Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision said. The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III. It would be the first time that the U.S. government has acknowledged its potential medical...

-Joe Biden welcomed TikTok stars and social media influencers to the White House for a special briefing. -Kamala Harris hosted a special luncheon for Democratic digital operatives and social media personalities. -The White House is struggling to communicate with young people ahead of the 2024 election. -President Joe Biden hosted a young group of social media influencers at the White House this week as part of his State of the Union address.

TikTok star Gabriel Salazar, 19, was driving three undocumented immigrants from Mexico during the night of his fatal, high-speed police chase in Texas in what the local sheriff's office is calling a suspected smuggling case. All four occupants were killed after Salazar crashed into multiple trees along Highway 83 in La Pryor, Texas - about 50 miles from the Mexican border - and the car flipped over and caught fire. Salazar and Luiz Jimenez Mora, 41, Jose Molina-Lara, 23, and Sergio Espinoza-Flores, 36, were all killed at the scene, police said.

Among a certain community of individual investors on TikTok, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading disclosures are a treasure trove. “Shouts out to Nancy Pelosi, the stock market’s biggest whale,” said user ‘ceowatchlist.’ Another said, “I’ve come to the conclusion that Nancy Pelosi is a psychic,” while adding that she is the “queen of investing.” “She knew,” declared Chris Josephs, analyzing a particular trade in Pelosi’s financial disclosures. “And you would have known if you had followed her portfolio.” Last year Josephs noticed that the trades, actually made by Pelosi’s investor husband and merely disclosed by the Speaker, were performing...

California’s trademark high taxes and overwhelming, onerous, costly and confusing regulations are preventing the state from reaping the revenue benefits of legalizing the $7 billion marijuana market, a new study by the California Growers Association concludes. As of Thursday, California’s Bureau of Cannabis Control has sent about 980 warning letters to unlicensed pot sellers and ordered a marketing company to stop advertising vendors who don’t have permits, Bureau Chief of Communications Alex Traverso told CNSNews.com. Less than one percent (0.78%) of the state’s 68,150 marijuana growers have obtained licenses, and as little as 25 percent of the cannabis consumed in...

For the first time Republicans narrowly support legalizing marijuana YouGov's latest research shows that most Americans still support legalization of marijuana, and that support for legalization has increased slightly, from 52% in December 2015 to 55% today. Most of this change is a result of changing attitudes among Republicans. In fact, for the first time, Republicans narrowly tend to support legalization, 45% to 42%.

Ron Paul’s college-aged volunteer army — a core of the powerful ground organization that is the envy of rivals — is descending on Iowa from around the nation to coax people to the state’s Republican caucuses as he seeks to pull off what only months ago seemed like an unthinkable victory here on Tuesday.

An article by a conservative named Cliff Kincaid, who serves as editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report, provides a perfect example of how different libertarians are from conservatives and, well, for that matter, how there ain't a dime's worth of difference, when it comes to individual freedom, between conservatives and liberals. The article concerns the drug war and is entitled, "Dopey Conservatives for Dope." Ardently defending the continuation of the drug war, despite some 35 years of manifest failure, Kincaid takes fellow conservatives to task who are finally joining libertarians in calling for an end to the drug...