the early morning hours and headed off to the store to investigate. The new college graduate, who had hoped to have a career saving people from drugs, never saw the man run through the red light straight at her. At 82 miles per hour, he slammed Jennifer's car across the road into a building that crushed and killed her. After seven years of telling the story, her mom, Corinne, still gets emotional. And it's no wonder. The man...

It took the state roughly three and a half years to reach the $500 million mark in total state revenue from marijuana sales, and just under two years to double the revenue source. Cannabis sales contribute to the state's general reserve fund, as well as education and health care, including mental health services, and youth drug-prevention programs.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Saturday he’s reached an agreement with key lawmakers on a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in the state starting next year. The legislation would allow adults 21 and older to legally buy cannabis for recreational use from licensed dispensaries. Illinois residents could possess up to about an ounce (30 grams) of marijuana, while non-residents could possess about half an ounce (15 grams). The measure also would automatically expunge some marijuana convictions. If it passes, Illinois would join 10 other states, including neighboring Michigan, in legalizing recreational marijuana. While the Illinois law would take effect Jan....

New York woke Sunday to learn that state lawmakers had agreed to a budget that aims to spend a whopping $175 billion in the next fiscal year, while imposing a boatload of new taxes and fees in the name of funding the MTA. More hits to your pocket, and more spending, are still to come: The budget also sets up “independent” commissions to settle the details of both public funding of state political campaigns and “congestion” tolls in Manhattan. Plus, lawmakers this year may yet legalize online sports betting and the sale of pot, each of which will come with...

A Salisbury University student has been charged with illegal wiretapping after prosecutors said he streamed a meeting with a congressional staffer for Maryland Rep. Andy Harris via Facebook Live without permission. Jake Burdett, 20, was charged last week with two felony counts of making an illegal recording and distributing the video filmed during a Maryland Marijuana Justice rally at Harris’s Salisbury office in October, the state prosecutor’s office announced Thursday. Marijuana legalization protesters have long tangled with Harris, who in 2014 worked to block full legalization of the drug in the District of Columbia. A protest outside the Republican’s Capitol...

Some Michigan communities are already prohibiting adult-use marijuana businesses, a little more than a week after voters in the state approved legalization of recreational cannabis. According to various newspaper reports, Niles City in southwestern Michigan and Pinckney village in the southeastern part of the state have decided to opt out, at least for now. St. Joseph in southwestern Michigan is expected to do the same. Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press reported Tuesday that officials at colleges across the state say marijuana won’t be allowed on campuses. That’s because they don’t want to jeopardize federal funding since marijuana is still illegal...

Call it a buzzkiller from BuzzFeed. On Wednesday, online news site BuzzFeed reported that the Trump Administration is engaged in a "secret war on weed." BuzzFeed stated that the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee told multiple federal agencies to submit "data demonstrating the most significant negative trends" about marijuana use. The goal appears to be to try to prevent further support for relaxing federal anti-marijuana laws. If the committee is successful in its efforts, companies with U.S. marijuana operations such as Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE:SMG), CannaRoyalty (NASDAQOTH:CNNRF), and Kush Bottles (NASDAQOTH:KSHB) could see their hopes of operating in a fully legal environment...

The hunt is on for budtenders, cannabis cultivators, weed botanists and dozens of other new jobs that have sprouted with Florida’s nascent medical marijuana industry. With dispensaries scouting locations across the state and 147,000 people signed up to use the now-legalized drug, the developing industry is quickly trying to recruit thousands of workers to develop, grow and sell medical cannabis. Medical marijuana businesses say stoners need not apply. A passion for smoking weed is a liability, and a criminal record involving drugs will almost certainly disqualify most candidates. “We get hundreds of applications for every job opening we have,” said...

Do not be surprised if legal cigarettes made from ganja (cannabis) hit the streets soon. Major producers like Carreras are probing that and other cannabis possibilities, as increasing competition from illegally imported cigarettes continues to burn deeper into the profits of the legal trade. It is no secret that British American Tobacco (BAT), the parent company of Carrerras, has, like other major US tobacco dealers including Phillip Morris, been looking at the cannabis market and the possibility of producing mild cigarettes restricted by the legal content of the main cannabinoids — cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), although only THC is...

This is a question we batted around back in June, in that case applying to workers in the private sector. If you live in a state where marijuana has been legalized, either for medical or recreational use, can your employer fire you for failing a drug test even if you were only using marijuana in off work hours? It turns out the answer is generally yes, though it’s a bit complicated.Today the same issue arises for public sector workers. Government Executive examines the question of whether or not federal workers should legally be allowed to fire up a joint after...

Di Blasio’s an elected official whose wife is all for legalizing marijuana. Prime Minister Trudeau is an elected official who is nationalizing the drug in all of Canada on October 17 Though mainstream media attention was riveted on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pricey plane ride getting him back to New York from Quebec, mid-holiday for the street renaming for NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia on the $3 million NYPD counterterrorism plane on Thursday, and though there are no media reports of his having met privately with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was discussion of legalized marijuana the lure for...