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Paranoia is one of the most unpleasant "side effects" of marijuana. It's also a key experience shared by marijuana smokers and people with schizophrenia. But exactly how does smoking a joint cause the feeling that dark forces are conspiring to do you wrong? New research in rats may help explain the source of this distress. The study, led by Steven Laviolette at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, involved training rats to fear the scent of either almond or peppermint. The scents were delivered to rats in a cage either with black-and-white striped walls or with black polka dots...

KALISPELL, Mont. — The Montana Supreme Court has upheld a Workers' Compensation Court ruling that about $65,000 in medical bills incurred by a man who was mauled while feeding the bears at a tourist attraction should be covered by workers' compensation, despite the fact the man had smoked marijuana on the day of the attack.

Police arrest 5 in pot swap at Burger King (Charlotte)Posted: Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 Police have arrested five people they say were involved in a scheme to swap large amounts of cash and marijuana at a Burger King in Matthews. In all, authorities say, they recovered more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana and $250,000 in cash. Investigators say the scheme included a former police officer from Mexico, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court on Wednesday. Ubaldo Sandoval, Ana Bertha Sandoval, Jaime Fregoso Arellano, Ciro Noe Guerrero-Rosales and Hector Tegeda Galvan have been charged with conspiracy and possessing...

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has lost legitimacy and must leave office, US President Barack Obama said Thursday.

One of three men accused in a September armed robbery at a medical marijuana clinic in downtown Ann Arbor has pleaded guilty to various charges in the case. Terrence Robinson, 34, of Detroit, pleaded guilty Thursday in Washtenaw County Court to armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, unlawful imprisonment and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He also pleaded no contest to resisting and obstructing police officers, Washtenaw County Chief Deputy Assistant Prosecutor Steve Hiller said. Police said Robinson and two other men robbed the Liberty Clinic on South Main Street at gunpoint at 8...

A California entrepreneur is marketing a new line of medical marijuana soft drinks. Canna Cola contains THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and will only be sold in legal pot clubs.

PLANTATION — A teen at South Plantation High was arrested Friday after allegedly bringing two marijuana-laced cookies to school and letting two other students share one of his chocolate-chip sweets, police said. Plantation police pieced together their case against the teen by apprehending him with the other cookie -- still intact with marijuana, according to Plantation Police Detective Philip Toman. The student, 15 or 16, whose name wasn't released because of his age, was charged with delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school and possession of marijuana under 20 grams, Toman said.

OLYMPIA – Imagine if you will, shoppers could have a choice. Pot or Patron. Marijuana or Monarch Rum. Cannabis or Crown Royal. That’s what Representative Mary Lou Dickerson wants to do. “I’m not kidding around when I’m doing this. I’m dead serious. We need to stop handling Marijuana the way we have been,” says the Seattle Democrat. She dropped House Bill 1550 on Tuesday, which she says will allow for the sale of marijuana in state-run liquor stores. “There really is a great comparison between the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and what we’ve been doing with marijuana now,”...

A longtime friend of Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in custody following the murder of six people in an apparent assassination attempt on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said there was a mysterious, significant change in him a year before the shooting. More Video 1 2 3 4 PreviousNext VIDEO: A total of 19 people were wounded by gunman Jared Lee Loughner's attack. Watch: Tragedy in Arizona: Timeline of Rampage VIDEO: Dr. Steven Rayle and Ken Penner describe the scene at the Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. Watch: Eyewitness Accounts of Arizona Shooting VIDEO: Tilman Fertitta talks about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords'...

A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week. Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt. They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs. The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel. No,...

Federal authorities seized 22,000 pounds of marijuana from a South Suburban warehouse — a huge stash that came here from Mexico packed into six railroad cars, authorities said. The seizure is being touted as the largest seizure ever of marijuana in the Chicago area. Seven people were arrested Wednesday and are expected to appear before a federal magistrate in downtown Chicago today. The top feds in the area are expected to hold a 1 p.m. news conference to discuss the case. Attending the news conference will be Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Gary

ROME – A speeding car plowed head-on into a group of cyclists in southern Italy on Sunday morning, killing eight of them, officials said. The driver had been smoking marijuana, police said. Bent, mangled bikes were strewn about the scene, and the sheet-draped corpses dotted the two-lane road near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian "toe" of boot-shaped Italy where the accident occurred. In addition to the eight cyclists killed, four people were injured, said Gianluca Gioia, a spokesman for ANAS, the agency that runs Italy's state roads and highways. Police confirmed the toll.

Willie Nelson Will Likely Go to Jail for Pot Bust, Expert SaysBy Hollie McKay Published November 29, 2010 FoxNews.com Willie Nelson was arrested in Sierra Blanca, Texas on Friday for possession of six ounces of pot. As a result, the country music legend faces as many as two years behind bars. “If the Texas prosecutors do not reduce the charges, and the marijuana's weight is indeed six ounces, then he is dealing with felony and a potential minimum of 180 days in a county jail and a maximum of two years, with a $10,000 fine,” explained former California-based prosecutor, Robin...

<p>SIERRA BLANCA, Texas -- A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.</p> <p>Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks says the bus pulled into the Sierra Blanca, Texas, checkpoint about 9 a.m. Friday. Brooks says an officer smelled pot when a door was opened and a search turned up marijuana.</p>

A Hartford mother was arrested after her toddler fell from a third floor window while she was allegedly smoking marijuana. The two-year-old boy fell from an apartment at 1668 Broad St. around 5 p.m. Saturday, police Sgt. Michael Kot said. The toddler was playing near an open window, which did not have a screen, Kot said. His mother, Marilis Santiago, 22, was smoking marijuana at the kitchen table at the time, Kot addded. The toddler suffered a bruised liver, a fracture to his right arm, and facial lacerations, Kot said. The child was taken to the Connecticut Children's Medical Center,...

A man apparently was robbed Thursday night while trying to sell his medical marijuana to two teenagers... The suspects asked if he had any marijuana and the victim, who is a medical marijuana patient, offered to sell them some. The three went behind a business where one of the boys pulled out a gun, demanding all the marijuana. The victim pulled out his knife and stabbed one of the suspects in the leg. They attacked him, took the pot and ran. “I think he got his justice,” said Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Kirk Wilson, noting that the victim had...

Last night on the “Tonight Show”, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to host Jay Leno’s question about the failure of Proposition 19, a measure on the California ballot to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Schwarzenegger responded that the measure failed in part, because he had already decriminalized the use of less than 1 oz of pot, and also because, “No one cares if you smoke a joint.”

It would be really nice if libertarian think-tanks stood with small free-market businesses against welfare-dependent marijuana addicts, period. Or if Reason magazine stopped banning anti-drug voices because “bans don’t work”. To the best of my knowledge, professional libertarians are so emotionally invested in pretending that socialist Europe’s soft-on-drugs experiment was groovy, that they’ve lost the plot.

California once again proves that, in the words of Jerry Brown’s former girlfriend, that it marches to the beat of a different drum. Two measures that were widely expected to pass were easily defeated tonight. One would have delayed the state’s green house gas restricting AB 32, the other freed marijuana for legal possession and sale.

SAN FRANCISCO -- As California Democrats gain ground in the polls, one of the big questions left for Californians on Election Day is whether the state will become the first in the nation to legalize marijuana (and not just medical marijuana). As voters continue to mull over the issue, officials in the state and nationally are also considering their next moves. There's new evidence to support the theory that Proposition 19 - the ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in California and allow it to be taxed and regulated - could help Democrats, who are facing a challenging midterm election...