Free Republic

Observatory Marijuana may be something of a wonder drug — though perhaps not in the way you might think. Researchers in Italy and Britain have found that the main active ingredient in marijuana — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — and related compounds show promise as antibacterial agents, particularly against microbial strains that are already resistant to several classes of drugs. It has been known for decades that Cannabis sativa has antibacterial properties. Experiments in the 1950s tested various marijuana preparations against skin and other infections, but researchers at the time had little understanding of marijuana’s chemical makeup.

Police say pot smokers who light up during the Democratic National Convention can expected to get busted under state laws..... Mason Tvert, leader of the group that sponsored the ordinance that discourages marijuana busts said, "During the DNC, police should be spending their time ensuring the security and safety of those in this city," Tvert said. "There is no reason why they should spend any of their time worrying about adults simply using a drug that is safer than alcohol. We're concerned during the Democratic National Convention that they are going to use the law to cite people or detain...

WEST PALM BEACH, FL (NBC) - A south Florida police officer has resigned and two others have been suspended after they are caught on tape hitting and kicking a handcuffed suspect. The video paints a disturbing picture. An incident back in late May involving three West Palm Beach police officers following an oxycodone robbery at a CVS. Officers Jason Zangara, Louis Schwartz, and Kirk Graham all became the target of a internal affairs report. West Palm Beach Police Chief Delsa Bush says "in this particular case having the video I chose to substantiate the charge of the use of excessive...

From The Sunday Times August 10, 2008 Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic Oliver Stone's Bush biopic plays it for laughs, but it's every bit as controversial as JFK and Nixon Christopher Goodwin You have to admit it’s a great question: “How did George W Bush go from alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?” That’s what the American film-maker Oliver Stone says he wants to explain in his forthcoming movie biopic, entitled, simply enough, W. Not surprisingly, Texas-sized dust storms have already blown up in Hollywood and Washington over the film, which is being rushed through production...

In front of me stand 120 marijuana plants whose thick bushy leaves cover the strong stems. John explains nonchalantly that this is just a small growing operation, or grow-ops. Every two to three months, John harvests 8lbs, worth about $20,000. Inspector Brian Cantera of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) believes that John's small grow-op is one of 20,000 to be found in residential houses around the province. That figure excludes the larger grow-ops in industrial locations, not to mention the huge dope farms that are scattered around British Columbia's vast interior. The striking aspect of BC's marijuana trade is...

After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them. The units were put up for sale Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece. The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York, Los Angeles and Boston, among other cities, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars...

Smoking ban leads to new religion Wednesday 16 July 2008Café owners in the Netherlands are joining religious movement known as the One and Universal Smokers Church of God, the Telegraaf reports on Wednesday.‘We stand firmly behind the church’s teachings and that is smoking,’ Cor Busch, owner of the former Lindeboom café in Alkmaar told the paper. ‘Smokers are being discriminated against… but a beer and a cigarette belong together.’ Smoking has been banned in Dutch bars since July 1. Several dozen bars have joined the movement which claims the Dutch constitution and European rules give it legitimacy under the...

Federal agents seized bank statements, tax records and correspondence, and found marijuana during a search at the home of state Sen. Ulysses Currie, according to court documents. The documents show agents found marijuana and "drug packaging materials" in a bag on a dresser and in other bags on the floor of a room in the house last week. * * * Currie, 70, is one of the most influential lawmakers in Maryland. The Democrat leads the budget-writing committee that steers state spending.

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Medical Examiner says a teenager who was killed by an escaped zoo tiger six months ago had marijuana and alcohol in his system. The toxicology report was released Monday. It is included with an autopsy that concluded 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. was killed by "blunt force injuries of the head and neck." -snip-

Forgive me if the headline above sounds slightly exploitive. My intention is not to piggyback on a personal tragedy, but I did want to get your attention.

HOUSTON -- Police have charged three suspects accused of using the skull of a corpse buried in a Kingwood cemetery to make a bong. Kevin Wade Jones, 17, Matthew Richard Gonzalez, 17, and a 16-year-old boy were all charged with one count of desecrating a corpse. The suspects are accused of digging up the skull of an 11-year-old boy buried in a cemetery for African American war veterans and using it to smoke marijuana.

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Police say a straight-A business student at Penn State-Altoona told them he has been selling cocaine to finance his college education. Twenty-year-old Michael Conforti, of Hackettstown, N.J., was charged in the aftermath of a sweep last month by the Blair County Drug Task Force and Logan Township police. He was originally charged with three drug deals involving a confidential informant but yesterday authorities added charges of possession with intent to deliver cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Police based those charges on drugs, nearly $3,500 in cash and other items they say they found at Mr. Conforti's...

FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY: It's Time to Come Home Posted February 10th, 2008 by xntryk1 ----- Original Message ----- From: Libertarian Party Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 8:08 PM Subject: It's Time to Come Home February 9, 2008 FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY: Dear friend, Late Friday evening, Ron Paul sent out a message to his many supporters stating that he had a "nearly zero" chance of winning the Republican nomination in a brokered convention. Dr. Paul also stated loud and clear that "there will be no third party run." Many of our own members, maybe even you, have been enthusiastic...

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is pushing to close San Francisco's cannabis clubs by turning its guns on their landlords - warning them that renting to pot dispensaries could cost them their buildings. The agency intends to send letters by week's end to 80 owners of buildings housing medical marijuana clubs, similar to notices it fired off recently to landlords in Los Angeles and Sacramento, according law enforcement sources. "By this notice, you have been made aware of the purposes for which the property is being used," said a copy of the letter sent to Sacramento landlords, signed by the...

The current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, its special 40th anniversary issue, reveals almost all one needs to know about the current state of the cultural Left. The issue features interviews with people Rolling Stone considers to be America's leading cultural and political figures -- such as Al Gore, Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Cornel West, Paul Krugman, Kanye West, Bill Maher and George Clooney, among many others. It brings me no pleasure to say that, with few exceptions, the interviews reveal a superficiality and contempt for cultural norms (as evidenced by the ubiquity of curse words) that should scare anyone...

It's a story that virtually begs for the "only-in-Santa-Cruz" eye-roll treatment - another item in a wave of wackiness over the years that has painted the beach town, fairly or not, as nuttier than a bowl of granola. Only this time, it might actually be true - the "only-in-Santa-Cruz" part, at least. That's because two cherished progressive ideals - smoking bans and medicinal marijuana - have collided in a cloud of, well, smoke. The city last year banned smoking in two city parks, citing the threat to public health. The city also is on record in support of the local...

A Dutch smoking ban will come into force in July next year for all restaurants and cafes -- including coffee shops where cannabis is the top attraction, the government decided on Friday. "Coffee shops will be treated in the same manner as other catering businesses. They will be smoke-free," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told NOS television.

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...

Voyage to prove pharaohs traded cocaine By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:21am BST 30/05/2007 An adventurer who believes that ancient man regularly crossed the Atlantic Ocean 14,000 years ago plans to recreate such a voyage in a 41ft raft made of reeds and eucalyptus tree branches. Basing his theory on the thinnest of historical evidence, Dominique Gorlitz believes that the discovery of traces of tobacco and cocaine in the tomb of the pharaoh Rameses II proves that there was trade between the Old and New Worlds. He also claims that 14,000-year-old cave paintings in Spain show that,...

DALLAS - In their quest to lure new, younger clientele, drug dealers are mixing their wares with over-the-counter pain remedies and other familiar products — even candy — and peddling them under non-threatening names. One such concoction, a blend of black tar heroin and Tylenol PM that goes by the name “cheese,” has been linked to the deaths of 19 teenagers in Dallas, including two 15-year-olds. “If you’re a drug dealer you have to target a new audience all the time,” said Garrison Courtney, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman. “It’s Marketing 101 for drug dealers.”

TWO WEEKS AGO, U.S. drug agents launched raids on 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County. The U.S. attorney's office says they violated the laws against cultivation and distribution of marijuana.Whatever happened to America's federal system, which recognized the states as "laboratories of democracy"?According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 11 states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) have eliminated the penalties for physician-approved possession of marijuana by seriously ill patients. In those states people with AIDS and other catastrophic diseases may either grow their own marijuana or get...

WASHINGTON — Long before the national press spotlight began to shine on every twist and turn of his life's journey, Senator Obama had this to say about himself: "Junkie. Pothead. 'That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. ... I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind." The Democratic senator from Illinois and likely presidential candidate offered the confession in a memoir written 11 years ago, not long after he graduated from law school and well before he contemplated life on the national stage. At the time,...

A soldier who killed the father of a life-long friend in a frenzied attack after suffering a psychotic reaction to home grown cannabis has been jailed for 10 years. Paratrooper Laurie Draper, 31, bludgeoned 53-year-old schoolteacher Paul Butterworth with a pair of garden shears after smoking the drug at his victim's home on March 7 this year. Draper was jailed at St Alban's Crown Court today after admitting manslaughter on the grounds that his mental state had been affected by Mr Butterworth's home grown, high strength drug. advertisementThe court heard that the Iraq War veteran, originally from Leicester but based...

A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe on several occasions was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT Jessica Durham was photographed allowing her toddler Michala to suck from a marijuana water pipe, also known as a bong, in 2004 by a friend upset about the activity. "Ms. Durham allegedly remarked that smoking improved Michala's appetite and left Michala lethargic and mellow - a manner she found consistent with her own experience smoking marijuana," Judge Louis Pollak of...

Willie Nelson Cited for Drug Possession Sep 18 1:06 PM US/Eastern Willie Nelson and several members of his band were issued misdemeanor citations for drug possession early today during a traffic stop in Saint Martin Parish. The traffic stop was conducted on Interstate 10 near Breaux Bridge. Trooper Willie Williams says troopers smelled a strong odor of marijuana when the driver opened the bus door. During a search of the bus, Williams say approximately 1 1/2 pounds of marijuana and approximately 2/10 of a pound of mushrooms were located on the bus. The 73-year-old Nelson of Spicewood, Texas; 59-year-old Tony...

A photograph of President Bush waving a flag after the Sept. 11 attacks is juxtaposed against a black-and-white image of an African American mother smoking crack cocaine in bed next to her baby. Larger-than-life portraits of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar line the walls. The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement Administration exhibit unveiled at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked. But advocates of legalization who are leafleting outside the exhibit say the DEA is leaving out an important part of the story. Critics agree that drug trafficking provides...

Friends Say Buckalew Told Them He Did It Out Of Boredom POSTED: 12:52 pm EDT June 29, 2006 ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. -- A Vermont teenager has been sentenced to prison for breaking into a tomb and cutting the head off a corpse. Nickolas Buckalew, 18, of Morrisville, Vt., pleaded guilty two charges. One was a felony count of intentionally removing or injuring a tombstone. The other was a felony charge of intentionally disinterring and carrying away the remains of a human body. Buckalew was sentenced to between one and seven years in prison and was given credit for serving 14...

The smoke from burning marijuana leaves contains several known carcinogens and the tar it creates contains 50 percent more of some of the chemicals linked to lung cancer than tobacco smoke. A marijuana cigarette also deposits four times as much of that tar as an equivalent tobacco one. Scientists were therefore surprised to learn that a study of more than 2,000 people found no increase in the risk of developing lung cancer for marijuana smokers. "We expected that we would find that a history of heavy marijuana use--more than 500 to 1,000 uses--would increase the risk of cancer from several...

The Young Pay the Price for Dutch Drug Experiment by Don Laigle Ever hear a liberal or libertarian say that we need to legalize “soft” drugs like cocaine and marijuana because they did this in Holland and it was wildly successful? You know: kids immediately lost interest in these drugs and stopped taking them? Here’s what Republican Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico said on CNN on Feb 22, 2001: “Holland has 60 percent the drug use as that of the United States by kids and adults and that's for hard drugs and marijuana both. So if you want to...

Rush Limbaugh's defenders say he never would have been investigated for prescription fraud if he weren't a famous conservative commentator, and they're probably right. For one thing, it's unlikely The National Enquirer would have been interested in the pill popping habits of an average joe, or even an average millionaire. Yet the talk radio titan's detractors also have a point when they complain that he got off with a slap on the wrist after obtaining thousands of painkillers under false pretenses, a result they find especially galling in light of his general support for the war on drugs and his...

Executive Summary Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate. One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale. This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana – taxing and regulating it like other goods – in all fifty states and at the federal level. The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion...

How the hell did we get into this mess?'"          The War on Drugs is nothing more than alcohol Prohibition dressed up for the 1990s. It certainly can't stop people from making, selling, or using drugs, any more than the Volstead Act ever stopped them from making, selling, or using alcohol, but it has succeeded in boosting the price of drugs from mere pennies a pound to hundreds of dollars an ounce -- which anyone who knows anything about economics will immediately recognize enormously increases the incentive to enter the illegal drug market.          It's driven the weakest competition out of...

------------- Prohibition -------------- Criminal prohibition is very different from regulation; because the law decrees manufacture, sale, possession or use of specified substances to be a crime, regulation rarely enters the picture, except at the margins (as with the DEA granting licenses to physicians for prescribing Schedule 2 agents). Most interactions take place between a criminal industry, its customers and law enforcement. Illegal markets would be non-competitive unless criminals were given a monopoly by the law. The real effect of prohibition is to give a competitive advantage to criminals by outlawing a heretofore legal market. Participants in criminal markets have decided...

Economist Milton Friedman predicted in Newsweek nearly 34 years ago that Richard Nixon's ambitious "global war against drugs" would be a failure. Much evidence today suggests that he was right. But the war rages on with little mainstream challenge of its basic weapon, prohibition. To be sure, Mr. Friedman wasn't the only critic. William Buckley's National Review declared a decade ago that the U.S. had "lost" the drug war, bolstering its case with testimony from the likes of Joseph D. McNamara, a former police chief in Kansas City, Mo., and San Jose, Calif. But today discussion of the war's depressing...

Marc Emery has built a multimillion-dollar business selling marijuana seeds and paraphernalia while thumbing his nose at authorities in his native Canada, even challenging them to arrest him. Yesterday, the man known as Canada's "Prince of Pot" was arrested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a U.S. indictment charging him with selling millions of dollars worth of marijuana seeds to customers throughout the United States. Emery, the 47-year-old leader of British Columbia's Marijuana Party, has earned about $3 million a year selling the seeds through his Internet Web site and by mail, federal officials said. Emery and two accomplices, Gregory Williams,...

Check out www.cowboymafia.com Fascinating true story of the largest marijuana smuggling operation in U.S. history.Cowboys,farmers and horse trainers smuggling with shrimpboats and vast horse ranches.Operated a fleet of five 80ft. shrimpboats.Gulfcoasts to Santa Marta,Columbia round-trip,18-days,40,000 pounds of Columbian red bud marijuana.Subject of best-seller and upcoming movie.The largest forfeiture of attachable assets in U.S. history.(RICO)Great true story. The Hardtwist news,Ltd.

<<Back 03/09/04Student Suspended After Police Dog Smells DrugsHas school drug enforcement gone too far? A savannah mother thinks so after her 16-year-old son got suspended. Police say their drug dog smelled marijuana and cocaine on his backpack. It all started with a routine drug check at Jenkins High School yesterday morning. It ended with student Renard Powers getting suspended, based only on a smell. His mother says he is a victim of an overzealous school drug policy.Renard is your typical 16-year-old. A "B" student, he's in school chorus, and spends most of his free time on his computer. When...

Get Real: Misguided Drug Policies Ignore Common Sense If you follow the word of Jesus, you know that alcohol makes a party better. One of his greatest miracles was turning water into wine. This point wasn't lost on Benjamin Franklin, who declared that beer was the proof that God loved us. Time changes, but human nature doesn't. Every generation discovers drugs and other delinquent activities in one form or another, and every government administration and PTA fears it as the next Satanic take over, dismissing obvious patterns in our social development as evidence of decaying national morals. It shouldn't come...

Md. (AP) - The 21-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore must complete substance abuse counseling as part of a pretrial diversion program to settle a marijuana possession charge. The agreement approved by a judge Monday calls for the misdemeanor charge to be dropped after a year if Albert Gore III submits to urine testing, community service and counseling, and steers clear of criminal convictions. The younger Gore, who attends Harvard University, had no comment after the brief hearing. He was accompanied by his mother, Tipper Gore, who did not comment other than saying the issue was a ``private...

<p>ROCKVILLE, Maryland (AP) --The 21-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore must complete substance abuse counseling as part of a pretrial diversion program to settle a marijuana possession charge.</p> <p>The agreement approved by a judge Monday calls for the misdemeanor charge to be dropped after a year if Albert Gore III submits to urine testing, community service and counseling, and steers clear of criminal convictions.</p>

Gore's Son Given Probation on Marijuana Charge Rockville, Md. -- Albert Gore III will have to complete a substance abuse program under an agreement approved Monday by a judge presiding over a marijuana possession case against the son of former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore. Montgomery County District Court Judge Mary McCormick put Albert Gore III's case on an inactive docket for a year, at which point the case will be dropped if Gore meets certain requirements. Those include submitting to 12 weeks of urine testing, community service and substance abuse counseling sessions. Gore also can't have...

Cancer Changes Lawmaker's Mind on Drug Madison -- After doctors removed his cancerous prostate, Gregg Underheim was frozen by uncertainty: Had the cancer spread? Would he need chemotherapy and, if so, would the treatment itself make him miserably ill? Underheim, chairman of the Assembly's Health Committee and a Republican, began thinking of others who had waged brave and painful battles with cancer. Some, like his father, had lost the fight. He also engaged in an internal debate about whether those suffering from cancer should be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, to cope with the pain of the cancer...

<p>Any day now I expect to hear a big, on-air confession from Rush Limbaugh concerning those allegations that he abused prescription drugs. But I fear he will be confessing to the wrong sin.</p> <p>The confession I expect to hear will be along the lines of, "Yes, I am a drug abuser." What I'd prefer to hear is, "No, I'm not a conservative."</p>