Free Republic

Ohio voters have rejected a ballot measure seeking to legalize recreational and medical marijuana use in the state. Failure of the proposed constitutional amendment follows an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording and an investigation into the proposal's petition signatures.

20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe. Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found.

Police in northern California have uprooted 460,000 plants and made more than 100 arrests in a major operation against illegal marijuana cultivation. Authorities said they had seized 1,500 pounds (680kg) of processed marijuana, 27 guns and 11 vehicles over two weeks in Mendocino National Forest. The 900,000-acre site is part of an area known as the Emerald Triangle for its high number of marijuana plots. The raids are part of a wider campaign to remove marijuana from public land. Marijuana for medicinal use is legal in California if you have a permit to grow it or a doctor's note to...

TUCSON — In three separate incidents over a 24-hour period, Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents seized more than 1,940 pounds of marijuana with an estimated value of $970,000. Yesterday morning, Ajo station agents working northwest of Lukeville discovered 11 bundles of marijuana abandoned in the desert. The narcotics, weighing 569 pounds with an estimated value of $284,500, were seized and transported to the Ajo station for processing. Early Thursday, the Ajo station All Terrain Vehicle Unit discovered 14 bundles of marijuana abandoned in the desert northeast of Lukeville with assistance from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter. The narcotics,...

California once again proves that, in the words of Jerry Brown’s former girlfriend, that it marches to the beat of a different drum. Two measures that were widely expected to pass were easily defeated tonight. One would have delayed the state’s green house gas restricting AB 32, the other freed marijuana for legal possession and sale.

In one of the larger seizures of illicit drugs in Massachusetts in recent years, State Police and federal agents recovered 200 pounds of cocaine from a passenger aircraft after it landed Wednesday at Logan International Airport, authorities said today. "We seized a significant amount of cocaine from an arrival flight at Logan Airport Wednesday night,'' said State Police spokesman David Procopio. He said the seizure was made by a joint task force of state troopers and agents from federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But 'gardeners' escape; pot-grow cooking fire blamed for S. Calif. wildfire From KTVZ.COM news sources Days after tribal police and federal agents seized 1,630 marijuana plants worth an estimated $5 million from a remote area of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, authorities in California said Sunday a more than 85,000-acre wildfire in Santa Barbara County had been traced to a cooking fire at an illegal marijuana grow. Friday's Warm Springs raid marked the fourth time in just over two years that police have busted a major pot grow on the reservation, tied to Mexican drug gangs. The total seized -...

One of the biggest marijuana grows in Western Washington has been found in Pacific County. Drug investigators from two counties say they found 20,000 pot plants growing by a campsite with irrigation equipment and firearms. They add that a 48-year-old man carrying a loaded 10 mm handgun was arrested and others fled into the woods about 10 miles southeast of South Bend.

Damn. And I was hoping to have something to help get me through the next four years. More "punch drunk" silliness from Obama on marijuana laws. Maybe if we legalized pot, Hillary would stop blaming the U.S. for Mexico's drug violence.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Federal agents raided a medical marijuana dispensary in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday. At about 11 a.m., five agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency — joined by members of the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, the South Lake Tahoe-El Dorado County Narcotics Enforcement Team and the South Lake Tahoe Police — served a federal search warrant on Patient to Patient Collective, located at 2314 Lake Tahoe Boulevard. Agents seized between five and 10 pounds of processed marijuana and a “small amount” of U.S. currency from the collective, said DEA Special Agent Gordon Taylor. Police made...

Yreka, Calif. - Siskiyou County Sheriff Rick Riggins said that approximately 100,000 marijuana plants were discovered at various garden locations in western Siskiyou County last week. Involved in the discoveries were the Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Eradication Team, Siskiyou County Sheriff’s deputies, Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies, the United States Forest Service, the Department of Fish and Game, and the California Highway Patrol Air Division. Riggins noted that a representative from the Fish and Game Department came along to assess the damage to the environment caused by marijuana operations. Riggins said that on Friday, the agencies involved discovered a garden in the...

Authorities say it's the biggest pot bust in Cocke County in the last five years, maybe more. Around 10 a.m. Monday, helicopter pilots spotted hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants growing in the Cherokee National Forest in Cocke County. They alerted officers on the ground, and the crew trekked more than a mile into the forest from Interstate 40, where they came upon what they call a DTO, or drug trafficking organization. "They just live in it, move in, grow, and that's all they're there to do is grow marijuana," Special Agent Jason Poore said of the growers. Poore is...

FRESNO -- Two Modesto men are facing mandatory 20-year prison sentences after being convicted of running a medical-marijuana operation that federal prosecutors labeled a criminal enterprise, authorities said today. Luke Anthony Scarmazzo, 28, and Ricardo Ruiz Montes, 28, were convicted by a federal jury Fresno on Thursday of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, growing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute. The conviction for running a criminal enterprise carries a mandatory sentence of at least 20 years. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger is to sentence both men Aug. 4. Federal officials said the case sends a message to...

Stamford (AP)_ Stamford police say they've arrested a Bridgeport man who posted an ad on the Internet selling high grade marijuana. Police say Steven Zahorsky, 24, posted the advertisement on Craigslist.com, boasting about the "A plus'' marijuana he had for sale. Stamford police e-mailed the alleged dealer, claiming to be a painting crew interested in buying drugs during a work break. Police say Zahorsky agreed to sell 3/4 oz. of marijuana at the I-95 rest area off Exit 13. Police say an undercover officer paid $320 in cash for the drug. Police then arrested Zahorsky. Police say a search of...

A new study finds that the development of bullous lung disease occurs in marijuana smokers approximately 20 years earlier than tobacco smokers. A condition often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke, bullous lung disease (also known as bullae) is a condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the lungs. At present, about 10% of young adults and 1% of the adult population smoke marijuana regularly. Researchers find that the mean age of marijuana-smoking patients with lung problems was 41, as opposed to the average age of...

MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities seized more than 11 tons of cocaine in the western port city of Manzanillo, and said it was one of the nation's biggest drug busts ever. During a routine inspection, federal police and marines discovered a cargo container filled with packets of the drug aboard the Hong Kong-flagged ship Esmeralda, which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, the federal attorney general's office said in a statement Wednesday. Authorities were still weighing the drugs but the statement said their weight had already surpassed 11 tons, making Tuesday's seizure "one of the greatest quantities of cocaine that has been decommissioned...

Medical marijuana advocate kills herselfBy MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded. After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain. That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a...

The vast majority of "high value targets" for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Afghanistan are tied to the Taliban, which is using the country's rampant opium poppy cultivation to fund terrorist insurgencies. "We must make it clear to the Afghan people that we, the international community and the Afghan government are serious about this drug trade and corresponding terrorism," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "We are not just eradicating a few opium fields or arresting some local, midlevel drug dealers to show something is being done, but that is...

25 Percent Drop in Marijuana Use by Teen Boys More Youths Starting Drug Use with Painkillers Than Marijuana; Prescription Drug Abuse Remains a Concern WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Overall illicit drug use among teens ages 12-17 is at a five year low, according to the largest and most comprehensive study of drug use in the United States, released today. But when it comes to youth, nonmedical use of painkillers continues to be an area of concern, with more recent initiates (2.2 million) than any illicit drug, reveals the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Since 2002, current...

A submarine-like vessel filled with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine was seized off the Guatemalan coast, U.S. officials said. Four suspected smugglers were operating the self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel when it was located and seized on Sunday evening by officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, the Border Patrol said in a news release Wednesday. When the suspects realized they had been spotted by drug-surveillance aircraft patrolling the eastern Pacific, they scuttled the vessel but were unable to escape. Coast Guard officials, guided by the reconnaissance plane, intercepted the vessel...