Free Republic

Jim Andersen has a 40-year history with hashish, the concentrated cannabis sometimes referred to as the cognac of the marijuana world. When he served in the Air Force in Southeast Asia, he said he smuggled it home in his boots. When he was in grad school in California, he made it with a centrifuge in a lab after hours. So when Washington was on the verge of legalizing the sale of taxed pot last fall, Andersen decided to move back to his home state and turn his hobby into a full-time, legitimate paycheck—a business that would supply state-licensed, recreational marijuana...

Former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy says he’s established a group to lobby against legalized marijuana. … The Providence Journal reports that Kennedy’s group, Project SAM—for Smart Approaches to Marijuana—will instead lobby for increased treatment for marijuana and drug abuse. …

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he plans to hold a hearing in January to consider changing federal drug laws to allow people to possess up to one ounce of marijuana. On Thursday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) released a letter that he sent earlier this month to Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), asking the nation’s drug czar how the administration intends to proceed now that two states have legalized marijuana use. …

President Barack Obama says the federal government won’t go after recreational marijuana use in Washington state and Colorado, where voters have legalized it. In a Barbara Walters interview airing Friday on ABC, Obama was asked whether he supports making pot legal. “I wouldn’t go that far,” Obama replied. “But what I think is that, at this point, Washington and Colorado, you’ve seen the voters speak on this issue.” But the president said he won’t pursue the issue in the two states where voters legalized the use of marijuana in the November elections. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law. …

The first day of legal marijuana use in Washington State was marred by an attempted robbery ending with two deaths at an alleged pot-growing facility just south of Seattle. The possession of pot became legal in the state Thursday after voters passed a measure decriminalizing it in November. Day two kicked off with more celebrations under the Space Needle tower, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, but the Pierce County Sheriff's Department investigated an attempted robbery in Puyallup at an alleged growing center foiled by a homeowner who shot two alleged burglars in front of his 9-year-old son. Officers say they arrived...

The Obama administration is strategizing how to fight legal pot in Colorado and Washington, reports Charlie Savage of The New York Times. While "no decision" is "imminent," Savage reports that senior level White House and Justice Department officials are considering "legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives." A taskforce made up of Main Justice, the DEA, the State Department, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy is currently considering two courses of action, reports Savage: One option is for federal prosecutors to bring some cases against low-level marijuana users of the sort they until now...

DENVER—A ballot initiative in Colorado that could make the state the first to effectively legalize marijuana has an unlikely bunch of people very nervous: owners of the state's medical marijuana dispensaries. Despite an expected surge in demand, some fear passage of the initiative, called Amendment 64—which legalizes the buying and selling of up to one ounce of pot at a time for customers over the age of 21—could goad the federal government into a crackdown on the dispensaries, ending their industry's three-year miniboom. If the amendment passes, the "best-case scenario [is] you get a million new customers," the owner of...

Legalizing pot may drop the price of a marijuana cigarette to as little as $1.50 in California, but taxing weed may create a whole new black market, according to a new RAND Corp. study. The six-month study by the renowned Santa Monica-based think tank provides fuel for both sides of the debate over whether California should legalize marijuana for recreational use... Lead author Beau Kilmer, the other co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, said the cost of prime California pot -- currently valued at $300 to $450 per ounce -- could fall to as little as $38 an...