Free Republic

(Javonnie McCoy and Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard after his acquittal) Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine. The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a...

If you live in a place where recreational pot use is legal, you’re probably wondering whether you need to start worrying about getting prosecuted for it. The answer is probably not, at least according to initial indications from the dozen or so U.S. attorneys general who get to make that call. [...] Of the 13 U.S. attorneys presiding in the eight states with laws making recreational use legal, several have indicated they’re interested only in going after marijuana distributors or users with ties to crime or violence. [...]

The booming deer population in the northern United States is bad for the animal's beloved hemlocks, a new study finds. During Michigan winters, white-tailed deer converge on stands of young hemlocks for protection from winter chill and predators. The same deer return every year to their favorite clumps of the bushy evergreens, called deeryards. The high concentration of deer in a small space saturates the soils with nitrogen from pee, according to a study published online in the journal Ecology. While deer pee can be a valuable source of nitrogen, a rare and necessary nutrient for plants, some deeryards are...

Dow Corning Corp. announced today that it will eliminate 800 jobs, or about 8 percent of its 10,000-member global work force, due to the poor economy. It is not known how many jobs will be affected at Dow Corning's corporate headquarters in Bay County or at its mid-Michigan operations, according to Jarrod Erpelding, a Dow Corning spokesman. Dow Corning has about 3,500 employees in Michigan and about 1,300 working at its Williams Township headquarters and factory in Auburn combined. The job cuts will occur during the first half of 2009 across the entire company through a combination of voluntary retirement...

Marcelle Jones has thought a lot about how her life might end. She has been treated for a serious medical problem for several years, and while it has not gotten worse, eventually "it's going to get me," said Jones, 82. Long before she moved to Lakeland in 1990, Jones had joined the Hemlock Society - now known as Compassion and Choices - an organization that provides information about how terminally ill people can end their lives, either through passive means or, if they choose, by suicide. Lacking family and wanting to spare her friends the burden of caring for her,...

A friend of mine told me of a recent conversation at his family's dinner table that keeps reverberating in my mind. His wife, a physician, also performs abortions. And their 9-year-old son -- hearing the words and curious about its meaning -- looked up from his plate and asked, "What is an abortion?" His mother tried carefully to describe it in simple terms. "But," said her son, "that means killing the baby." The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. "But," he said,...

Hello, This thread is to lend an example of my thoughts for an interactive bump group to be compiled into a main thread. Notice the links go off to isolated issues, yet all are brought back to this main thread to show how they relate. This lends many purposes. 1) it allows for a topic to be interactive with the FR search engine 2) it lends for easier research when looking up something specific 3) it shows a new comer an overview and lets them jump in while colder on the topic 4) the organization lends for quicker and easier...

This will be a thread on Hemlock society

Press Release Source: End-of-Life Choices End-of-Life Choices Launches Statewide Campaign Friday December 5, 11:20 am ET DENVER, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In an effort to encourage a national discussion about end-of-life choices, the nation's oldest and largest right-to-die organization will launch a national campaign Monday (Dec. 8) beginning in Tallahassee.

Hospice for Hemlock (Hospice and Right to Die Consultation) As Hospice professionals, we know just what Hospice care can, and can not do for terminally ill people. No one knows better than Hospice professionals about the suffering that so many endure, despite the greatest of Hospice care and support. Hospice For Hemlock is a group of Hospice Physicians, Nurses, Social Workers, Chaplains, Home Health Aids and Volunteers who believe that a terminally ill person has the right to choose a dignified, hastened death, over an existence of potential undue suffering. Hospice for Hemlock supports both the philosophy of Hospice and...

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...

Girl declared brain-dead after eating hemlock Second Dallas teen who samples the plant makes full recovery 03/13/2002 By HOLLY WARREN / The Dallas Morning News A Dallas girl who ate hemlock has been declared brain-dead, hospital officials said Tuesday. Catherine Vanstone, 13, was among a group of Dallas-area girls spending spring break at Perennial Vacation Club just outside Bandera, about 40 miles west of San Antonio. She found the hemlock along a riverbed during a nature hike. Bandera County Sheriff James MacMillan said Catherine and another girl went for a walk Sunday afternoon along the Medina River. They found...