Free Republic

When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses, making the drug easily available to all adults within a short drive. But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, California’s legal market hasn’t performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say they’ve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to...

Republican presidential hopefuls are united in blasting President Obama for his chaotic enforcement of marijuana laws, but the unity quickly breaks down when they are asked how they would handle things if they were in the White House. Some have sent mixed signals, saying state decisions should be respected while questioning how Mr. Obama has respected those decisions. Others have refused to say how they would wield the federal bureaucracy against marijuana. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is one of the few potential candidates to take a firm stance, saying he would insist on following federal statutes that outlaw the drug....

Rosa Brooks serves as Counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy. In May 2010 she also became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and then Special Coordinator for Rule of Law and Humanitarian Policy. She is running a new Pentagon office dedicated to those issues. She is on leave from her job as a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Brooks is known as a columnist (most recently with the LA Times) and at the Pentagon her portfolio has included both human rights issues and global engagement and strategic communication. Her mother, Barbara Ehrenreich, is...

For decades, parents have worried about dangerous substances being put into what their children receive while Trick or Treating. On Friday evening, HBO's Bill Maher actually called for people to "put drugs in the Halloween candy"

PORTLAND, Oregon — The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug. The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban. "This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon's executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. "Our plans go beyond serving food...

(Aug. 6) -- With buzz about the Obama Joker poster still in the air, another reworking of the president's image is causing a stir. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has produced a psychedelic, '60s-style poster featuring a photo of college freshman "Barry" Obama smoking. Above his super-bad Panama hat is the slogan: Yes We Cannabis. Artist Sonia Sanchez created the poster for NORML's annual conference using a picture taken at Occidental College in 1980 by the future president's classmate Lisa Jack. In the original photo, Obama is holding a real cigarette to his lips. Sanchez tweaked...

Soros behind Mass. effort to decriminalize pot By STEVE LeBLANC – 1 hour ago BOSTON (AP) — A measure that would decriminalize minor marijuana-possession cases is on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of one man: billionaire financier and liberal activist George Soros. Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros, who has championed similar efforts in several states and spent $24 million to fight President Bush's 2004 re-election bid. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that just to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a...

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.

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...

FAIRFAX, Va. - A Chantilly High School teacher accused of giving marijuana to a student was arrested at his home on Monday. Thomas Newlun, 53, faced charges including marijuana distribution and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. According to police, Newlun allegedly gave a small amount of marijuana to a 17-year-old student after class last Friday. The boy then gave the drugs to a school security officer. Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman Paul Regnier said Newlun is on administrative leave without pay. Newlun, a special education teacher, started working for the system in 1989, and except for being out...

BOULDER — A man who ran for a Boulder County commissioner post in 2004 was arrested Jan. 3 as part of a three-month Boulder County Drug Task Force investigation, according to a news release issued Thursday. Jeffrey Christen-Mitchell, 55, was arrested on suspicion of possession of drugs with the intent to distribute, conspiracy to distribute marijuana and distribution of marijuana. Nine others were also arrested in the sting, and two others have warrants issued for their arrests, according to the news release. The investigation included three search warrants and yielded $7,000 in drug proceeds, 50 ounces of psilocybin mushrooms, various...

I've got word that the campus newspaper of West Virginia University (already the 4th biggest party school in the nation) is using tomorrow to devote their entire opinion section to marijuana legalization. I need some serious help here because I'm attempting to find some factual inaccuracies in the editorials (which I know are almost never fact-checked). All of the editorials are pro, NO cons. The newspaper is run by students, and the articles can be found by clicking the source URL and going to the Opinion section. Please send e-mail to DAPerspectives@mail.wvu.edu to voice your outrage at this horribly one-sided,...

AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 12-05-04 To those who support our constitutionally limited “Republican Form of Government“, Raich v. Ashcroft is not about “medical Marijuana” but rather, the case presents a chance to correct a despotic decision made by the SCOTUS in 1942 concerning Congress’ power to regulate commerce in which the Court gave a new meaning to the word “commerce” in order to allow part of FDR’s NEW DEAL socialism [price controls] to pass as being constitutional, when it was not. The following article is worth reading, and can be found at findlaw.com.The Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument on a...

Hello, my name is David Winters and I represent the New Zealand Radical Coalition. Our objective is to bring about Industrialization to our country. As it stands New Zealand is a international back water, having no influence or power on the international stage. Our party's aim is to radically change New Zealands profile on the political scene.

Criminal Justice System Drives Marijuana "Treatment" Admissions, Federal Study Says Washington, DC: Fewer than one in five people admitted to drug treatment for marijuana in 2001 did so voluntarily, and more than half were referred by the criminal justice system, according to statistics released recently by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Among the 255,000 individuals admitted to treatment in 2001 (the last year for which data is available) primarily for marijuana, 57 percent were referred by the criminal justice system. In many cases, these were first-time offenders arrested for marijuana possession, and given the option by a...

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<p>Now, it seems, is the best of times, and the worst of times, for the marijuana movement.</p> <p>While most Americans say they support medical marijuana, the federal government has won several high-profile criminal cases against cannabis clubs and pot growers in the past year.</p>

Two UF students are on a quest. Josh Manning and Matt Jones want to educate others about the risks associated with marijuana, which they said are exaggerated by mainstream media. The two freshmen started a chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws at UF and within two months had nearly 400 members. The first meeting of the semester is being held Friday at 8 p.m. in Room 282 at the Reitz Union. Both Manning and Jones said they are firm believers that the responsible use of cannabis should not be considered a crime. “We’re not asking...

<p>The people at Indiana NORML, a branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, for several years had thought how nice it would be to be part of the Indiana State Fair: all those people, all those potential converts.</p>

After voting two years ago to ease state drug laws, Nevada voters could go even further this year, making their state the first to legalize marijuana and derive taxes from a regulated sales system. It is a stunning possibility in a state where possession of more than one ounce of marijuana is still a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison, and possession of less than an ounce remains a misdemeanor that carries a $650 fine. Yet the November ballot initiative follows two major changes in 2000 that seemed to reflect shifting sentiments in Nevada toward marijuana. Voters...