Free Republic

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Voters in Ohio have approved an initiative to become the 24th state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana, the Associated Press has projected. Issue 2 passed on Tuesday’s ballot to allow adult-use sale, purchase and possession of cannabis for Ohioans who are 21 and older. The measure, effective 30 days after the election, permits adults to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, up to 15 grams of marijuana concentrate and grow up to six plants at home. Those in Ohio who purchase cannabis will pay a 10% excise tax, the same rate as Michigan...

Black Voters Matter Action PAC claims Kentucky Attorney General and Republican nominee for governor Daniel Cameron is "a threat to the Black community." A far-left group being funded by liberal billionaire George Soros is targeting Kentucky Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron, a Black Republican, with an ad disparaging him as an Uncle Tom. Black Voters Matter Action PAC, which FEC filings show received millions from Soros' super-PAC, has been running the radio ad on a local R&B station based in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, describing Cameron as "Uncle Daniel Cameron," and accusing him of betraying his race by declaring "all...

A nationwide social experiment launched by a wave of marijuana legalizations is finally bearing results in the form of higher depression rates and addiction. It started in 2012 in Colorado and Washington, setting off a domino effect that has seen restrictions lifted across nearly 40 states, including 23 where it's legal to use marijuana recreationally. The Biden administration now aims to demote the drug from its schedule I status, which lumped it in with heroin and LSD, to schedule III, the first step toward total decriminalization at a federal level. Marijuana has been lauded for its purported benefits for pain...

The Big Apple is now the Big Blunt. Not just because decriminalized marijuana led to proliferating mayhem in the five boroughs. Not just because stinky smoke hangs everywhere, seeping into subway cars and even Broadway theaters — the acrid odor I detected in the crowded men’s room of the Majestic Theatre a few weeks ago was not from “The Phantom of the Opera” smoke machine. It’s also because of a forbidden-to-utter truth, in an age where raising the minimum wage ever higher has become mantra — namely, a license to get high has turned service employees into zombies.

The number of seniors visiting emergency rooms in California for cannabis-related issues is growing, according to new research. From 2005 to 2019, the state’s emergency departments saw a 1,808 percent relative increase in the rate of cannabis-related trips among those aged 65 and older. Cannabis is currently legal for both medicinal and recreational use in California. The state became the first in the country to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, while the substance was not approved for recreational use there until November 2016. The study found that cannabis-related emergency department visits in California rose sharply among seniors from 2013 to...

State Question 820 is on the ballot almost five years after Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana with the passage of State Question 788. Groups have worked to get recreational marijuana on an Oklahoma ballot. In October, Gov. Kevin Stitt set a date for early March when Oklahomans could decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana

What was it going to take before Missouri politicians began an effort to remove Soros-backed St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from office? George Soros, who assisted the Nazis in World War II Hungary, was somehow given US citizenship and then promptly began efforts to back politicians who would support his agenda. One of his more sinister actions was to back corrupt attorneys in US cities who then promptly began ignoring crime, releasing perpetrators and making US cities less safe. Kim Gardner in St. Louis is a Soros-backed St. Louis Circuit Attorney. She has been involved in numerous corrupt activities....

Some of Ron Paul's most avid (some say "rabid") supporters are not friends of America. The Marxist group "Code Pink" are frequent and vociferous supporters of the good congressman, as are "Iraq Veterans against the War," a Soros-funded group that is sometimes violently opposed to any American intervention overseas, no matter how justified it may be. Code Pink, headed up by Medea Benjamin, shows up at any anti-American gathering that happens to have media (no pun intended) coverage scheduled. That organization is frequently joined by IVAW in its pursuit of America-bashing. Now, Rep. Paul cannot be held totally responsible for...

A senior Ukrainian government official was sacked on Sunday amid fraud allegations as the Ministry of Defence launched an internal audit about an alleged contract signed at grossly inflated prices. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal announced the dismissal of Vasyl Lozynkiy, Deputy Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, in a statement on the Telegram social messaging platform. Lozynkiy, in office since May 2020, had been arrested on Saturday by the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) on suspicion of embezzlement. The NABU said that Lozynkiy had "received ($400,000) to facilitate the conclusion of contracts for the purchase of equipment...

"Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House and still couldn't get cannabis reform bills passed," Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) complained on Twitter last week. "I would go much further and end the federal war on a plant entirely, but at LEAST let legal business operate as a legal business."Paul was alluding to the the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for state-licensed marijuana businesses to access financial services by removing the threat of civil, criminal, and regulatory penalties against banks that serve them. The bill has broad, bipartisan support because it would simultaneously dial back the war...

Vice President Kamala Harris has been photographed at a convention for a shadowy leftist group with ties to billionaire financier and well-known progressive donor George Soros. On Thursday, Fox News reported that the Twitter account for the union Call Center Workers United posted two photographs of the vice president speaking at a meeting hosted by Democracy Alliance in Washington D.C. called “Powering Up for Democracy.” -snip The Fox News report describes Democracy Alliance as a secretive group of wealthy Democratic donors who meet twice a year to lay out their agenda at events frequented by prominent left-wing politicians. One of...

Cannabis plants could be the missing player in human's fight against climate change, as hemp can absorb carbon dioxide from the air more than twice as effectively as trees. Numerous studies have shown that hemp captures up to 16 tons of greenhouse gas annually, while trees suck up about six tons. The carbon dioxide also becomes permanently encased within hemp fibers that are used in a range of products - from textiles to medicines and car parts. Hudson Carbon, a New York research center that studies carbon storage, found that one acre of cannabis plants can store up to three...

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cleared the way for the Soros-backed Latino Media Network’s (LMN) purchase of 18 Televisa Univision radio stations, among them Miami’s Radio Mambí. Inside Radio reported this on Monday:The FCC decision clears the way for the closing of the sale that involves 18 stations including 10 AMs and eight FMs in the largest U.S. markets, including eight of the top 10 Latino markets. Markets included are Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio, McAllen, Fresno, and Las Vegas. LMN, a new company founded by social entrepreneurs Stephanie Valencia and Jess...

At a Nov. 15 hearing on cannabis reform at the federal level, House Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said President Joe Biden’s pardon of people convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law was “a good first step,” and added that the next step is that “cannabis must be decriminalized at the federal level as a matter of basic justice in the country.” Under current federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 illegal drug, which means it has a “high potential for abuse” and is not a “currently accepted medical treatment in the U.S.,” according to Drugs.com. Other...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Marijuana will soon be legal in Missouri after voters passed Amendment 3 during Tuesday's midterm election, according to a projection from NBC News. After implementation, people in Missouri age 21 and older will be legally allowed to buy and possess up to three ounces of marijuana and grow as many as six flowering plants at home. Possession limits for medical marijuana card-holders will be even higher. The lingering question: How soon will this go into effect? Missouri, which was slow to roll our medical marijuana after its passage in 2018, has until Feb. 7 to figure...

Cannabis users soon may be a majority among young adults in the District of Columbia and several pot-friendly states, a trend that points to a potential future of destigmatized marijuana across much of the nation. More than two-fifths of young men and women nationwide now use cannabis at least on occasion, according to federal data, a quotient that has risen steadily in a decade of relentless legalization. Much of the trend is driven by young women, who have all but closed a decades-long gender gap in marijuana use.

If weed fails in the Senate, and no one hears, does it make any noise? On July 21, 2022, the three most ambitious U.S. senators ever to pay attention to cannabis sheepishly launched federal cannabis legislation into the future, with the introduction of the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. The landmark announcement drew surprisingly little fanfare. Senators Schumer, Wyden, and Booker seemed resigned. The cannabis cognoscenti immediately denied the infeasibility of the timing and the impossibility of getting to 60 votes in a bitterly divided U.S. Senate. Then, the seas started to change in Washington. After months of gridlock, Congress...

Pennsylvania’s Democratic U.S. Senate nominee John Fetterman wants to legalize cannabis nationally and is urging President Joe Biden to deschedule the drug, removing it from the list of federally controlled substances. In a press release shared by his communications director John Calvello on Monday, Fetterman, who is Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, called for the decriminalization of marijuana and for Biden to declassify it as a Schedule I drug:

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

The Estonian government wants to ban the memory of the Soviet past from public life. Riots and Russian cyber attacks cannot be ruled out. At the center of the controversy is an old tank. Lenin got it: his statue still stands in Estonia’s third-largest city, Narva, but it was moved to a secluded, walled-in corner in the courtyard in the 1990s. In the summer, the Russian revolutionary leader was surrounded by an ugly construction site fence. If the Estonian government under Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has its way, all Soviet monuments in the small Baltic state should disappear from public...