Zero Tolerance No Longer So Easy More Impetus to Treat Addiction As a Disease NEWTON, N.H. - When Courtney Griffin was using heroin, she lied, disappeared and stole from her parents to support her $400-a-day habit. Her family paid her debts, never filed a police report and kept her addiction secret - until she was found dead last year of an overdose. At Griffin's funeral, her parents decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their 20-year-old daughter, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually she overdosed at her boyfriend's grandmother's house, where she died alone. [continues 1066 words]
NEWTON, N.H. - When Courtney Griffin was using heroin, she lied, disappeared, and stole from her parents to support her $400-a-day habit. Her family paid her debts, never filed a police report and kept her addiction secret - until she was found dead last year of an overdose. At Courtney's funeral, they decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their bright, beautiful daughter, just 20, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually, she overdosed at her boyfriend's grandmother's house, where she died alone. [continues 2542 words]
Starting next week, federal prison inmates from Alaska facing an average conviction of a decade behind bars for drug offenses will be released early. The sentence reductions resulted from revisions by an independent judicial body; its new policy could mean shorter imprisonment for tens of thousands of inmates nationwide. The U.S. Sentencing Commission lowered the penalties for all future federal drug defendants in April 2014. Several months later, the commission granted those reductions to drug offenders already in prison, but its decision to retroactively apply the changes stipulated that no drug offender could be released until a year after the changes came into effect on Nov. 1, 2014. [continues 808 words]
News that's stranger than fiction. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." That's a Hunter S. Thompson quote, and absolutely applies to the latest news related to marijuana and its legalization. Much of it is so weird, in fact, ya just can't make this shit up. A group of Bigfoot hunters (seriously) were in search of their nonexistent furry friend in a Wildlife Management Area in Texas last month when they came across a giant crop of weeds in the woods. The hidden garden, northeast of Dallas, had almost 6,500 mature plants, worth around $6.5 million, on an acre of land. Turns out the Delta County Sheriff's department had been scoping the ganja farm to bust the guerrilla growers, but when the Bigfoot team accidentally stumbled onto the scene, they ruined the police operation-in-progress. (Probably the same reason these buffoons haven't nabbed Yeti yet.) Had the coppers been able to bust the black-market growers-who had set up generators, camouflaging tents, and watering systems-they would have faced felony charges with fines of up to $50,000 and 99 years in the slammer. Who knew Bigfoot has such a big green thumb! [continues 800 words]
A Nonviolent Drug Offender Granted Clemency After 2 Decades Behind Bars Adjusts to Life on the Outside DALLAS - The recently released federal prisoner sat down at his sister's dining room table. He pulled out a legal pad and began the letter he had been turning over in his mind for several months: "Dear Mr. President, I am writing you today with the utmost gratitude to personally thank you for granting my petition for clemency on March 31, 2015. Your actions have given me a second chance to start living life normally again and mere words can't express how truly grateful I am for your making this moment possible. The Bible says, 'To whom much is given, much is required,' and I vow to make the most of this unique opportunity that I've been given." [continues 2021 words]
State governments across the country are finally waking up to the enormous financial and human cost of mass incarceration. In recent years, at least 27 states have rolled back mandatory-minimum laws and other "tough-on-crime" legislation that has turned the United States into the world's biggest jailer. The reason? At a cost that typically runs more than $55,000 a year per inmate, even conservative states are balking at the expense of swollen prison populations. That's one reason the "justice reinvestment" movement is gaining steam. Across the country, activists and lawmakers are pushing for reforms aimed at sending fewer people to prison, redirecting money to address social problems at their source. [continues 388 words]
The three young men climbing into the pickup close to the Oregon border cheerfully acknowledged they were about to break federal law. Anthony, Daniel and Chris had just bustled out of a marijuana shop in Vancouver, Washington, clutching bags of marijuana as they headed home a short drive over the bridge to Portland, Oregon. Crossing state lines with drugs is a federal offence not that it has discouraged the steady stream of customers from Portland taking advantage of Washington's legalisation of recreational marijuana sales last year. As of yesterday, Oregon joined Washington and Colorado to become the third US state to permit the sale for anyone over 21. "I've been coming across since they legalised it here," said Anthony. "But it'll be closer and it's going to be much cheaper in Portland. And I won't haveh to cross the bridge. Not that I've ever seen the cops lining up to catch us." The open sale of recreational mar marijuana has come more swiftly to Portland than many expected. Legalisation was only approved in a ballot measure last November whereas Washington state took 18 months to open its first shops. [continues 617 words]
LAS CRUCES - Dona Ana County sheriff's deputies arrested a Sunland Park city councilor on minor drug charges Monday during a council meeting. Sergio R. Carrillo was arrested at the meeting and booked on misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana, less than an ounce, and possession of paraphernalia, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Kelly Jameson. Carrillo, who also works as a substitute teacher in the Gadsden Independent School District, did not respond to an emailed request for comment and could not be reached at City Hall. [continues 106 words]
Moratorium shuffle As noted in last week's CannaBiz, City Council rushed through an ordinance on Sept. 22 that, when passed, would put a six-month moratorium on any new cannabis clubs and land-use permits for medical marijuana businesses. After 3-1/2 hours of debate, Council member Andy Pico suggested the ordinance be split in half, which any Councilor can do without challenge. Council then approved the first reading of a moratorium on new cannabis clubs, which will be in effect until after the second reading, slated for Oct. 13. Only Councilor Helen Collins voted against passage. City Council will revisit the MMJ half of the ordinance at its Oct. 13 meeting. [continues 344 words]
I commend Colleen McCool for her thoughtful, personal letter regarding medical marijuana (cannabis). In thousands of years of documented use cannabis alone has never been shown to cause a serious illness or an overdose death. If cannabis were legal it would be the first treatment that should be tried for myriad medical conditions including but certainly not limited to pain, epilepsy, Crohn's disease, PTSD, nausea, multiple sclerosis and autism. In a recent issue of National Geographic, Dr. Nolan Kane describes what will happen when scientists are finally allowed to study cannabis. [continues 206 words]
On Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016, people waiting in line to vote may be less interested in choosing a president than in legalizing marijuana. A total of 17 states will have marijuana measures on their ballots next year, almost triple the number in 2012, when there were pot questions in just six states. Democrats hope these reefer referendums will bring more left-leaning voters to the polls and have an impact on all the other questions on the ballot, most especially, who should be president. But the unintended consequences of politicizing pot have already materialized in states that have just begun experimenting with the drug. [continues 1738 words]
Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said the raid on Colleen McCool's home on Sept. 17 was initiated by DPS, not the sheriff's office. "DPS spotted it from a helicopter that was out doing narcotics surveillance," he said. Bryant said McCool was not under investigation by the sheriff's office and not on their radar until they were contacted by DPS that marijuana plants were spotted growing on her property. Chief Deputy Jason Upshaw said the deputies who went to her home had no idea she was a 69-year-old woman. [continues 127 words]
In the award-winning 2013 movie, Dallas Buyers Club, we are exposed to heroic patient activism during the AIDS crisis in the United States. Based on the true story of AIDS-stricken Ron Woodroof, a hard-partying Texas tradesman, the film shows a strikingly thin Matthew McConaughey battle his sickness and the legal authorities in Texas. Woodroof, who's unhappy with his illegally purchased AIDS medicine, and on the edge of death, seeks out alternative and experimental drugs from a doctor in Mexico. Then Ron, being the savvy entrepreneur that he is, quickly establishes a club (a dispensary) to sell his unregulated, sometimes dangerous, imported medicines. [continues 588 words]
Re: "More charged in A&M death -- 10 now facing drug charges following Frisco teen's overdose," Saturday Metro story. Anton Gridnev, 19, of Frisco is the latest tragic, preventable drug overdose death to make the news. College Station Medical Center received two calls from his fraternity house asking what to do when someone has overdosed. The caller asked the medical center not to call the police because of "substances" at their location. By the time someone finally did, it was too late to save Gridne v. [continues 146 words]
Advocates, With Cash in Hand, Await the Backing of at Least One Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton says she has never smoked pot, not even as a bell-bottom-wearing undergraduate in the 1960s. Her husband's administration went nuclear in the war on drugs. During her 2008 campaign, she publicly opposed marijuana legalization. But it's now seven years later, and the marijuana industry is a $2.7 billion business - the fastest-growing in the United States - and one that operates without any legal sanctions in four states, is decriminalized in16 others and is permitted for medical use in a few more. [continues 2013 words]
DENVER - Whether bought from a downtown shop or cadged from a friend's basement greenhouse, legal marijuana is easy to find in Colorado. Places to smoke it, not so much. Smoking in private homes and on front porches is allowed. But under a thicket of state, local and private regulations, marijuana use here, in a state at the forefront of legalization, is banned from parks and sidewalks, airport smoking areas, hotel rooms, gallery events, nightclubs and nearly every other corner of public life. Smoking in public is regularly ticketed, and in spring the Denver police raided two private marijuana-friendly clubs and handed out citations. [continues 607 words]
Life insurance companies can be like prudish acquaintances. Smoke cigarettes? For shame. Weight gain? Unfortunate. Deviations from perfection usually lead to higher life insurance rates. But wait. Smoke pot? Shrug. Not only can you qualify for life insurance as an occasional marijuana user, but you also may get decent rates. Occasional marijuana use doesn't count as smoking at almost a third of life insurance companies that have guidelines about rates for pot users as long as they don't also use nicotine products according to an April 2015 survey of almost 150 underwriters by Munich American Reassurance Co. [continues 885 words]
That's what was on the campaign signs said and that's what Alaskans voted for. The Anchorage Assembly is not respecting the voters' will with it's "open container" requirement that marijuana be carried outside the passenger compartment (in the trunk). Alcohol can be carried inside a car as long as the seal is not broken. This law assures that alcohol is not being used by the driver. Thus the term "open container." Open containers must be carried in the trunk or in a locked glove box. Too bad there isn't a way to tell if marijuana is being used by the driver. Oh wait, there is! Unburnt marijuana is marijuana that is not currently being used. The open container law should define burnt marijuana as an "open container" and treat it like alcohol. Burnt and unburnt marijuana have strong and vastly different smells making this an easy ordinance to enforce. An unlit joint or bag of weed should be treated like an unopened bottle. [continues 190 words]
That's How Parents See Medical Marijuana, Though Doubts Remain. PITTSBURGH - In Room 716 of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 12-year-old Hannah Pallas is motionless, but for an occasional turn of her head and the blink of her eyes, following a series of life-threatening seizures. Sydney Michaels, 5, is down the hall in Room 749, waiting to be discharged after 15 grand mal seizures within 36 hours. Their mothers have known each other for years, though it's a coincidence caused by their daughters' epilepsy that brought them to the unit on the same day. [continues 1095 words]
Here is a challenge for you. Reconcile the following: In 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified, including the Fourth Amendment, guaranteeing "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." In 2015, a 21-year-old woman named Charnesia Corley says she underwent a public body-cavity search for drugs at a gas station in Texas. Explain, if you can, how the former and the latter can be simultaneously true. [continues 559 words]
It's a new drug. And it's a killer. Known on the street as "flakka," the synthetic concoction is hitting hard in Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and other parts of the country. It's causing a rash of emergency room visits and overdose deaths. In one highly publicized Florida case, a man reportedly high on flakka gnawed on and disfigured another man's face before he was shot to death by police. Another user tried to break down the door of a police station in Fort Lauderdale, and a few weeks later, a man impaled himself while trying to climb a fence around the same station. [continues 956 words]
Maybe it's marijuana's cultural baggage of Deadheads, dreadlocked Rastafarians, and psychedelic paraphernalia that does it, but there's something about cannabis that brings out the school marm in certain segments of the population. It just makes the members of the more conservative contingent feel like their neckties are too tight, like their worldview is still endangered by the cultural descendants of the hippies who hoisted a green, smoke-wreathed flag in the turmoil of the '60s. But that's a cartoonish, puritanical view of a plant that's been around for millennia. Evidence from tombs in Asia reveals cannabis' use as a psychoactive substance at least as far back as 3,000 B.C., and conjecture places its cultivation as far back as 12,000 years. American views were mostly formed in the past century, in the wake of Mexican immigration during the Mexican Revolution. Whether the resulting fear of psychoactive marijuana was about the plant or about the ethnicity of its then-primary smokers is a matter for debate, but regardless, it became illegal in 1937. [continues 746 words]
Traveling with a large amount of cash can be risky in California. An owner of a food truck from Northern California traveled to Los Angeles to make a large purchase. He had $10,000 in cash with him - not unusual, given that he operated a cash-based business. Unfortunately, his $10,000 was taken - by law enforcement. His cash was seized at a drug interdiction stop and, while no illegal drugs were found in his vehicle and he wasn't charged with a crime, his money was taken anyway under a process called civil asset forfeiture. [continues 535 words]
Here is a challenge for you. Reconcile the following: In 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified, including the Fourth Amendment, guaranteeing "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." In 2015, a 21-year-old woman named Charnesia Corley says she underwent a public body-cavity search for drugs at a gas station in Texas. Explain, if you can, how the former and the latter can be simultaneously true. [continues 560 words]
California is the world's eighth largest economy, and with a large regulated economy comes a large unregulated economy and transnational criminal money laundering schemes. In fact, in 2012, the California Department of Justice found 305 drug-related transnational criminal organizations in California. By comparison, there are only 309 In-N-Out Burger locations in the entire Western United States. It is a sad commentary when it is nearly as easy to launder money as it is to get a burger and fries. [continues 586 words]
A Drug Kingpin's Escape Builds to an Epic Showdown Talk about timing. Don Winslow's new novel, The Cartel, which fictionally chronicles the past decade of Mexico's brutal drug-lord wars, echoes the stunning, headline grabbing jail break from a maximum-security prison by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the legendary billionaire drug kingpin. Want to know why El Chapo probably won't be captured anytime soon? Never mind the evening news: Truth is in fiction. Read this disturbing and, yes, addictive epic tale instead. Within the first 70 of its 600-plus vivid pages, Adan Barrera, the fascinating, suave, drug-cartel patron - loosely based on El Chapo - escapes from his country's most secure prison to rebuild his Sinaloan drug-trafficking empire. [continues 471 words]
A Drug Kingpin's Escape Builds to an Epic Showdown Talk about timing. Don Winslow's new novel, The Cartel, which fictionally chronicles the past decade of Mexico's brutal drug-lord wars, echoes the stunning, headline-grabbing jail break from a maximum-security prison by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the legendary billionaire drug kingpin. Want to know why El Chapo probably won't be captured anytime soon? Never mind the evening news: Truth is in fiction. Read this disturbing and, yes, addictive epic tale instead. Within the first 70 of its 600-plus vivid pages, Adan Barrera, the fascinating, suave, drug-cartel patron - loosely based on El Chapo - escapes from his country's most secure prison to rebuild his Sinaloan drug-trafficking empire. [continues 468 words]
School Districts Take Pre-Emptive Strikes in an Attempt to Steer Students From Drugs and Alcohol The misconception is easy to have, and often it leads to the wrong conclusion: Only teenagers in big cities can lay their hands on drugs. "You can get drugs anywhere," said Billy Burns, the athletic director at Logan High, a school in a remote area of eastern New Mexico with about 85 students in grades 8-12. "If you believe the hearsay, a small town is just like a big town. We have the same problems." [continues 3256 words]
Both Parties Are Right to Call for Sentencing Reform The U.S. prison gulag is the bitter fruit of the grotesquely expensive war on drugs and decades of reflexive but counterproductive tough-on-crime policies. The truth is this: Our federal and state prisons incarcerate people at a higher rate than all other major nations - well beyond rates in Russia and China and those under regimes widely regarded as backward and oppressive. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States holds about a quarter of the global prison population. [continues 434 words]
For those charged with ensuring her welfare, it wasn't enough to say that Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old black woman discovered dead in a Texas jail cell on July 13, died by her own hand. Last week, authorities in Waller County, Texas, added another incredible layer to their narrative that Bland hanged herself with a garbage bag. She was under the influence of marijuana, they suggested, drugs she may have consumed - nobody can say how - during her three days in jail following a traffic stop. [continues 849 words]
Both use and approval are down. Houston, we have a problem (with marijuana). No, it's not that youngsters are getting stoned on the wacky weed and crashing cars or dropping out of school. It's that they're starting to dislike the stuff. A report released last week in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse shows that not only has cannabis use decreased among teens, but disapproval of marijuana is up. (They could have said that approval was down, but the media is so opposed to putting a positive spin on drug use, even academic news is twisted.) Taking data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the survey is stunning for both its duration, from 2002 to 2013, and breadth, with 500,000 kids across the nation polled. [continues 621 words]
It's been a busy couple of weeks in America's futile War on Drugs. It's a war that can't be won, a war that makes billionaires of some of the world's most vicious criminals, a war that began 44 years ago and has cost more than $1 trillion. It's time to think about what we as a nation are doing wrong. It's time to honestly face the facts. Yes, we can and should let nonviolent drug offenders out of prison, as President Obama has advocated and some conservative states already have done, and as bipartisan legislation pending in Congress would do. [continues 973 words]
Chris wonders after a previous Highly Informed column noted that alternatives to smoking cannabis aren't without potential risks: "I've been a daily user of edibles and am feeling like I've become allergic: runny nose, stuffed sinus, sneezing etc. Is this a possible side effect?" First off, it is possible for people to be allergic to cannabis, and the indications so far are that such allergies respond to common treatments. Cannabis, like many other plants, weeds and grasses, can cause the immune system to overreact in defense. That overreaction is what we call an allergy. An extreme kind of allergic reaction is known as anaphylaxis. It is severe and life-threatening, and can come upon someone in seconds. In anaphylaxis, the flood of chemicals sent by the body can cause symptoms like shock, constriction of the airway and decrease in blood pressure. [continues 1324 words]
Anything you put in my mouth you're going to lose. - Andy Dufresne If you have seen the movie "The Shawshank Redemption," you may remember that line from the scene in which the character played by Tim Robbins is about to become the victim of a brutal prison assault. The film's narrator says it was the first of many assaults to come. That fiction is an unfortunate truth for prison and jail inmates across America. President Barack Obama acknowledged the horrible reality Tuesday in addressing the 106th annual convention of the NAACP in Philadelphia. He then announced a long-needed effort to reform the nation's criminal justice system. [continues 444 words]
On Tuesday, a Sun-Times editorial, "If caught, El Chapo should be tried in the US," brought home the deadly impact in Chicago of Chapo Guzman's trafficking in drugs. The editorial appropriately cited the death of 7-year-old Amari Brown earlier this month to make this very point. Guzman is the worst of the worst in spreading addiction and death. His crimes are so widespread that he has been indicted in seven different U.S. jurisdictions-from Chicago, which has been the hub of his activity, to Miami, New York City, Texas and Southern California. The indictments include murder, assault and kidnapping, in addition to illegal drug trafficking. [continues 54 words]
Fort Worth, Texas - The Case of Sharanda Jones Is Not Unusual in a Country Where You Can't Be Too Tough on Drug Crime. Barack Obama Has Other Ideas, Though. Prisoner 33177-077 struggles to describe the moment in 1999 when a federal judge sentenced her to life in prison after her conviction on a single cocaine offence. She was a first-time, non-violent offender. "I was numb," says Sharanda Jones at the Carswell women's prison in Fort Worth, Texas. "I was thinking about my baby. I thought it can't be real life in prison." [continues 1424 words]
The U.S. criminal-justice system needs close scrutiny, as President Obama said Tuesday in a speech to the NAACP convention in Philadelphia, to determine how much of how it operates actually creates injustice. Thankfully, a reform plan - one that starts with a retreat from flawed mandatory minimum sentences that warehouse prisoners who often are little threat to society appears to have a solid chance of winning support in Congress and resulting in real change. Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Rand Paul, R-Tenn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., have all questioned rigid "three-strikes-and-you're-out" policies that have resulted in America locking up a much higher percentage of its people than any First World nation. So have two of the nation's heavyweight campaign donors the Koch brothers - as the president noted Tuesday. [continues 392 words]
Most of us would be outraged by the idea that any government authority could take a person's freedom or property without evidence or due process. That would be contrary to the most basic definitions of liberty that we Texans hold so dear. But this happens all the time in Texas, thanks to a pernicious practice called civil asset forfeiture. Law enforcement can legally seize private property if it merely suspects that the property was somehow used in a crime. We all agree that crime should not pay. We also agree that if a defendant is convicted, the government should have the right to seize both the assets used to commit that crime and any ill-gotten gains. [continues 685 words]
VANCEBURG, Ky. - In six months, Ashley lost 50 pounds, blew through $15,000 of a settlement and sold her house for $700. She lost feeling in her fingertips. Her hands turned raw and scaly, almost black. She was convinced her old man talked to people through the vents, that strangers lurked outside and that she was once in a high-speed chase - sirens blaring - with the law. She stayed awake for nine straight days, rarely ate and drank even less. A stench clung to her body. In the shower, she could feel something seep out of the pores in her face. She never could get clean enough. [continues 1887 words]
Young African-Americans Lost in Cycle of Poverty, Violence and Drugs THE NUMBERS that drive Philadelphia prison-reform advocate Patricia Vickers on her mission aren't the big abstract ones. Not 36,000, the shocking recent estimate of young black men in Philadelphia either behind bars or dead before their time. Not 1,500,000, the national tally of what academics now call "missing black men." No, the digits that motivate the 66-yearold mom have been pounded with a sharp needle, black ink jabbed into the soft flesh under Vickers' right bicep - 20 digits that mark the birthdays of her four kids as well as her own. [continues 2093 words]
Re: "The changing war on drugs - Michael Botticelli explains the focus on misuse of prescription medication," Sunday Points. Tod Robberson's interview with drug czar Botticelli highlighted a challenge for us at Homeward Bound - addiction, stigma and too little funding for treatment and reducing demand for drugs. Many of our 5,000 North Texas clients each year are addicted to opiates, a class of drugs including pain medication, as well as heroin. They may have begun with prescribed pain medication, progressed to pills prescribed for others, then often crossed the line to heroin, which is cheaper and easier to get. As people recognize the danger in misusing prescription medications and physicians learn to better recognize signs of addiction, we hope the epidemic will ease. [continues 98 words]
Thanks to everyone for having patience during Highly Informed's hiatus. We start back up this week with an intriguing question from "Lago Prano": "I know authorities have been saying that selling pot is illegal, but what about buying it? Is the act of buying pot against the law if you don't buy too much?" This question opens up a few interesting implications for anti-drug policy itself, but we'll keep the discussion focused on Alaska. The short answer is no; the very act of handing someone money in Alaska and receiving a legal amount of cannabis is not illegal for the person handing over the money. [continues 1220 words]
Industry Opens Wallet and Courts Major Candidates DENVER (AP) - Presidential candidates are talking about marijuana in ways unimaginable not long ago. White House hopefuls in both parties are taking donations from people in the new marijuana industry, which is investing heavily in political activism as a route to expanded legalization and landed its first major candidate, Rand Paul, at a trade show last month. Several Republicans, like Democrats, are saying they won't interfere with states that are legalizing a drug still forbidden under federal law. And at conservative policy gatherings, Republicans are discussing whether drug sentences should be eased. [continues 517 words]
DENVER (AP) - Presidential candidates are talking about marijuana in ways unimaginable not long ago. White House hopefuls in both parties are taking donations from people in the new marijuana industry, which is investing heavily in political activism as a route to expanded legalization and landed its first major candidate, Rand Paul, at a trade show last month. Several Republicans, like Democrats, are saying they won't interfere with states that are legalizing a drug still forbidden under federal law. And at conservative policy gatherings, Republicans are discussing whether drug sentences should be eased. [continues 631 words]
DENVER (AP) - Presidential candidates are talking about marijuana in ways unimaginable not long ago. White House hopefuls in both parties are taking donations from people in the new marijuana industry, which is investing heavily in political activism as a route to expanded legalization and landed its first major candidate, Rand Paul, at a trade show last month. Several Republicans, like Democrats, are saying they won't interfere with states that are legalizing a drug still forbidden under federal law. And at conservative policy gatherings, Republicans are discussing whether drug sentences should be eased. [continues 666 words]
A Medical Extract Offers Relief for Epileptic Children Imagine the following scenario: You have a son or daughter who suffers from epilepsy. Seizures wrack your child's body every day. Some days, he or she endures a dozen or more seizures. The condition prevents your child from going to school, from eating normally, from having friends. It also exacts a toll on you and your family. You cannot leave your child alone for any extended period of time, and certain activities, such as sports games, road trips or visits to the movie theater, are off limits. [continues 788 words]
DENVER (AP) - Presidential candidates are talking about marijuana in ways unimaginable not long ago. White House hopefuls in both parties are taking donations from people in the new marijuana industry, which is investing heavily in political activism as a route to expanded legalization and landed its first major candidate, Rand Paul, at a trade show last month. Several Republicans, like Democrats, are saying they won't interfere with states that are legalizing a drug still forbidden under federal law. And at conservative policy gatherings, Republicans are discussing whether drug sentences should be eased. [continues 718 words]
DENVER (AP) - Presidential candidates are talking about marijuana in ways unimaginable not long ago. White House hopefuls in both parties are taking donations from people in the new marijuana industry, which is investing heavily in political activism as a route to expanded legalization and landed its first major candidate, Rand Paul, at a trade show last month. Several Republicans, like Democrats, are saying they won't interfere with states that are legalizing a drug still forbidden under federal law. And at conservative policy gatherings, Republicans are discussing whether drug sentences should be eased. [continues 716 words]
Gretchen Wheeler knows her 21-year-old daughter will never be able to drive, marry or have her own children. Katelyn will likely live with her mother "forever," Wheeler says. She is willing to accept some of those facts. Her daughter has epilepsy and autism. What Wheeler can't accept is Katelyn's constant seizures. The Casper mother is one of 175 Wyoming residents, according to Wyoming Department of Health estimates, considering a hemp extract oil that could help people with epilepsy. The Wyoming Legislature passed a law in February that legalized the oil. It was the least contentious of a handful of medical cannabis bills considered by lawmakers. [continues 945 words]
