Free Talk Live

Evidently we as a society are better off with a millionaire in prison for not paying his taxes. Absolutely insanity.

Friday, a federal appeals court upheld the lower court decision that actor Wesley Snipes' three-year prison sentence for tax evasion. The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Snipes' 2008 sentence for three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns for several years.

A federal appeals court has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act – Congress's key legislation to block gay marriage – as unconstitutional in a ruling that will propel the issue to the supreme court. The Boston-based first district appeals court upheld a lower court decision that gay marriage is a matter for individual states to decide and that the federal government does not have the authority to deny recognition of same-sex unions.

PHOENIX—An appeals court has issued a ruling that upholds the right of authorities to prosecute pot smokers in Arizona for driving under the influence even when there is no evidence that they are actually high.

The ruling by the Court of Appeals focuses on the chemical compounds in marijuana that show up in blood and urine tests after people smoke pot. One chemical compound causes drivers to be impaired; another is a chemical that stays in people's systems for weeks after they've smoked marijuana but doesn't affect impairment.

For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country’s first legal pot smoker.

Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation’s 40-year war on drugs — maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.

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A provision of the Michigan medical marijuana law that prohibits police from seizing pot possessed by licensed medical marijuana patients is invalid because it conflicts with federal law, Attorney General Bill Schuette said in an opinion released Thursday, one in which he warns officers who return marijuana to patients that they could be prosecuted as dope dealers.

"Bob Newland, the director of the South Dakota chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, founder of South Dakotans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana group, and publisher of Hemphasis, was sentenced to one year in the Pennington County Jail, with all but 45 days suspended. During that year, he is forbidden to publicly advocate marijuana legalization."

Economy of Medical Marijuana

Did you know that the United States government provides medicinal pot to only four citizens? Marijuana legalization measures have been appearing frequently in petitions and on ballots across the country and the world, but opinions vary. Currently 16 states and Washington D.C. have made medical marijuana available to certain patients. Learn about the medical marijuana market and where it might be heading.

Like some cancer patients in states where it’s allowed, Mykayla Comstock uses cannabis as part of her treatment. Comstock is seven-years old. Her mother, a long time advocate for medical use of the illegal drug, has been giving her a gram of oral cannabis oil every day. Despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, where Comstock lives, the idea of giving it to a child still gives pause to many adults who associate the drug with recreational use that breaks the law.

Patients treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics will be able to use medical marijuana in the 14 states where it's legal, according to new federal guidelines.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/24/new-guidance-va-allow-medical-marij...