New legislation in Washington state went into effect this week that legalizes for the first time in ages the possession of marijuana. Federal law still says otherwise, though, setting up the Justice Department to make some serious determinations. Even as smoking up became protected by state law in Washington starting Thursday, coast-to-coast prohibition as provided by a long-standing federal ruling remains on the books. For marijuana advocates in the Pacific Northwest, the lifting of the ban is a pretty big victory.

A Texas state trooper who fired on a pickup truck from a helicopter during a deadly chase through the desert was trying to disable the vehicle and suspected that it was being used to smuggle drugs, the authorities said. The disclosure on Friday came a day after the episode, which left two illegal immigrants from Guatemala dead on a gravel road near here, just north of the Mexican border. State game wardens were the first to encounter the truck on Thursday.

Ohio decriminalized possession of small cannabis amounts many years ago, but possession of paraphernalia remained a crime until this September.

For a muscular agency that combats vicious drug criminals, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration acts like a terrified and obstinate toddler when it comes to basic science. For years, the DEA and the National Institute for Drug Abuse have made it all but impossible to develop a robust body of research on the medical uses of marijuana.

A volunteer for a local television news "study" on driving impaired recorded his participation in the "study" and afterword, exposed Fox's distortion of the truth.

Jason Cantrell, the 43-year-old son of a magistrate commissioner, allegedly dropped a joint out of his pocket right in front of New Orleans Police Department officers, The Times-Picayune reported Monday.
Officers reportedly laughed as they escorted Cantrell out of the courtroom and wrote him a summons for simple possession of marijuana.

The parents of two young boys who have dedicated their lives to legalizing medical marijuana are struggling this week to cope with the heartbreaking reality that police have taken away their sons and placed them in foster care.

No charges have been filed as yet and the Rineharts and Ms Caldwell have received more than $5000 in donations from other supporters of medical marijuana legalisation to help pay for legal expenses.

To donate to their legal defense fund, please go to:

https://www.wepay.com/donations/sarah-lindsey-josh-s-compassion-fund

Frank Schnarr, Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill Owner, Welcomes Pot Smoking In Bar

OLYMPIA, Wash. Dec 10 (Reuters) - Thanks to a successful ballot initiative last month, Washington state residents can legally smoke marijuana in the privacy of their living rooms as of Thursday.

When that gets old, bar owner Frank Schnarr suggests, area stoners have another option: grab a booth at Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill in Olympia and toke up there.

VIDEO - TV news reporter Ben Swann speaks to a crowd about the dangerous results of prohibition and what it does to communities around the US-Mexico border.

According to a report in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, funds from NIDA helped create the dangerous marijuana alternative known as "Spice" and "K2."

The funds were disbursed in the mid-1990s to a Clemson University researcher named Dr. John W. Huffman. It was while searching for a cure to marijuana "addiction" that Huffman developed the formula for Spice: