Free Republic

New York State Assembly Democrats are mulling an array of new and higher taxes on the rich as well as legalization of mobile sports betting and marijuana to address a fiscal crisis fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. The lawmakers discussed raising taxes to close a projected massive budget deficit next year during a grim, private remote meeting held all-day on Wednesday. “If there was an idea to raise money, it was discussed today,” Assembly Education Committee Chairman Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx) told The Post afterward “Everything was discussed at great length.” The tax talk session comes as the New York City...

GUADALAJARA (Reuters) - Early next year, a Chinese businessman named Gan Xianbing will be sentenced in a Chicago courtroom for laundering just over $530,000 in Mexican cartel drug money. Gan, 50, was convicted in February of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transfer business that whisked cartel cash from U.S. drug sales offshore. Gan has maintained his innocence; his lawyers say he was entrapped by U.S. authorities. The trial garnered few headlines and little of the public fascination reserved for kingpins of powerful narcotics syndicates that U.S. federal prosecutors said Gan served. Still, U.S. law enforcement officials told Reuters that...

@RepThomasMassieThe marijuana bill: Imposes new taxes, creates new federal crimes, creates new offices & programs at existing federal agencies, and in general gives federal government executive branch bureaucrats almost unlimited power to issue whatever regulations and rules they so choose.

Lots more government lockdowns coming your way, just in time for Christmas! For your own good of course. But don’t worry, your government overlords are working overtime on the really important things. Like cannabis.The House on Friday passed a comprehensive reform bill ending federal prohibitions on marijuana in a historic vote that marks the next significant step forward in the growing movement to legalize cannabis in the U.S.. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act decriminalizes marijuana at the federal level and would remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances and expunge federal convictions for non-violent marijuana...

n Friday the U.S. House passed a historic bill that would end the federal prohibition of marijuana and expunge many cannabis-related convictions. It’s the first time the full House has considered —let alone passed — such a bill.The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act), made it through the House by a 228 to 164 vote. Nearly every Democrat supported the measure, while just five Republicans voted for it. Six Democrats voted against the bill.The bill, introduced by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), would eliminate conflict between state and federal law and allow states to set their own marijuana...

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – A Florida woman was arrested Saturday for DUI after a deputy spotted her driving the wrong way down a street in Punta Gorda. According to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office, a deputy was driving west on East Marion Avenue around 9:12 p.m. when they saw a grey SUV driving east on the same road. East Marion is a one-way street with signs saying so, deputies said. The deputy slammed on their brakes and pulled over to the right to avoid crashing into the car. The grey SUV kept driving east, according to a report. Once the...

This is how they roll in San Francisco. Smokers in the Golden Gate City have been banned from smoking tobacco in their apartments, but smoking a marijuana joint inside is perfectly fine, officials announced Tuesday. The Board of Supervisors approved the new law in 10 to 1 vote, making San Francisco the largest city in the country to adopt the tough measure against tobacco smokers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Lawmakers originally proposed to ban marijuana smoking in buildings, but they reversed their position after cannabis activists protested

Kolb and his son traveled from their home in San Mateo for a ski trip in Lake Tahoe and were staying at a cabin ... when Kolb woke up before dawn and began pacing around the cabin. He woke up his then 16-year-old son and asked him to get medical help... Kolb’s son called 911 and reported his father was acting odd and was “in a dream-like state,” according to court documents. He told the dispatcher his father had a history of temporal lobe epilepsy and that they had smoked marijuana together before going to bed. Temporal lobe epilepsy can...

Home cultivation has emerged as a clear sticking point in cannabis reform across many states.While it faces pushback, including from several cannabis brands, home grow is making incremental progress in medical and adult use markets, and ushering in a variety of parameters to meet state needs. The issue has made more progress than other key advocate issues, such as social equity. Yet, industry professionals say more could be done to improve access and curb industry greed.Those supporting home grow believe that it is a way to provide affordable cannabis to low income individuals, as well as to those customers who...

The push to legalize recreational weed in New Jersey includes a new “social equity” tax that would benefit communities of color disproportionately affected by drug laws. Bills by both the Senate and Assembly allow the Cannabis Regularly Commission to levy an optional Social Equity Excise Fee for programs aimed at alleviating racial disparities

If you’ve ever filled out a Form 4473, you’re familiar with the Question 11e: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or other controlled substance?” In case you thought there was any ambiguity with regard to medical marijuana, you were wrong. Indeed, there is a warning in bold right underneath the question that clarifies: “Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized or for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.” Regardless of what one...

...But according to David Downs, the California bureau chief of cannabis-focused website and news outlet Leafly, the underlying factors that gave rise to these cases in the first place haven’t really gone away. Perhaps more than any outlet, Leafly has investigated these poisonings extensively. “What we found was that the structure of the market and the incentives to adulterate products had not changed. The profit motive still exists, you still make more money, fooling consumers and being unfair to them, such that the promise of injury was still there,” Downs said. Though the CDC said it would stop tracking the...

According to the Associated Press, Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 207 this month to legalize the possession and usage of recreational marijuana. The Mint Dispensary in Tempe, Arizona is taking advantage of the drug's popularity with their latest concoction: cannabis-infused turkey gravy for the non-traditional Thanksgiving spread. While Prop 207 has passed, the state has not yet officially legalized recreational marijuana. Therefore only patients possessing a medicinal marijuana card will be able to purchase a warm Thanksgiving meal customized with a dose of cannabis now through Thanksgiving Day. The featured sides include cranberry sauce, cornbread, and -- of course --...

Six months after the Drug Enforcement Administration stole $43,000 from Stacy Jones at a North Carolina airport, her lawyer, Dan Alban, received a letter from the aptly named Douglas Kash, a senior attorney in the DEA's Asset Forfeiture Section. "I am writing to inform you of the decision to return the above-referenced property," Kash said. While the DEA offered no explanation for its sudden benevolence, the reversal fit a pattern: Government bullies who use civil asset forfeiture laws to seize allegedly crime-tainted property from innocent people tend to back down when they encounter unexpected resistance. But because challenging a forfeiture...

Politicians locked us in our homes for months on end, well beyond the initially proposed two-week public period to "flatten the curve." They put iron fists on churches, restaurants, and small businesses while allowing strip clubs and state-owned alcohol stores to remain open. They've even tried to bait us into canceling our standard Thanksgiving and Christmas...

The governor of Oregon has sparked outrage by saying that neighbors should call the police if they find another family celebrating Thanksgiving with a large gathering in their home, in what one local official said turned people into 'second-rate slaves' in their own homes. Kate Brown, the Democrat ruler of the state, announced on November 17 that new restrictions would be put in place the following day, with no more than six people allowed inside any one home. And she said if Oregonians saw anyone breaking the rules, they should call the cops.

In 1967, ex-Harvard professor Timothy Leary famously coined one of the slogans of 60’s counter culture when he told hippies to “turn on, tune in, [and] drop out.” Psychedelics like LSD became a vital part of what Leary would later call the “graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments.” Advocating for psychedelics made Leary an academic pariah and a target of the FBI. Had he come along fifty years later, he may have landed a lucrative consulting gig with venture capitalists. On November 3, Oregon became the first U. S. state to legalize “magic mushrooms” for therapeutic use,...

A historic bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level is expected to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives in December. This would be the first time a chamber of Congress has ever voted on removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. Cannabis was included as what is called a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. Schedule I drugs are defined as having a high potential for abuse and no medical benefit. Other Schedule I drugs include heroin, LSD, ecstasy and peyote. “I write to share the busy Floor schedule we have...

The government’s long-running and destructive effort to control our nation’s economy at all levels, which went into overdrive this year with the advent of COVID-19, barely slowed for the speed bump that was the November 3 election. The current pattern has become distressingly clear and sadly predictable: issue declarations and then shame people into following them. Without any science to support many of their recommendations, unelected bureaucrats and politicians enamored of the power their status provides, continue to propose radical and often nonsensical measures. The American people can see this system at work simply by skimming through Joe Biden’s official...

It’s New Year’s Eve, and you’re lying in bed vomiting maraschino-hued bile into a small Mason jar. The room is spinning, your partner is shaking their damn head, and you are zonked out of your mind and longing for death. This is a strictly hypothetical situation, because I am a skilled wordsmith with a penchant for devising such boozy scenarios. But if I had personally lived this experience—which I haven’t—I’d probably be interested in a way to quickly clear excess booze from my body. Fortunately, the Canadians are on the case: according to The Guardian, researchers in Canada have discovered...