Free Republic

Summary Background Interest in the use of cannabis and cannabinoids to treat chronic non-cancer pain is increasing, because of their potential to reduce opioid dose requirements. We aimed to investigate cannabis use in people living with chronic non-cancer pain who had been prescribed opioids, including their reasons for use and perceived effectiveness of cannabis; associations between amount of cannabis use and pain, mental health, and opioid use; the effect of cannabis use on pain severity and interference over time; and potential opioid-sparing effects of cannabis. -SNIP- Interpretation Cannabis use was common in people with chronic non-cancer pain who had been...

Teenage pot smokers could be damaging brain structures critical to memory and reasoning, according to new research that found changes in the brains of heavy users. Research released Monday in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin showed the brains of young heavy marijuana users were altered in so-called sub-cortical regions — primitive structures that are part of the memory and reasoning circuits. And young people with such alterations performed worse on memory tests than non-using controls, despite the fact that the heavy users had not indulged for more than two years, on average, before the testing. [Snip] When the groups were given...

Cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding Islamist extremists linked to terror attacks in Spain, Morocco and Algeria, according to a joint investigation by the Spanish and French secret services. The finding will be seized on both by campaigners for a harsher clampdown on cannabis and by those who argue that legalisation is the only way to end a petty dealing trend that is dragging growing numbers of teenagers into crime. The investigation by the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia and the Renseignements Generaux was launched after Spanish police found that the Islamists behind the March 2004 bombings in Madrid bought their explosives...

It turns out that alcohol is legal for the simplest, most nostalgic, and most American reason of all. Despite its risks and harmful side-effects, adults are reserved right to drink because they are independent adults in a free country. For all of the empty rhetoric about economics and black markets, the end of Prohibition was due to a single principle: even if drinking may be bad for society, government has no right to keep the people from doing it. The ability to get drunk is an inalienable right that we have forever confirmed with the 18th Amendment.

Mother of slain soldier decries 'military and governmental fascism'Fresh from a visit to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, anti-Bush activist Cindy Sheehan is demanding the U.S. military be removed from "occupied New Orleans." In a dispatch on leftist filmmaker Michael Moore's website, Sheehan said she was troubled by the "level of the military presence" in the Gulf Coast state. "George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power," she said. "The only way America will become more secure is if we...

<p>As we endeavor toward a more lucid and informed discussion of substance abuse, let's deconstruct the mystique of marijuana and recognize it for the dangerous drug that it is.</p> <p>Marijuana is a substance that's worthy of our concern. It is the most prevalent of all illicit drugs used in the country. The 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported that 34 percent of Americans have used marijuana in their lifetime and 5 percent are current users.</p>