Free Republic

Whether You Like it or Not - California Will Legalize Pot Next Year (That seems to be the idea behind a new article out today) According to a well known, and outspoken leader from the left it’s a good bet that the state will legalize Pot next year. Part of the reason? The state needs...

Sometimes leaders lie to their followers to improve morale. People will lie to a mortally wounded person and tell the person everything will be alright. MoveOn.org, incredibly enough, is telling its supporters it is "winning" the fight to force government-run healthcare down the throats of Americans. It also keeps pushing its push poll that falsely reports that Americans support the socialist public option. Here is the group's latest email --filled with the usual lies and distortions about what the public wants-- to supporters: Dear MoveOn member,After a few weeks of health care craziness, there's good news: we're winning on the...

When Owen Beck was 17, doctors amputated his right leg to stop the spread of bone cancer. His parents, desperate to find a drug that would relieve their son's excruciating phantom limb pain, brought him to Charlie Lynch's medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, Calif., carrying a recommendation from a Stanford University oncologist. The marijuana not only eased the pain but also alleviated the nausea caused by chemotherapy. Called to testify as a character witness in Lynch's federal marijuana trial, Beck did not get far. When he mentioned his cancer, U.S. District Judge George Wu cut him off and sent...

DEFINITION: Swiftboating; Speaking TRUTH in the face of Democrat Propoganda The Idiots at Kos have a huge thread running on the exposure of the "SCHIP" family by Free Republic members, that Rush mentioned today, and it's utterly HILARIOUS! They are freaking out that we would DARE to question thier "Facts"... "UPDATE #2 Whiskeyfire has a very informative blog on this too (hat tip nyseer courtesy of Atrios) As the day goes on, bigger and bigger smear merchants are picking this up (including The Weekly Standard). All are (of course) listing Free Republic as the mother source. This limits any culpability...

I guess we should be grateful it’s not a clear majority, eh? You can thank the turds at 9/11 Truth for commissioning the poll; SLC spotted it earlier and has since been digesting the numbers. Spend some time with the data, paying special attention to question 402 starting on page 5 of the PDF. The results run on for several pages as Zogby breaks it down by age, region, religious belief, even gun ownership. The data for party affiliation comes on page 8. Here’s the most interesting bit, though, which I’ve taken the liberty of screencapping and highlighting. Click for...

NEW YORK A feature piece in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine on Republican candidate for president, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, portrays his followers as including a wild mix of "wackos" on both ends of the political spectrum. Paul, a libertarian, has been gaining media and public attention of late. The cover line reads: "A Genuine Radical for President." The headline inside: "The Antiwar, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Drug-Enforcement-Administration, Anti-medicare Candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul." The article closes with the author, Christopher Caldwell, attending a Ron Paul Meetup in Pasadena. The co-host, Connie Ruffley of United Republicans of California, admits she...

Former vice president says his youngest child's arrest in O.C. after pot and pills allegedly are found in his car is 'a private matter.' Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday that he was glad his son was safe and getting treatment a day after the 24-year-old was arrested in Orange County on suspicion of illegally possessing marijuana and prescription drugs. "We love him very much," Gore told NBC's "Today" show, adding, "We are going to leave it as a private matter." Gore, who appeared on NBC to publicize this weekend's Live Earth concerts, also briefly discussed politics. He called...

At a recent backyard barbecue in Miami's Upper Eastside, a group of middle-age, middle-class folks tamely sipped berry cocktails and beers. Among them: a couple of lawyers, a couple of city administrators and an arts administrator. Somewhere between the skirt steak and the apple pie, somebody lit a joint and passed it around. Nobody blinked. Even in mainstream, white-collar settings, smoking marijuana can be commonplace and unremarkable, like having a little wine with dinner. Once a stamp of the arty, the marginal and the counterculture, today marijuana's popularity cuts across social boundaries. Yet several high-profile marijuana arrests have recently made...

The Mexican drug runner whose testimony sent two Border Patrol agents to prison for shooting him in the buttocks brought drugs into the United States more than once, thereby diminishing his credibility as a witness in the investigation, according to a California congressman. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., presented new evidence in a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday that revealed what he says was U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's deliberate attempt to mislead the public about Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila's involvement in the transport of a second load of drugs in October 2005.[snip].... ....[snip]But the Drug Enforcement Agency found that Aldrete-Davila brought in another...

BISMARK, N.D. (AP)-North Dakota issued the nation's first licenses to grow industrial hemp Tuesday to two farmers who still must meed federal requirements before they can plant the crop.The farmers must get approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which treats hemp much the way it does marijuana and has not allowed commercial hemp production but has said it would consider applications to grow it.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher makes the Dixie Chicks sound like bosom buddies of President George W. Bush. Politics being politics, it's easy to dismiss the antipathy liberals have for Mr. Bush. But Bush has lost the support -- and even the respect -- of Mr. Rohrabacher. The California Republican is serving his ninth term and has a lifetime score of 95 from the American Conservative Union. He also has had it with a commander in chief who prefers surrender to being the defender of America's defenseless border with Mexico. Rohrabacher said the minute two unjustly convicted men who had been Border...

(AP) NEW YORK -- In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door -- groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food -- pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction. An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners. Among the legions of home delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery...

They weren’t mellow or takin’ it easy when Gov. Bill Owens talked on the Capitol steps Friday morning in opposition to a statewide ballot measure seeking to legalize marijuana possession. About 50 people of all ages shouted him down as he and Attorney General John Suthers cited statistics declaring pot dangerous. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sad day for Colorado," Owens said. And then he had to repeat what he said over the chant, "What do we want? Safer drugs. When do we want them? Now." Suthers couldn’t even be heard much of the time he spoke. For about...

Nevada is known for gambling, 24-hour liquor sales and legal prostitution. Yet the main group opposing Question 7, an initiative on the state's ballot next month that would allow the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 or older, is called the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable. In Colorado, opponents of Amendment 44, which would eliminate penalties for adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, are equally certain of their own rectitude. "Those who want to legalize drugs weaken our collective struggle against this scourge," declares the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "Like a...

As someone who was a staunch non-smoker for most of my life, and tried pot for the first time as a fully mature adult (and who took notes on the experience), I have a pretty unique perspective on the matter. Everyone else I met at the Cannabis Cup had either been smoking pot for many years, often decades, or had started as a teenager (or both). Either way, everyone else had been smoking pot for a pretty long time. Actually, I found it surprisingly easy to learn to smoke pot, although in retrospect, it makes sense. As a life-long asthma...

MEXICO CITY - To send a chilling message to their underworld rivals, Mexican drug cartels are adopting a method of intimidation made notorious by Middle Eastern terrorist groups. At least 26 people have been decapitated in Mexico this year, with heads stuck on fences, dumped in trash piles and -- most recently -- tossed onto a nightclub dance floor. Although beheading goes back centuries as a form of execution, it has become the latest tactical escalation of an ongoing turf war that gets nastier all the time, with hit men looking for new ways to instill fear. "Before, they tortured...

The Border: It takes a lot of nerve for a chief of state to criticize another nation's crime rate. It takes even more nerve to ship one's own criminals there and then complain about the crime rate. Two weeks ago, when U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza warned tactfully about an explosion of crime on the Mexican border and urged U.S. citizens to be cautious there, he was only doing his job. But it didn't take long for Mexican President Vicente Fox and Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez to jump all over the U.S., piously claiming that crime at the border...

SEATTLE - Federal drug enforcement agents have arrested 46 people and seized 1,500 pounds of "BC Bud" marijuana, 23 kilograms of cocaine, and 1,100 tablets of ecstacy (MDMA) in the bust of a major drug operation in the Pacific Northwest. The two-year investigation involved the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and numerous state and local law enforcement agencies. The initial investigation, dubbed "Operation Frogger," ended in November of 2005 with the dismantling of the organization that smuggled marijuana from Canada and distributed the drug throughout the western United States. In turn, the group allegedly purchased cocaine and distributed it throughout the...

SAN DIEGO - This seaside city was a bystander as liberal strongholds like San Francisco and Santa Cruz created identification cards for sick patients who use marijuana and wrote regulations to permit storefront pot dispensaries. Now, 10 years after Californians voted to decriminalize marijuana for medical purposes, conservative San Diego County is leading a backlash against the groundbreaking law. The county is challenging California's medical marijuana law in state court, saying it should not be required to comply with a state law directing counties to issue ID cards to users. At the same time, local police, working with federal agents,...

MEXICO CITY The bodies of five men who had been shot in the head were found Friday in the violent border city of Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, police said. A sixth man who survived the attack was listed in serious condition at a local hospital under police guard, State Police Director Leonel Lozano said in a news release. Police, who received an anonymous tip, found the bodies early Friday along the highway leading from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey, the news release said. All the victims, between the ages of 18 and 25, had been shot...

A counter-culture arts festival which champions alternative living is being vetted by environmentalists for its contribution to global warming. Burning Man bans the sale of anything but ice and coffee and declares clothing optional. The festival, which is expected to draw nearly 40,000 people to the Nevada desert this week, is described as an "experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance". It has few rules, no structure and features performances, installation art and music, which culminate in the symbolic burning of a large wooden man. A group of San Francisco scientists, calling themselves Cooling Man, have...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Two police officers were gunned down today while on their way to work, bringing to five the number of authorities that have been slain in this violent border city in four days. Ricardo Uvalle Escobedo and Jose de Jesus Morin Salinas were killed by unidentified assailants in separate incidents while en route from their homes to the Nuevo Laredo police station, said investigator Oscar Sepulveda.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's attorney general said the arrest a group of corrupt cops along the border with California is imminent. Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told a Mexico City news conference today the cops protected a Tijuana cartel, the Arellano Felix gang, which smuggled tons of pot, cocaine and meth into the United States. Two were already arrested Saturday and charged with taking bribes to protect the gang. The attorney general said they worked at the Rosarito police department just over the border from San Diego border. The two are accused of decapitating three of their fellow officers. The news...

American Hispanics Rally Behind Border Patrol Officers Facing Prison for Protecting their Communities Washington, D.C.--(HISPANIC PR WIRE)--August 24, 2006--Rampant lawlessness along the U.S.-Mexico border is of great concern to all Americans, but for the people who live in communities along the border, it is a daily threat to their safety and security. For these largely American Hispanic communities, the Border Patrol amounts to an overstressed and outmanned line of protection for communities under siege. In fact, these communities are so overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and the crime that comes with them, that Arizona and New Mexico have been forced to...

War On Drugs: While not the end of the tale, the crushing of the Javier Arellano Felix drug cartel is a victory that should be played up. By itself, the arrest is satisfying. Better still, it shows the U.S. can work with Mexico. That wasn't the case when Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was murdered by drug traffickers in Guadalajara in 1985. Back then, Mexican authorities threw roadblocks at apprehending drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who was a leading member of the group that kidnapped, tortured and killed the agent. Mexican police told...

MEXICO CITY, July 7 -- Less than 24 hours after being named president-elect in a disputed official count, Felipe Calderón took a firm stance against building a wall along the United States-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration. Echoing his campaign theme, Calderón said the best solution to the immigration crisis was creating jobs in Mexico, "not walls or troops," a reference to President Bush's decision to send National Guard troops to support the U.S. Border Patrol. Calderón's remarks, delivered during his first post-election briefing for the international news media, angered a leading Capitol Hill proponent of increased border security. Rep....

SAN FRANCISCO, July 3 — The newest attraction planned for Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco's most popular tourist destination, has no sign, no advertisements and not even a scrap of sourdough. Yet everyone seems to think that the new business, the Green Cross, will be a hit, drawing customers from all over the region to sample its aromatic wares. For some, that is exactly the problem. "The city is saturated with pot clubs," said T. Wade Randlett, the president of SF SOS, a quality-of-life group that opposes the planned club. "Fisherman's Wharf is a tourism attraction, and this is not the...

Mary Jane Trumps Joe Camel By Mary BeckmanScienceNOW Daily News23 May 2006 It seems logical that inhaling enough smoke will give you lung cancer. But a new study of Los Angeles residents suggests that smoking marijuana--even more than 22,000 joints in a lifetime--doesn't increase cancer risk. The results surprise many researchers, who point out marijuana has other ill health effects. Decades of research have shown that cigarette smoking dramatically increases the risk of certain cancers. But controversy surrounds the risk of smoking weed. A 1999 study of blood donors suggested a link between marijuana and head and neck cancer,...

America's war on drugs is actually a Raid on Taxpayers. The war costs an estimated $70 billion a year to prosecute, and the drugs keep pouring in. But while the War on Drugs may have failed its official mission, it is a great success as a job-creation program. Thousands of drug agents, police, detectives, prosecutors, judges, anti-drug activists, prison guards and their support staffs can thank the program for their daily bread and health benefits. The American people are clearly not ready to decriminalize cocaine, heroine or other hard drugs, but they're well on their way to easing up on...

Lupita Murillo Reports Small-time drug smugglers may not be prosecuted May 11, 2006 05:16 AM The feds may be adopting new guidelines that may end up helping some drug smugglers evade jail time, all depending on how many pounds of pot they're caught possessing. Drug smugglers caught with less than 500 pounds of pot might be passed over for federal prosecution. The U.S. Attorney's Office issued a statement saying, "We are changing our guidelines due to resource contraints. However, we will review every case on a case-by-case basis. For obvious reasons we aren't able to share guidelines for operation with...

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4/20 day. Thought this would be appropriate for the "smoky" backroom.

The stop-snitching movement has spread across the United States, worrying police and prosecutors who often use informants to win convictions, a report said. The movement got its start two years ago in Baltimore in an underground DVD featuring armed drug dealers. Since then, the movement and T-shirts that say "Stop Snitching" have gone nationwide -- being worn by a diverse group ranging from rap artists to college professors, USA Today reported. The code of silence, David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the newspaper, "is breaking out in a way we've never seen before."

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. MEXICO CITY - Mexico's top diplomat suggested Thursday that American soldiers disguised as Mexican troops may have been in the military-style Humvee filmed earlier this week protecting a marijuana shipment on the border. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez also told a news conference that U.S. soldiers had helped drug smugglers before. However, he offered no evidence. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico made no immediate comment on Derbez's claims. His comments came a day after U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza issued a statement asking the Mexican government to "fully investigate" the border incident....

New appointment bad news for marijuana smokers and women in America. Samuel Alito Jr., who is married and has two children, would become the current court's fifth Roman Catholic.

Dutch Politicans Seek Marijuana Rules Amsterdam, Netherlands -- A broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program Friday to regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco, which opponents say would be tantamount to legalizing growing the drug. Under the test program, to be conducted in the southern city of Maastricht, existing health and safety standards will apply to growers, but they would no longer be the target of police raids or prosecution. Coffee shops permitted to sell marijuana would be required to provide consumers with information about the health hazards of smoking - similar to tobacco companies -...

The UK Government Could Revert Cannabis to a Class B Drug, but Harsher Penalties Will Only Feed the Black Market, Writes Ethan Nadlemann Young people laugh at the adult world when we talk about the war on drugs. People pretend we need prohibition on cannabis to protect the young. But it's precisely young people who have always had the greatest access to cannabis. If people in their fifties and sixties want cannabis, they ask their children. The British government says it is time to consider whether cannabis should revert to a class B drug. That would be an incredibly stupid...

Offenders got more than token citations in Denver On Oct. 2, 1937, in the somewhat shady Lexington Apartments at 1200 California St. in Denver, Samuel R. Caldwell became the first person in the United States to be arrested on a marijuana charge. Caldwell, a 58-year-old unemployed laborer moonlighting as a dealer, was nailed by the FBI and Denver police for peddling two marijuana cigarettes to one Moses Baca, 26. If you're wondering why it took the U.S. government so long to bust a pot dealer, it's because until the Marijuana Stamp Act was passed - on you guessed it, Oct....

IN 2004, law enforcement officials arrested 771,605 people for marijuana violations, according to federal statistics. Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project was so alarmed he sent out a press release noting that there were more arrests for marijuana charges than all violent crimes combined. The number of arrests for possession alone was 684,319. Said Mirken of the 771,605 statistic: "This is, in fact, an all-time record. This number of arrests is the equivalent of arresting every man, woman and child in San Francisco." Some 40 percent of Americans say they have used marijuana or hashish in their lifetime, and...

BEHIND BARS A former police chief wants to end a losing war by legalizing pot, coke, meth and other drugs SOMETIMES PEOPLE in law enforcement will hear it whispered that I'm a former cop who favors decriminalization of marijuana laws, and they'll approach me the way they might a traitor or snitch. So let me set the record straight. Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle's police department. But no, I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin,...

A chemical found in cannabis can act like an antidepressant, researchers have found. A team from Canada's University of Sasketchewan suggest the compound causes nerve cells to regenerate. The Journal of Clinical Investigation study showed rats given a cannabinoid were less anxious and less depressed. But UK experts warned other conflicting research had linked cannabis, and other cannabinoids, to an increased risk of depression and anxiety. They suggested this could be because different cannabinoids acting at different levels have contradictory effects. Cannabinoids have been shown to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and pain relief in humans. They are naturally...

Every day 4,700 kids try marijuana for the first time. In fact, marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug among America's youth. Unfortunately, a lot of American teens, and their parents, continue to see marijuana as harmless. QUESTION 1: Ecstasy is more popular than marijuana among kids today. True or False? False. Far more youth use marijuana than any other drug. Among kids who use drugs, approximately 60 percent use marijuana only. QUESTION 2: Marijuana is not addictive. True or False? False. Research shows that marijuana is addictive. In fact, more teens enter treatment with a primary diagnosis of...

TORONTO (Reuters) - Comedian Tommy Chong has spent almost three decades wringing laughs from cigar-sized joints and smoke-filled vans but now a nine-month jail term has turned him serious and revitalized his flagging career. Promoting his documentary "a/k/a Tommy Chong" at the Toronto International Film Festival, he hopes the film will expose what he says is the U.S. government's heavy-handed dealing with marijuana offenders in the post-September 11 era. "The United States is under martial law, it's under dictatorship," the 67-year-old father of four said in an interview. The film chronicles the Canadian-born comedian's 2003 arrest and imprisonment for selling...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Agents have seized more than $2.6 billion worth of marijuana plants this year, already surpassing last year's season total by 20 percent, authorities said. The state Department of Justice's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP, is still a month away from wrapping up operations after the season peak at the end of September. The raids, many in remote, forested terrain, pit agents against often heavily armed guards protecting their marijuana plots. About three weeks ago, a grower was shot dead and a state Fish and Game warden was wounded during a raid on a 22,000-plant pot farm...

Unlike their mellow brethren in San Francisco, the half-dozen or so medical marijuana clubs that have sprouted up in the urban no-man's-land between San Leandro and Hayward have turned into something out of the Wild West. There's been a rash of armed robberies, a shootout that left one robber dead, and the possible attempted hit of a worker for cooperating with police. "I don't think this is what the voters had in mind when they passed the medical pot law, but that's what we're dealing with," said Alameda County Sheriff's Lt. Dale Amaral, whose Eden Township beat includes the 2...

The California Highway Patrol has ordered its officers to stop confiscating medical marijuana during routine traffic stops, a victory for patients hoping to win broader acceptance of the controversial medicine from balky police departments around the state. Highway Patrol officials sent out a bulletin last week to field commanders spelling out the policy shift, which would allow patients to travel on California's highways with up to 8 ounces of marijuana as long as they have a certified user identification card or documented physician's approval. For the last fiscal year, ending in July, Americans for Safe Access collected reports from 457...

A San Leandro neighborhood was on edge Saturday after a brazen daytime robbery and shootout at a medical marijuana club that led to the death of an 18-year-old Oakland man. Alameda County sheriff's investigators were still searching for three suspects after five men -- several armed with semiautomatic rifles and pistols -- stormed the medical marijuana club at 16360 Foothill Blvd. on Friday and exchanged gunfire with the store owner. The shooting happened just before the pot club was due to open at noon, said sheriff's Sgt. Linda Thuman. The owner was inside with one other employee, she said, when...

Patients arrive broke, busted or abandoned at our methadone clinic in a raw section of Northeast Washington. They are opiate addicts, primarily dependent on heroin, though some take vast doses of street-bought painkillers like OxyContin. Drinking the pink methadone solution every day prevents withdrawal sickness. About half of our patients have also spent years on crack or alcohol. Not all have stopped, but at least they have cut back. We see almost no methamphetamine users, but that is a simple accident of geography - the corrosive drug hasn't yet reached epidemic proportions in this part of the country. The personal...

LaPorte County, IN - About 3,000 to 5,000 marijuana plants, some the size of Christmas trees, have been found about a half mile north of State Road 4 between 600 and 700 East in LaPorte County, just west of Fish Lake. Officials are calling it the largest outdoor marijuana bust in Indiana since the 1980s. The plants are growing in three to five clusters, hidden on the ground in a two-acre plot full of trees. Police discovered the hidden plants over a week ago but it wasn’t until yesterday that they decided to bust up the drug ring. Police say...