Free Republic

Republicans, in their unending quest to quash the tide of marijuana legalization, have latched onto the peculiar notion of canine unemployment as a rallying cry. The stage for this bizarre spectacle was Minnesota's House of Representatives, where a bill legalizing non-medical cannabis for those 21 and older recently passed by a vote of 71-59. During the pre-vote debate, Republican state Rep. Brian Johnson, who stood firmly against the bill, raised the alarm over the cost of retiring K-9s. "I did not see anything reading through the bill dealing with our K-9 units," Johnson declared. "Can you tell me how much...

The former head of a Michigan medical marijuana licensing board has agreed to plead guilty to accepting $110,000 in bribes to influence his decisions when he led the panel over a two-year period, authorities said Thursday. Charges against Rick Johnson and three other men were announced by U.S. Attorney Mark Totten at a press conference in the capital, Lansing. Johnson was chairman of the marijuana board for two years until spring 2019. The Republican also was one of the most powerful lawmakers in the Capitol, serving as House speaker from 2001-04.

In 2017, San Francisco’s top officials announced an audacious goal: Cut the city’s chronic homelessness number in half over the next five years. A few months earlier, the city had received support to help reach that goal — $100 million in pledged private expenditures from a nonprofit aiming for the same five-year reduction, complementing the city’s more than $250 million annual homelessness budget. “This is going to be huge,” then-Mayor Ed Lee told The Chronicle at the time about the initiative by nonprofit Tipping Point. “I do believe we’ll be able to cut chronic homelessness in half with this help.”...

Opioids are the gold standard for treatment of chronic and acute pain; however, their use may result in significant gastrointestinal side effects, including nausea, vomiting, and constipation. A new study is the first report of how opioids like morphine cause gastric inflammation and how this condition can be reversed through treatment with proton pump inhibitor drugs like omeprazole, an over-the-counter medication commonly used to reduce stomach acid. Opioid users, compared with non-users, have a higher incidence of gastric dysfunction, greater levels of gastric retention, worse quality of life, increased hospitalizations, and increased use of antinausea and pain medications. To investigate...

Surveillance video caught a man entering a Phoenix phone store Saturday and brutally beating a female employee working alone behind the counter — punching and stomping on her 25 times in an unprovoked attack. Even when she screamed she was pregnant as a possible way of getting him to stop, the attacker kept beating her. The 22-year-old victim asked the man, "How can I help you?" as he approached the counter of the Cricket Wireless store near 43rd Avenue and Bethany Home Road around 5 p.m., KSAZ-TV reported. The man began to answer and then suddenly punched the woman, landing...

@NORML #Florida @GovRonDeSantis was asked about his position on legalizing #marijuana and he responded with this. This is what we are up against...

On Oct. 12, 2018, 16-year-old Karlie Gusé attended a party near her home in Chalfant Valley, a dessert town near Bishop, Calif. According to her boyfriend and others at the party, Karlie smoked marijuana—which may or may not have been laced with another drug—and immediately fell ill. She began to experience intense fear and paranoia, eventually calling her stepmother to ask for a ride home. But, at 9 p.m., Melissa Gusé found Karlie running down a street, away from the party. No one knew it then, but that was only the first of two times Karlie would run scared down...

Several members of Italy's Carabinieri paramilitary police force called for the deaths or beatings of two American teenagers who were arrested in the hours after an officer's slaying, Italian media reported Wednesday. A Carabinieri officer has been charged with using unjustified measures in handling a suspect for allegedly blindfolding one of the teens illegally as he awaited questioning at a police station. Phone messaging chats involving several Carabinieri hours after the July 2019 arrests of the young tourists were introduced as evidence at the officer's trial on Wednesday. Gabriel Natale-Hjorth and Finnegan Lee Elder, respectively 18 and 19 at the...

Florida authorities this week said LGBTQ+ dating apps have helped them make upwards of 60 drug-related arrests. In a six-month sting operation which officers called “Swipe Left for Meth,” undercover detectives used dating apps like Grindr and Scruff – targeted toward men who have sex with men – to locate a number of people suspected of buying and selling drugs online. The operation produced more than 60 arrests, according to a news release, and detectives have obtained warrants for at least eight other suspects. Detectives during the investigation filed 159 total felony charges and 72 misdemeanor charges against the suspects,...

The Harris County sheriff said the three surviving children had been 'fending for each other,' with the oldest sibling caring for the other two.... The skeletal remains of a child, and three surviving siblings who appear to have been abandoned, were found inside an apartment in the Houston area, a sheriff said. One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the Harris County Sheriff's Office on Sunday afternoon and told authorities that his 9-year-old brother had been dead for a year and the body was inside the apartment, the office said in a statement. Deputies responded and found the teen, and...

A pair of alcohol-impaired elementary school P.E. teachers entered the wrong Florida home, and one eventually shot a man who lived there. Two Florida elementary school physical education teachers have been accused of entering the wrong apartment, and one of the intruders shot an actual tenant who lived there.

Heavy marijuana users who are also vaccinated may be more susceptible to breakthrough cases of COVID-19, a new study found. The study, published last Tuesday in World Psychology, found that those with a substance use disorder (SUD) — a dependence on marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, opioids and tobacco — were more likely to contract the coronavirus after receiving both of their vaccination shots. Those without a SUD saw a 3.6 percent rate of breakthrough infections, compared to a 7 percent rate in those with a SUD.

Actor Michael K. Williams died of acute drug intoxication in what New York City’s medical examiner said Friday was an accidental death. Williams, known for playing Omar Little on “The Wire” and an Emmy Award nominee this year, had fentanyl, parafluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine in his system when he died Sept. 6 in Brooklyn. Williams, 54, was found dead by family members in his penthouse apartment. Police said at the time that they suspected a drug overdose. The city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said it would not comment further. A message seeking comment was left with Williams’ representative. Williams...

A new Norwegian study has shown that alcohol and drug abuse is much more common among patients suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression than in the population at large. The study, conducted by the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, looked into the extent of drug and alcohol dependence among Norwegians diagnosed with serious mental health disorders. Every fourth patient with schizophrenia and every fifth with bipolar disorder also suffered problems with substance abuse.  One in ten people who were severely depressed also had problems with alcohol or drug-related health problems.  It is estimated that one in forty Norwegians indulge...

Tracy James knew the drug she'd just swallowed was working when her old injuries from high school started twitching with new life. Pressure throbbed from a forgotten busted knee. Her ankle tingled. The fingers she'd sprained roller-skating decades back began to ache. Whatever the 37-year-old had just taken, it shot feeling back into the long-gone ailments. "When I did vomit, it was one of the most amazing moments of my life." For the past 45 minutes, the hut had been dark and silent, the air dripping with jungle moisture. James and nearly 20 others were sitting cross-legged on ornate rugs....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Magic mushrooms," used by Native Americans and hippies to alter consciousness, appear to have similar mystical effects on many people, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. At least one team of doctors is already testing whether using them can help terminal cancer patients come to terms with their fates. More than 60 percent of volunteers given capsules of psilocybin derived from mushrooms said they had a "full mystical experience." "Many of the volunteers in our study reported, in one way or another, a direct, personal experience of the 'beyond,'" said Roland Griffiths, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God. Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. Federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision. The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, which has...

Alexander Shulgin, Sasha to his friends, lives with his wife, Ann, 30 minutes inland from the San Francisco Bay on a hillside dotted with valley oak, Monterey pine and hallucinogenic cactus. At 79, he stoops a little, but he is still well over six feet tall, with a mane of white hair, a matching beard and a wardrobe that runs toward sandals, slacks and short-sleeved shirts with vaguely ethnic patterns. He lives modestly, drawing income from a small stock portfolio supplemented by his Social Security and the rent that two phone companies pay him to put cell towers on his...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegal drug use and cigarette smoking among sixth- through 12th-graders increased slightly during the last school year compared with the year before, says a new survey. Alcohol use remained at the same level during both years.</p> <p>Nearly one-fourth, or 24 percent, of these teenagers reported using illegal drugs -- marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and others -- at least once in the 2002-2003 school year, compared with 22 percent the year before, according to the private study by Pride Surveys.</p>

Gascón ally calls the actions "symbolic, pointless, and partisan attempts to aid a floundering recall effort.”. As organizers of an effort to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón say they are working closely with county officials to finalize the petition, three more cities declared “no confidence” in the progressive prosecutor this week. “City leaders are beginning to see what citizens and victims have known: George Gascon threatens the safety of our communities with his pro-criminal policies and actions,” read an email blast from Victims of Violent Crime for the Recall of District Attorney Gascón. “Together, we can recall...