Free Republic

US residents are spending more money to purchase legal cannabis than they are on chocolate, craft beer and topical pain relief. A report from MJBizDaily showed Americans spent roughly $30 billion on legal marijuana in 2022 while only spending around $20 billion on chocolate. The cannabis purchases eclipsed sales of “feel-good” products, including beer, opioid medications and topical pain relief, the report stated. Though the legal purchase of marijuana is becoming increasingly popular, sales still fell behind the tobacco industry, which made around $53 billion last year despite a steady decline.

Less than an hour from the capital of the European Union, gangs fight gun battles in the streets or bomb each other’s outposts. Crime reporters, police and prosecutors are bought off or killed. Torture cells are set up in shipping containers and bodies can be cleanly disposed of, but when the gangs really want to send a message they set up a public execution or fire off a rocket. That’s the way things are done, not in Bogota or Beirut, but in Antwerp. Europe’s initial Islamic migration followed port cities. Among those leading port cities were Rotterdam and Antwerp which...

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful head of the Texas Senate, sharply rebuked Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday for vetoing his top legislative priority — a ban on all THC products — and dug in his heels against the governor’s call for lawmakers to instead place firmer regulations on the hemp industry. In vetoing Senate Bill 3 just before midnight Sunday, Abbott argued that the measure would have faced “valid constitutional challenges” that would have kept it tied up in court for years. He called the Legislature back to Austin for a special session next month to pass stricter rules...

I despise marijuana. For that reason, I’m very glad when seemingly reputable studies back up my visceral sense that marijuana is a terrible drug that destroys people’s lives and, along the way, destroys American society. First, I went to ChatGPT for it to sum up the obvious, which is that a drug that alters people’s temporal and spatial perception makes them lousy drivers:

A headline regular during the 89th legislative session was an all-encompassing ban on hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, which landed on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk on May 27. By law, the governor has an additional 20 days following the final day of the session to take action on bills that pass in the session's last 10 days. This means he has until Sunday, June 22, to sign or veto Senate Bill 3, which could determine the fate of Texas’ growing hemp industry. Without any indication of what he will do and mounting pressure from his Republican associates, Abbott seems to be...

Soros is one of the biggest backers of marijuana legalization in history and now his NGO have their sights on Ukraine The Ukrainian Drug Control Service recently issued the first license to import medical cannabis into Ukraine, after the law on the legalization of medical cannabis officially came into force in Ukraine last August. Several organizations have lobbied for at least partial legalization of marijuana in Ukraine in recent years – most of them supported by George Soros. This is no coincidence. The Ukrainian Drug Control Service recently issued the first license for the import of medical cannabis into Ukraine,...

Someone I grew up with is a pothead, and all his friends are potheads, so I’ve seen firsthand how destructive it is. I’ve seen how it destroys ambition, discipline, intelligence, and moral fiber. It’s a vile drug, and a new study reveals that, no matter how you ingest it (eating versus smoking), it also destroys the body. That being the case, we must ask why Democrats are so determined to see it legalized across America. You don’t need to take my anecdotal claims to know just how bad marijuana is for the people who use it. There are endless studies...

Regularly smoking weed or consuming edibles may raise the risk of suffering a heart attack, a study suggests. The team from the University of California San Francisco who made the find warns it is 'more evidence cannabis use is not benign.' It also comes amid an alarming rise in unexplained heart attacks in young Americans, which experts are still trying to unpack.

A man was arrested after he allegedly broke the window of a Del Taco in Florida because he was denied service, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. It was around midnight Sundaywhen the suspect Anthony Izzo pulled into the drive-thru in Port Charlotte, a city about 30 miles northwest of Fort Myers, according to NBC affiliate Gulf Coast News, citing the sheriff's office. Employees told Izzo they were closed, and couldn't take his order because they had shut the kitchen down and put away the meat, authorities said. Moments later, employees heard loud popping noises, and one worker called...

The marijuana was inside 155 vacuum-sealed packages listed on the manifesto as “brace overalls for men / heavy duty workwear bib.” According to a press release from CBP, “The marijuana collectively weighed 91.3 kilograms, or 201 pounds and five ounces, and has a street value of about $875,000 in the United States. Depending on potency, this shipment could have fetched two to three times more in Europe.”

Raymont Willis, 42, disappeared from his home on Johnson Hill Road on July 4, 2020. His disappearance is connected to Koby Roush — who disappeared the following day and was also said to have been fed to pigs — through a man who overdosed two weeks later, Luke Farmer. NBC4 obtained a report by the Ross County Sheriff’s Office that showed that Farmer was wanted for questioning on July 20, 2020, in the disappearance and possible murder of two people in Pike County. One person named in that document was Roush, the other was referred to as “Willis.” Neither Willis’...

Federal agents have arrested Utah oil magnate James Lael Jensen, his wife Kelly Anne Jensen, and two of their sons, Maxwell Sterling Jensen (aka “Max”) and Zachary Golden Jensen, in connection with a sprawling $300 MILLION smuggling and money laundering conspiracy tied to Mexican criminal organizations. Court records reveal that all four members of the Jensen family were arrested on Wednesday, April 23 — with sons Max and Zachary taken into custody in the Rio Grande Valley, while James and Kelly Jensen were apprehended at their 26,893-square-foot mansion in Sandy, Utah, reportedly worth over $9.1 million. The arrest was carried...

On Tuesday, Attorney General Pamela Bondi held a press conference announcing a week-long, multi-agency and multi-law enforcement and tribal operation headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the New Mexico District Attorney’s Office. The operation resulted in huge drug busts and multiple arrests of high-level members of the Sinaloa cartel. According to Bondi, the agents garnered 11.5 kilos of fentanyl, including three million fentanyl pills — the largest seizure in the nation's history. The main head of the Sinaloa cartel, Alberto Salazar Amaya, was arrested along with five others, all in the country illegally. Amaya was arrested in Salem,...

Not to be blunt, but Gail Zanchelli hated marijuana as a teen growing up on Long Island. “Tried it, never liked it,” Zanchelli, 64, told The Post. Now it’s part of her nightly routine. The Deer Park resident takes 60 milligrams of gummies infused with THC — the main active ingredient in marijuana — before bed to relieve chronic throbbing in her tailbone. She’s part of a budding group of seniors who use cannabis to relax, ease pain, sleep better or manage their mental health.

Middle-aged folks and seniors whose weed use lands them in the hospital are at higher risk for developing dementia within a matter of years, a new study says. An ER visit or hospitalization due to cannabis use is associated with a 72% increased risk of a dementia diagnosis within five years compared to the general population, researchers reported April 14 in JAMA Neurology. These folks also have a 23% increased risk of dementia within five years compared to people receiving hospital care for any other reason, researchers added. "Long-term and heavy cannabis use has been associated with memory problems in...

We recently wrote about the Brett Kimberlin saga -- which is long and involved, and which we'd avoided jumping into for a long time, given how complex and nutty it was. If you're not familiar with it, go back and read that post to catch up on it, but the super short version is that Kimberlin has been suing a lot of people, in large part because he doesn't like the way they're characterizing his past. And he's more or less indicated that he intends to tie people up in court for as long as possible, leading some to put...

Weed users are much more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or other life-threatening heart condition than people who don't indulge, a new study says.Adults under 50 are more than six times as likely to suffer a heart attack if they use marijuana, compared to non-users, researchers reported Tuesday in the journal JACC Advances.They also have a dramatically higher risk of stroke, heart failure and heart-related death, researchers said."Asking about cannabis use should be part of clinicians' workup to understand patients' overall cardiovascular risk, similar to asking about smoking cigarettes," lead researcher Dr. Ibrahim Kamel, a clinical instructor at...

Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Police and city officials in Houston said evidence in storage lockers is being destroyed by "drug-addicted rats." Mayor John Whitmire said at a news conference that drugs being stored in evidence lockers are attracting rats that feast on the illicit narcotics and cause damage to other evidence in the process. "We got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying," Whitmire said. The mayor announced the start of an initiative in partnership with the Harris County District Attorney's Office to organize the 1.2 million pieces of evidence stored by the...

The 25-year-old mayor of Bogalusa, Louisiana, on Tuesday was arrested and accused of involvement in a drug-trafficking operation and the soliciting of prostitution. Louisiana State Police arrested Mayor Tyrin Truong and six others after investigating an alleged drug trafficking organization operating in the Bogalusa area in April. The criminal organization is accused of distributing opioids, ecstasy, THC products and high-grade marijuana via social media and other channels, then using proceeds to buy guns, some of which were then used in other crimes, police said in a release. All seven suspects, including the mayor, are from Bogalusa and have been charged...

Joe Biden has issued a record-breaking clemency grant that benefits fraudsters, drug traffickers, cartel leaders, and crack dealers, court records show. The lame-duck president’s list of convicted criminals includes nearly 1,500 individuals who will have their sentences commuted. On Thursday, Biden announced he would commute sentences for individuals “who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities.” However, the list of commutations released by the White House includes several high-profile and dangerous criminals. One individual, Francesk Shkambi, was initially sentenced in July 2014 to 27 years in prison. According...