Free Republic

Colorado’s legal marijuana dispensaries generated over $1 billion in sales during the first eight months of 2017 — a 21 percent year-over increase putting the Centennial State on path to having its best year yet in terms of retail pot sales. Licensed pot shops in Colorado sold a total of about $1.02 billion worth of marijuana products between January and August 2017, including $733,057,112 in recreational sales and $291,978,141 in medical sales, according to data released Wednesday by the state’s Department of Revenue and analyzed by The Cannabist, the Denver Post’s marijuana news portal.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by the ACLU of Georgia, were all stopped for briefly touching or crossing the line at the edge of their lanes—an offense that every driver on the road probably has committed at some point. They were all evaluated by Carroll, who deemed them stoned despite their protests to the contrary. They were all arrested for DUI and spent a night in jail. And in all three cases, as WXIA, the NBC station in Atlanta, revealed in an exposé last May, the DUI charges were eventually dropped after blood tests found no trace of marijuana—neither active...

Men who smoke too much marijuana could face fertility problems because the drug makes sperm 'mellow' causing it to 'swim in circles'. Cannabis - which is the most widely-used illegal drug in Britain - tends to leave users feeling chilled out and relaxed. But now researchers have revealed that it has the same effect on sperm and regular weed smoking can cut counts of the cells by as much as a third.

Quitting finance to focus on marijuana sounds like it’s something that involves finding yourself by surfing and living in a beach hut in California. But with momentum building for the legalization of cannabis in the U.S. – 29 states and the District of Columbia have laws legalized marijuana in some form – finance professionals are increasingly viewing it as a big business opportunity. The number of jobs that the cannabis industry is creating continues to increase. New Frontier Data, a research and analytics firm, projects that the legal cannabis market will create more than 250m jobs by 2020 – more...

The Trump administration is readying for a crackdown on marijuana users under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. President Trump’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, led by Sessions, is expected to release a report next week that criminal justice reform advocates fear will link marijuana to violent crime and recommend tougher sentences for those caught growing, selling and smoking the plant. Sessions sent a memo in April updating the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice Department (DOJ) component heads on the work of the task force, which he said would be accomplished through various subcommittees. In the memo,...

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on Nevada becoming the fifth state in the U.S. with stores selling marijuana for recreational purposes (all times local): Minnesota resident Edgar Rosas Lorenzo on Saturday flew with his family to Sin City for a wedding. But even before he checked in to his hotel, he stopped at a pot dispensary on the Las Vegas Strip. The 21-year-old says he learned of the legalization of recreational marijuana in Nevada while he was at the airport waiting for his flight to depart. He waited in line about 40 minutes before he could buy one-eighth of...

I just added 38 items to my list of Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, etc. Items 1 through 500 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/Items 501 through 1,000 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-2/Items 1,001 through 1,342 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-3/Here are the new entries:1,305) Obama’s Justice Department sought to hire “Trial Attorney, GS-14/15” with “mental retardation”In February 2010, the website for Obama’s Justice Department had a help wanted ad for “Trial Attorney, GS-14/15” with “mental retardation.” The complete ad can be read here.1,306) Obama’s Justice Department ordered University of California, Berkeley to pay “compensatory damages” to deaf people because its free educational videos...

I just added items #1,162 through #1,172 to my list of Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, etc. Items 1 through 500 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/Items 501 through 1,000 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-2/Items 1,001 through 1,172 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-3/Here are the new entries:1,162) Although the so-called justification for Obamacare is that health insurance constitutes “interstate commerce,” Obamacare policies are not actually allowed to be sold across state linesSupporters of Obamacare try to justify it by saying that health insurance constitutes “interstate commerce.” However, Obamacare policies are not actually allowed to be sold across state lines.1,163) Obamacare’s prohibition against selling health...

Canada’s largest mental health and addiction treatment and research centre is calling for the legalization of marijuana, with strict controls that would govern who could buy weed, from where, and in what quantity. In a policy statement released Thursday, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto said cannabis should be sold through a government-controlled monopoly and with limited availability and an age limit, possibly through outlets similar to provincially operated liquor stores. “Legalization means that we remove all penalties for cannabis possession and use by adults,” said Jurgen Rehm, director of social and epidemiological research at CAMH. “Canada’s...

Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to opt out of strict hygiene rules introduced by the NHS to restrict the spread of hospital superbugs.Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff should be "bare below the elbow". The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so that Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith, providing they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient. The Mail on Sunday reported the change had been...

SEATTLE - An internal memo at Seattle City Hall is causing quite a stir. It suggests government workers no longer use the terms "citizen," or "brown bag."  According to the Office for Civil Rights, the terms are potentially offensive and other words should be used. "Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'" Bronstein wrote. The Office of Civil Rights says Seattle serves all residents, whether they're United States citizens or not. And while city leaders publicize "brown bag" lunch meetings as a way to designate...

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States. In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level. You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today,...

, the brain trust in Chicago was also obsessed with superstitions, particularly after the president’s disastrous performance in Denver at the first debate. As Thrush and Martin report, the unlikely ringleader of the “superstitious obsessive-compulsive disorder” was the uber-rational David Plouffe. Here are some fun tidbits they dug up about the guidelines the Obama camp followed before the second debate: No Thai food, because that’s what the team ate before the Denver debate. No one can wear the same clothes they wore before Denver. No one can follow the same exercise routine. (“If you had gone for a jog thirteen...

t used to be we thought that people who went around correcting other people’s grammar were just plain annoying. Now there’s evidence they are actually ill, suffering from a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder/oppositional defiant disorder (OCD/ODD). Researchers are calling it Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome, or GPS. Maybe you’ve heard of the grammar gene—its technical name is the FOXP2 gene—which may be responsible for a variety of grammatical ills, such as the inability to construct compound/complex sentences or to effectively deploy the passive voice. Now there’s evidence that a variant of that gene, FOXP2.1, may actually cause us to obsessively correct other...

Islamic extremists destroyed another two mausoleums in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu on Tuesday, attacking a graveyard attached to the city's most picturesque mosque, according to a historian specializing in the area's heritage. Salem Ould Elhadj, a researcher at the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu, said the members of the radical sect set out with picks and shovels to raze the tombs of two of Timbuktu's scholars, Baba Babadje and Mahamane Foulane, both of whom are considered saints. Their mausoleums are in a cemetery attached to the nearly 700-year-old Djingareyber mosque, built in 1325. It's made of mud and...

See the cross? See it? Why are you laughing? Warning! Your salad could be making you into an Infidel! "Salafist group warns tomatoes are 'Christian,'” by Angie Nassar for NowLebanon.com, June 12 (thanks to Lachlan) ...A Salafist group called the Popular Egyptian Islamic Association has come under fire after sending out a warning on Facebook urging its followers not to eat tomatoes because the vegetable (or fruit) is a Christian food. The group posted a photo on its page of a tomato - which appears to reveal the shape of a cross after being cut in half – along with...

I'm almost 60 now, and my OCD has changed dramatically. Looking back, a direct connection between my severest symptoms, and the lack or abundance of Vitamin D, seems clear. As a child, I was allergic to milk and was raised on soybean formula. I practically lived outside and took jobs, like bean row walking and picking tomatoes. I did not start suffering from OCD until I started working in factories and restaurants. I spent a few years farming, and the OCD ebbed. Next I started trucking and worked in confinement hog buildings. I did a total tailspin and the OCD...

When Shehlla Khan's husband became ill, it fell on her to take their three children to the pool. But for Khan, who is Muslim, the task was difficult. The Columbia resident said she was concerned about people watching her swim in the conservative, cover-all dress required by Islamic dress codes, and thinking: "What's wrong? Why can't you take it off?" So Khan, 39, brought the issue up with members of her Dar Al-Taqwa mosque in Ellicott City. The mosque, along with members of a faith-based county group, People Acting Together in Howard, met with the Columbia Association to create a...

An elderly couple have been arrested on suspicion of killing their daughter who died after two decades battling an extreme form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Ken and Marion Hancox, who are both in ill health, have spent eight months under suspicion of the manslaughter of their housebound daughter, Samantha, a former law student. The 40-year-old developed a crippling phobia of germs which forced her to shower up to 20 hours a day and left her incapable of cooking for herself. She developed the disorder as a student and had needed constant care from her parents ever since. By the time...

…Until Her Veil Was Put Back Over Her Face A Saudi man could not identify his wife after a fatal car accident without her veil on. He’d never seen her face. Emirates 24 reported, via Jihad Watch: After nearly 10 years of marriage that produced five children, Mufleh Mohammed of Saudi Arabia still has not seen his wife’s face. Mohammed Hilal, another Saudi husband, could not identify his wife who was killed in a road crash until her veil was put back on her face. Mufleh and Mohammed are among many Saudi men who have never seen the face of...