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A St. Paul man ran a marijuana trafficking business out of an old pizza and ice cream parlor with the help of his girlfriend, mother and grandmother, according to charges filed Friday in Ramsey County District Court. In the course of their investigation, authorities discovered marijuana, cocaine, three handguns and hollow point bullets in the suspects' St. Paul homes. Although authorities locally and out of state had intercepted more than 144 pounds of marijuana associated with the suspects between 2006 to 2013, exposing the fraudulent pizza parlor took a call last year from a concerned citizen. "On August 19, 2014,...

Utah is considering a bill that would allow patients with certain debilitating conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana. If the bill passes, the state's wildlife may "cultivate a taste" for the plant, lose their fear of humans, and basically be high all the time. That's according to testimony presented to a Utah Senate panel (time stamp 58:00) last week by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "I deal in facts. I deal in science," said special agent Matt Fairbanks, who's been working in the state for a decade. He is member of the "marijuana eradication" team...

Colorado Asks Supreme Court To Toss Marijuana Lawsuit Filed By Nebraska, Oklahoma The Colorado Attorney General's Office on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma that contends Colorado's legalization of marijuana is causing an increase in drug crimes in their states. Attorney General Cynthia Coffman wrote in a brief filed with the high court that the lawsuit's aim to stop Colorado from regulating its recreational marijuana industry is a "dangerous" move that would leave "legalization intact" while neutering the state's ability to police businesses. The court should dismiss the lawsuit, Coffman...

An Indonesian police force might want to rethink its drugs disposal policy after accidentally helping residents of one district get high as kite. Destroying tonnes of marijuana in a big bonfire proved to be as reckless as it sounds as those witnessing the event started inhaling the fumes. Journalists and locals began feeling dizzy as police officers, who were wearing masks, destroyed tonnes of marijuana stacked up in a field. The fumes drifted into homes located near to the police station in West Jakarta, Indonesian news website kompas.com reports. “I got a headache because I wasn't wearing a mask," said...

... When the young men got back to Keystone, Fowler said they began ingesting the edible pot. He said his cousin favored some peach tart candies, each piece of candy containing 10 mg of the active ingredient in marijuana, the recommended dose for an adult consuming an edible. But when Goodman consumed several and experienced no immediate effects he kept gobbling them up. “Luke popped two simultaneously” after the first two didn’t seem to do anything, said Fowler. Then he said Goodman took a fifth candy, five times the recommended dose. His mother says her son likely didn’t see the...

Colorado taxpayers are very likely to get a break when they file their taxes next year as the state prepares to refund some tax revenues back to taxpayers for the first time in nearly 15 years. This is due to a provision in the state’s constitution, little known outside of Colorado, called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR. This provision is one of the most effective limits on both Colorado state spending and on state revenue collection. TABOR works by establishing a limit on how much tax revenue the state can collect in a given year. Generally, the cap...

<p>Gov. Chris Christie is reiterating his opposition to legalizing marijuana for recreational use and says tax revenue from sales of the drug amount to "blood money.</p>

A bipartisan effort to legalize medical marijuana at the federal level is now underway in both Houses of Congress, and its sponsors acknowledge they face an uphill climb to passage - but they believe the public is on their side. "Polls show that at least 86 percent of Americans say medical marijuana should be available," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, in an interview with CBS News. "Legislators rarely lead, they generally follow. I guess it's called cultural lag...Eventually, people in Congress start catching up." Cohen and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would reclassify marijuana as...

Colorado's legal marijuana is three times stronger than it was a generation ago and is often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungus and bacteria, a startling chemical analysis of 600 samples has found. Additionally, modern pot has very low levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, the compound that medical marijuana advocates say gives the drug its healing properties. In most samples, the CBD levels were so small they were undetectable. The findings come from Andy LaFrate, a Ph.D. chemist and the founder of Colorado testing firm Charas Scientific. LaFrate will present the results of his research today at the national meeting...

States across the land have legalized marijuana for medical – and, in some cases, recreational – use, but conflicts with strict federal anti-drug laws have left patients, other users, doctors, marijuana businesses and the banks and landlords with commercial relationships to those businesses vulnerable to federal raids and prosecution. A new bill introduced by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would solve this problem by simply respecting states’ rights. Medical marijuana has been legalized in 23 states and the District of Columbia, but that has not stopped federal agencies from aggressively – and inconsistently –...

Southern Oregon marijuana growers want to ban industrial hemp production from the region out of fear that hemp may pollinate their crops and render them worthless. Some outdoor marijuana growers want industrial hemp cultivation to be limited to eastern Oregon - far from their lucrative marijuana crops. At the very least, they don't want hemp in Josephine, Jackson and Douglas counties. Compared to Oregon's marijuana legalization movement, the effort to launch an industrial hemp industry in Oregon has been an understated one propelled by a small but passionate group of advocates. When one of them, Edgar Winters, of Eagle Point,...

Americans want lower taxes and more government spending both at once, although their support for spending more tax dollars on health care has dropped dramatically. They’re likelier than ever to not feel connected to any particular religion, but no less likely to believe in God. And for the first time, most want to legalize marijuana. Those are among findings from the 2014 General Social Survey, which has been measuring trends in American opinion and behavior since 1972. …

Worrying about teen drinking and drug use has kept many a parent up at night. With marijuana becoming increasingly available and legal in some parts of the country, the question has taken on new urgency: If teens are going to experiment, which is safer, booze or pot? "The first answer always has to be neither," Dr. Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, told CBS News. But then he acknowledges they're not exactly equivalent -- and he considers alcohol much more dangerous. Carroll wrote a provocative piece for the New York Times exploring what's known...

Jason Harrison appears in the doorway, twiddling a screwdriver between his fingers. One of two Dallas police officers called to the scene tells Harrison to drop the tool, a command the officers repeat at least four times as Harrison's mom screams, "Jay! Jay! Jay!"

<p>CARSON CITY, Nev. — Pets might soon be able to use pot under a bill introduced Tuesday in the Nevada Legislature.</p>

Earlier this school year, a sixth-grader in the gifted-and-talented program at Bedford Middle School in Bedford, Virginia was suspended for one year after an assistant principal found something that looked like a marijuana leaf in his backpack. The student, the 11-year-old son of two school teachers, had to enroll in the district's alternative education program and be homeschooled. He was evaluated by a psychiatrist for substance abuse problems, and charged with marijuana possession in juvenile court. In the months since September, he's become withdrawn, depressed, and he suffers from panic attacks. He is worried his life is over, according to...

President Barack Obama has a stern message for the younger generation about their political priorities: care more about climate change, and less about legalizing marijuana. Obama, who has been open about smoking pot in high school, chided an interviewer from Vice News who suggested that young people would view legalizing marijuana as a top item when considering the president's legacy. "First of all, it shouldn't be young people's biggest priority," Obama said in the interview with Vice News. "Young people: I understand this is important to you, but as you be thinking about climate change, the economy and jobs, war and peace,...

Some schoolchildren claim another student bragged about having marijuana. They inform school administrators. An assistant principal finds a leaf and a lighter in the boy’s knapsack. The student is suspended for a year. A sheriff’s deputy files marijuana possession charges in juvenile court... There was only one problem: Months after the fact, the couple learned the substance wasn’t marijuana.

The recent signing of a medical marijuana bill by GOP Sens. Rand Paul and Dean Heller hasn’t gone unnoticed. Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise has introduced a poll on his website, asking people to vote on whether marijuana should be legalized on the federal level. Scalise in the past has voted down marijuana reform legislation, Marijuana.com reports. On May 30, 2014, Scalise voted against an amendment in the House to prevent the Department of Justice from using funds from its budget to crack down on states that have enacted medical marijuana programs. Later, in July, Scalise voted against legislation to...

Federal agents discovered the longest drug tunnel ever unearthed along the agency’s Tuscon sector earlier this week when they found a 905-foot-long drug thruway in the tiny town of Naco, Arizona. At three times the length of a football field and replete with lighting, wooden supports and a cement shaft complete with a hydraulic lift, the record-breaking drug tunnel was discovered following a major marijuana bust in the town of Bisbee. Acting on a tip by deferral authorities, Bisbee police officers and Border Patrol agents stopped a U-Haul truck headed toward to the Naco house and found 4,700 pounds of...