Free Republic

There are things you expect to see at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and there are things you don't. One of the things you probably don't is an audience cheering and applauding arguments for legalizing pot and bemoaning the war on drugs. A panel titled "Rocky Mountain High" held Thursday afternoon started out as a debate between Mary Katherine Ham of Fox and Hot Air and Christopher Beach a staffer for former Drug Czar William Bennett's radio show. But as the debate wore on it became clear the real disagreement was between Beach and the overwhelming majority of the...

But the U.S. government won’t let scientists try out this promising treatment on humans. On a warm summer day in Chicago at the International Cannabinoid Research Conference, hundreds of marijuana researchers were giggling. It wasn’t the groundbreaking research they’d just heard—proving the ability of THC, one of the active ingredients in marijuana, to stave off HIV (or RIV in monkeys)—that did it. Nor was it the author of the study, Dr. Patricia E. Molina, who had them laughing. It was the rogue researcher daring enough to taint the victory with a harsh dose of reality: “What’s next, testing this on...

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) says the Treasury Department is overstepping its bounds with a memo outlining how banks can provide services for businesses selling marijuana. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it’s illegal for banks to deal with marijuana sale proceeds, and that only Congress can change those laws. “The administration can’t change the law with a memo,” he said in a statement released late on Friday. “While the Justice Department’s memo tries to guide prosecutorial discretion, that discretion shouldn’t be used to facilitate illegal conduct.” Grassley said the Justice Department was encouraging an “improper use...

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer (D) this week said he's opposed to laws legalizing marijuana. While Maryland legislators are expected to take up several proposals to legalize the drug this year, the Democratic minority whip said he's concerned it’s a gateway to harsher narcotics. "I'm not a proponent of the legalization of marijuana," Hoyer said Thursday during a taping of C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program, which will air Sunday. The position puts Hoyer on the same page as Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), but at odds with a recent shift in public opinion. O'Malley said earlier in the week that he's "not much...

Tallahassee’s political establishment has repeatedly blocked legislative votes on medical marijuana and will ask the Florida Supreme Court Thursday to follow suit and keep the issue away from state voters in 2014. Led by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, opponents have raised a host of objections to the proposed state constitutional amendment, which they say could lead to de facto “unfettered” marijuana legalization under the guise of compassionate medicine. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/04/3796894/high-court-hears-medical-marijuana.html#storylink=cpy

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A man is accused of trying to get marijuana into a Washington state jail by attaching it to an arrow he shot onto the roof. A Whatcom County sheriff's employee saw the man step out of his pickup truck and use a bow to launch the arrow toward the jail's second-floor recreation area, but it missed its target. ((snip)) The sheriff says Jordan told deputies he had been aiming at a squirrel, but he couldn't explain why he needed to attach marijuana to the arrow to go squirrel hunting.

An unprecedented D.C. government program will require medical marijuana dispensaries to put aside 2 percent of their profits in order to subsidize pot purchases for poor patients. Under the proposed rule, which was published in the D.C. Register last week and is in the midst of a 30-day review period, dispensaries will give at least a 20 percent discount on marijuana to low-income people at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Clinics often offer discounts to poor patients, and other states mention low-income provisions in medical marijuana legislation. But Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National...

San Francisco park workers and volunteers spent much of Sunday picking up and hauling away 10,000 pounds of garbage strewn all over the eastern part of Golden Gate Park known as Hippie Hill, the remnants of Saturday's annual yet unofficial pot-smoking bacchanalia. But this year's annual celebration - which falls each year on April 20 and is known as "420" - drew a larger-than-average crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers on the warm weekend day. They proceeded to smoke, drink, eat and rack up more than $10,000 in costs for city crews to clean up the mess, ironically just...

SEATAC, Wash. -- One person was killed and another person was wounded in a shooting at a marijuana grow operation in SeaTac early Monday. King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said a woman called 911 just before 3 a.m. to report the shooting. Deputies found one person dead inside the home in 3000 block of South 146th Street, and another person who had been shot was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition. West said the two attackers got away. No description was immediately available, but West said they believe the victims knew the attacker and it wasn't a...

Honolulu (AP) - A bill that would have legalized marijuana in Hawaii has died in the state House. House judiciary committee Chairman Karl Rhoads said Tuesday that he decided to kill the bill after learning from House leadership that the initiative does not have enough votes to pass the House. Key lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled House supported the measure, including the speaker and the majority leader.

Luis Bladilir Lopez would have needed a sharp defense lawyer to explain what could happen as the result of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor marijuana charge last year in Prince William County. But Lopez, then 19, was never appointed a lawyer, according to court records. In the end, the consequences were far more serious than he probably could have imagined.

Two years ago Fox 2 Problem Solver Rob Wolchek got a tip from someone inside Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly plant about what some workers were doing at the park on their lunch break.

Scientists have confirmed the long-held suspicion that frequent heavy marijuana use damages the brain's memory and learning capacity. "Our results suggest that long-term cannabis use is hazardous to white matter in the developing brain. This was especially true for those who had started in adolescence, as we know the brain is still developing during this time," Lead researcher Dr. Marc Seal, from Melbourne’s Murdoch Children's Research Institute said in a university release. Scientists from MCRI, Melbourne University and Wollongong University compared MRI scans of the brain for 59 people who had been using marijuana for an average of 15 years...

In an interview with POLITICO, Paul said he’ll return to Congress this week pushing measures long avoided by his party. He wants to work with liberal Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Republicans to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for pot possession. He wants to carve a compromise immigration plan with an “eventual path” to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a proposal he believes could be palatable to conservatives. And he believes his ideas — along with pushing for less U.S. military intervention in conflicts overseas — could help the GOP broaden its tent and appeal to crucial voting blocs that handed Democrats...

Calif. Gov. Brown: DOJ, Obama should 'respect' state marijuana lawsBy Zack Colman - 11/11/12 10:12 AM ET California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said the federal government should let recently passed marijuana legalization laws stand in Colorado and Washington. “It’s time for the Justice Department to recognize the sovereignty of the states,” Brown said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “I believe the president and the Department of Justice ought to respect the will of these states.” Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use through ballot measures last week. But marijuana is still outlawed at the federal level, which...

As competition drives prices down, even chamber-of-commerce types acknowledge that the North Coast economy is at risk. Pot kept things afloat as the logging and fishing industries declined. Restaurants, car dealerships, banks, hotels and dental clinics all depend on marijuana money...In the past,planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country.But this year,Andrew and Anna are hoping only that their 50 or so marijuana plants will cover the bills. Since the mid-1990s,the price of outdoor-grown marijuana has...

A Chicago police helicopter discovered a patch of marijuana plants the size of two football fields, nestled among heavy brush along the Bishop Ford Freeway on the Southeast Side, authorities say. The helicopter spotted the pot as it flew above overgrown wetlands near Stony Island and 105th Street around noon Tuesday.

Presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted that the President's admitted heavy use of marijuana as a teenager “does not prove he is a dope.” The question of whether President Obama may have suffered brain damage as a member of the infamous “Choom Gang” as a youth reared its ugly head when a recently completed study by two New Zealand professors measured an average decline in IQ of 8 points for heavy users of weed. “First of all, these figures are an average person,” Carney argued. “The President is already acknowledged to be so far above average that a decline of...

Support is growing for a proposed Colorado amendment to legalize marijuana, a new poll released Wednesday shows, and the referendum could upend the former member of the Choom Gang who currently occupies the White House. The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows that 47 percent of likely Colorado voters support Amendment 64, which will appear on the state ballot in November. That's a small uptick since PPP's June survey, which showed 46 percent support, but opposition to the measure is dropping. Only 38 percent of voters oppose Amendment 64 in Wednesday's poll, down from 42 percent in...

A once green fingered Minnesota man is ruing not reading the labels on the weed killer he bought after it killed all the grass on his 40,000 square foot lawn. Turning the previously lush green grass to dead, arid scrubland, Lake Elmo resident Rob Olson only wanted to get rid of the weeds from his two and a half acre lawn. Instead, Olson says three employees at Dege Garden Centre consulted with him about which weed product to buy and fatefully he purchased five bottles of the multi-purpose killer at $35 a pop. The weed killer in fact contained a...