- -- and says he's done it before

In his latest controversial statement, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his bloody anti-drug war that has killed thousands, threatened to throw corrupt officials out of a helicopter, saying he has done it before, to a kidnapper, and won't hesitate to do it again.

"I will pick you up in a helicopter to Manila, and I will throw you out on the way," Duterte said in Tagalog in front of a crowd in the Camarines Sur province Tuesday, according to GMA News. "I've done it before. Why would I not do it again?"

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs

Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs faces criticism for its brutal efforts that have left more than 3,000 drug users and dealers dead.

Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs faces criticism for its brutal efforts that have left more than 3,000 drug users and dealers dead.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte affirmed on Friday that he shot dead three people as mayor, dismissing any uncertainty and displaying no remorse.

"I don't really know how many bullets from my gun went inside their bodies," he said. "It happened. I cannot lie about it."

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With fewer than 4,000 approved patients, the nascent medical marijuana business in Illinois is off to a slow start. Yet it hasn't kept away a cadre of cannabis entrepreneurs who once relied on guns, badges, tough drug laws and lengthy prison sentences to fight the drug.

While neither state regulators nor the medical marijuana industry track the number of employees who were former law enforcement officials, The Associated Press has identified no fewer than 17 in Illinois, many of whom have outsized influence -- from a trustee of the state's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police to one-time undercover narcotics officers.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a western Kansas woman against the state and several agencies after her son was removed from her home in 2015 when he told school officials she used marijuana.

Shona Banda, of Garden City, alleged in the lawsuit filed in March that the defendants denied her civil rights by refusing to allow her to use medical marijuana to treat her Crohn's disease, interfered with her parenting and questioned her son without her permission. Medical marijuana is not legal in Kansas.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday, agreeing with the defendants' contention that Banda had no right to use marijuana and the agencies had some immunity.

Banda says she intends to pursue the case after she recovers from a recent surgery.

[end]

[photo] Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. (Toby Talbot / AP)

Drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on these two painkillers, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

That amounts to 433 of the frequently abused opioid pills for every man, woman and child in the state of 1.84 million people.

The Gazette-Mail obtained previously confidential records sent by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to the office of West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. They disclose the number of pills sold to every pharmacy and drug shipments to all 55 counties in West Virginia between 2007 and 2012.

[continues 881 words]

Imagine this: Upon taking his oath of office, President Donald Trump instructs his new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to ignore civil rights laws. How would that go over? Before you yell, "But we are a nation of laws!" you can thank President Barack Obama and his prior Attorney General Eric Holder for magnifying this issue.

Basically, the Obama administration made it standard operating procedure to ignore laws they thought unfashionable or unworthy.

The best example of this is marijuana.

To be clear at the outset, I am neither pro-pot nor anti-pot. And, in fact, marijuana is not even the issue - rather, the Constitution is. Marijuana is just the symptom that exposes the problem.

[continues 754 words]

I've been thinking a lot lately about marijuana.

No, it's not what you suspect, I don't smoke the stuff.

Nor do I need it to alleviate pain. Rather, it's our country's schizophrenic way of dealing with "weed." Here in Stephenson County is In Grown Farms, which is perfectly legal and is growing marijuana plants to be harvested, packaged and sold at marijuana dispensaries as medicine.

You need a doctor's prescription to get it. There hasn't been much controversy about it. Indeed, folks are happy that a new business decided to locate in the Freeport area. There's even talk -- perhaps far-out talk, but still -- of mixing marijuana, legally, with snack foods like pretzels or potato chips. Meanwhile, next door in Winnebago County, the county sheriff's police raided two fields, one near Durand, the other between Rockford and Winnebago, and found what they said was $1 million worth of marijuana plants. These plants were growing illegally.

[continues 354 words]

The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday announced it has created new rules for the state's cannabis decriminalization law - including setting a $ 120 fine for those caught with up to 10 grams of cannabis or drug paraphernalia.

The law, which Gov. Bruce Rauner signed on July 29, gave the state Supreme Court the authority to further clarify the newly defined "civil law violation" of possessing up to 10 grams of cannabis or drug paraphernalia.

Under the law, the violation is punishable by a fine between $ 100 and $ 200. In one of six newly created rules, the fine was set at $ 120 per violation.

[continues 384 words]

African-Americans Ticketed, Arrested for Pot Offenses in Chicago Far More Than Any Racial Group

Four years after the Chicago City Council decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, African-American neighborhoods continue to bear the brunt of enforcement, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

As anticipated, the Chicago Police Department is making a fraction of the arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession it made in 2011 - the last full year before cops were given the option of ticketing, rather than locking up, people caught with about half an ounce or less.

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She recently turned 18, and if Malia Obama did not know that she had become a legitimate target for sections of the American media, she does now.

The "First Daughter" was videoed smoking what a witness claimed was a joint in a video clip released yesterday.

The footage was taken at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago last month. It is unclear from the images whether what Obama can be seen puffing on is a regular cigarette or one rolled with cannabis.

[continues 146 words]

Illinois Medical Marijuana Use Has Increased Under Strict Regulation As Business Expands

In a warehouse in Joliet, hundreds of marijuana plants sway under high-intensity lights, taking in carbon dioxide-rich air, sucking up a constant feed of nutrients and bristling with buds.

Like Olympic athletes, the plants are rigorously trained and intensively pampered. Tiny predator bugs patrol the surface of the vegetation, hunting down any pests. Workers prune stems and leaves to put all the plants' energy into buds that produce the drug's euphoric and medicinal effects. The process churns out 200 pounds of high-grade pot every month.

[continues 991 words]

Last week, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law reductions in the criminal penalties for minor marijuana possession in Illinois. Previously, those convicted of marijuana possession faced possible jail time; now, just a citation and a fine.

This reminds us of an age-old admonition: "Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you necessarily should."

Critics of this more liberal (or libertarian, depending upon your political persuasion) policy toward marijuana have reason to worry.

As reported by the New England Journal of Medicine, there is an inverse correlation between the perceived risk of marijuana and the incidence of people's use of it. Simply put, the less risky people view marijuana, the more likely they are to use - and abuse - it.

[continues 443 words]

Governor Signs Legislation to Issue Citations Instead of Time in Jail

SPRINGFIELD - Getting caught with small amounts of marijuana will result in citations akin to a traffic ticket instead of the possibility of jail time under legislation Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law Friday.

Rauner's approval of the decriminalization measure comes after he used his amendatory veto powers last year to rewrite similar legislation he argued would have allowed people to carry too much pot and fine violators too little.

[continues 878 words]

(AP) - Illinois' experiment with medical marijuana has earned a boost thanks to Gov. Bruce Rauner's approval of legislation extending the state pilot program for 2 1/2 years and including two more medical conditions.

On Friday, medical marijuana advocates and experts called it a turning point that gives patients guaranteed access to the drug and provides confidence to those selling and cultivating it in the state. Rauner signed the measure Thursday night.

"It's a very good thing for us," said Charles Bachtell, founder and CEO of Cresco Labs, which holds cultivation permits in Illinois. "It's somewhat of an endorsement of the state saying, 'You're doing the right thing. We like what we're seeing from the pilot program and let's make some reasonable modifications.'"

[continues 425 words]

Illinois must add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of diseases eligible for medical marijuana treatment, a Cook County judge ordered Tuesday in a sternly worded ruling that also said the state's public health director engaged in a "private investigation" that was "constitutionally inappropriate."

In a lawsuit filed by an Iraq war veteran, Judge Neil Cohen ordered Illinois Department of Public Health Director Nirav Shah to add PTSD within 30 days. It's the first decision among eight lawsuits filed by patients disappointed with across-the-board rejections by Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration of recommendations from an advisory board on medical marijuana.

[continues 386 words]

Terminal Illness Also Covered Under Bill for Rauner

Advocates for medical marijuana hope Illinois' plan to expand its program will give the industry the boost it needs to sustain itself - but some doctors warn that, despite changes made to protect them, they still have legal and medical concerns about the product.

After previously rejecting efforts to make medical marijuana available to more people, Gov. Bruce Rauner's office has indicated he will sign into law a bill to lengthen the pilot program by more than two years, to July 1, 2020. The legislation also adds two new qualifying conditions: post-traumatic stress disorder and terminal illness.

[continues 1162 words]

As someone who writes about marijuana for a living, it recently started to seem a little strange I hadn't actually been to the promised land of legal cannabis that Colorado has become over the past couple of years.

So on Memorial Day weekend, I flew to Denver on a mission to buy weed legally.

I already knew the rules. Dispensaries close promptly at 7 p.m. You must be 21 or older to buy recreational cannabis; public consumption is a no-no. And so forth.

[continues 309 words]

Editor's note: This is day three of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment.

MOUNT ZION - Hearing a 35-year-old addict say things her son might have said made Kathy Burkham apprehensive.

That's because Tyler Yount's decision to use heroin "one more time" after staying clean 11 months and two weeks was the last one he ever made. He overdosed on June 14, 2009, dying at age 23.

[continues 729 words]

Editor's note: This is day two of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment.

DECATUR The scars on Lori Caldwell's arms are still there, though they've begun to lighten.

Caldwell wishes she could say the same for her mental and emotional scars.

Caldwell's voice becomes a whisper as she tries to talk through her tears while recounting her plunge into addictions to heroin and crack cocaine.

[continues 2706 words]

Editor's note: This is day one of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment.

DECATUR Eric Buntain described the feeling of injecting heroin into his vein as "warm, euphoric, comfortable and relaxing: It feels great."

About 30 seconds after injecting heroin, there's a surge of warmth coming from the low spinal area, a rush of sensation and an overriding sense of well-being.

[continues 1448 words]

For months, Illinois' fledgling medical cannabis industry had been limping along - dogged by uncertainties over its future and hurt by disappointingly low numbers of patients whose medical conditions qualified them for state certification cards.

But in the last few days, the clouds of gloom have lifted thanks to a compromise bill now awaiting Gov. Bruce Rauner's signature. The measure would extend the state medical cannabis pilot program by 2 1/2 years, to July 1, 2020. It would also expand the list of qualifying conditions, to include post-traumatic stress disorder and terminal illnesses, potentially adding hundreds of thousands of new patients to the state registry.

[continues 830 words]

The days of "reefer madness" are long ago and far away.

Illinois legislators have sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner a bill decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, a measure taken in recognition of its widespread use and the futility of imposing more serious penalties on violators. The bill incorporates changes suggested by Gov. Bruce Rauner in an amendatory veto of similar legislation passed last year.

Because the 2016 bill meets the objections he outlined in the 2015 bill, Rauner said he expects to sign it into law.

[continues 229 words]

Recent data from the CDC noted over 25,000 deaths in 2015 from prescription opiate overdose with an estimated 1.9 million people dependent on these medications. CDC Director Thomas Frieden said "we know of no other medication routinely used for nonfatal conditions that kills patients so frequently."

Since 1999, OxyContin and other opiate painkillers have been implicated in 190,000 lives lost from overdose. Furthermore, a study published in 2014 JAMA analyzed the association between medical cannabis laws and opioid overdose mortality rates. This study concludes that states with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 percent lower annual opioid overdose mortality rate in comparison to states without medical cannabis laws, and these reductions in overdose mortality rates generally strengthen each year after implementation of such laws.

[continues 149 words]

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control noted over 25,000 deaths in 2015 from prescription opiate overdose with an estimated 1.9 million people dependent on these medications. CDC director Thomas Frieden said, "We know of no other medication routinely used for nonfatal conditions that kills patients so frequently." And despite research showing that the higher the dose of an opioid the greater the risk of overdose and death, an investigation reveals that the opiate manufacturers urged doctors to prescribe stronger doses.

[continues 311 words]

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper opposed a 2012 state ballot initiative to allow the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes. He told voters it might "increase the number of children using drugs and would detract from efforts to make Colorado the healthiest state in the nation. It sends the wrong message to kids that drugs are OK." Spurning his advice, voters approved it.

So he might be excused if, four years later, he were tempted to gaze upon the results of this experiment and say, "I told you so." In fact, Hickenlooper has done just the opposite. "It's beginning to look like it might work," he said recently.

[continues 639 words]

Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday decried the "proliferation" of pot use and called on authorities to prosecute to the "fullest" extent of the law a Webster man accused of being high in a crash that killed a state trooper, sparking a renewed focus on the state's marijuana laws amid a heated debate on legalization.

Police said David Njuguna was driving "impaired" after visiting a medical marijuana dispensary in Brookline and had a half-burnt marijuana cigarette in his car when he slammed into trooper Thomas L. Clardy's SUV in mid-March, killing the veteran officer.

[continues 299 words]

Proponents of marijuana legislation often purport its safety over legal drugs, particularly alcohol.

"I'd rather someone get behind the wheel stoned than drunk," more than one person has opined.

The notion is cringe-worthy. Impaired is impaired and driving that way is dangerous, potentially deadly, whether it involves alcohol, marijuana or prescription medication.

Unlike alcohol, though, where plenty of scientific data is available to support at what point a person becomes intoxicated, the science is iffy on marijuana.

That's why it's best Illinois not try to draw a line in the sand over marijuana impairment until a correlation can be made.

[continues 481 words]

House lawmakers sent Gov. Bruce Rauner legislation on Wednesday to decriminalize marijuana across Illinois, meaning people caught with small amounts of marijuana would be fined instead of receiving jail time.

The legislation incorporates changes the Republican governor suggested when he used his amendatory veto powers to rewrite similar legislation last year. Rauner said the old version would have let people carry too much marijuana and set fines too low.

The new edition drops the number of grams allowed from 15 to 10 and raises the range of fines from $55 to $125 to between $100 and $200. Municipalities could add to the fines and implement other penalties, such as a requirement for drug treatment. Citations would be automatically expunged twice a year, on Jan. 1 and July 1.

[continues 191 words]

For years in Illinois, it was extremely rare for anybody to be charged with murder for a drug-induced death, but times have changed.

Prosecutors across the nation have begun charging people with murder if they shared illegal drugs such as heroin with a friend or family member who died as a result.

Now there's a push to do the same in Illinois but, like the failed war on drugs, it risks making a bad situation worse. The more people are hesitant to call 911 in an overdose situation because they fear arrest, the more people will die.

[continues 665 words]

Authorities Are Filing More Drug-Induced Homicide Charges, but Complex Cases Show It's Hard to Decide Whether Offenders Deserve Prison or Treatment

When police and paramedics arrived at her aunt's apartment in Carol Stream, Adrianna Diana told them she and her friend Christopher Houdek had cooked and shot up heroin the night before.

Diana, 20, said she awoke covered in vomit, with Houdek, 21, next to her, unresponsive and "cool to the touch." Her aunt called 911.

Paramedics rushed Houdek to a hospital, where he died. The DuPage County coroner ruled his 2013 death an accident by "heroin intoxication." But prosecutors decided it was homicide- and charged Diana and two heroin dealers.

[continues 1911 words]

Illinois has taken a go-slow approach to medical marijuana, limiting risk by allowing the industry to operate as a pilot program until the start of 2018. So far, so good: The highly regulated system, designed to provide relief to patients suffering from 39 specific ailments, such as cancer and Parkinson's, has operated smoothly since it started last year.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, like his predecessor, Pat Quinn, hasn't rushed the process. But a policy of prudence that doesn't evolve with the evidence can wind up being overly cautious: Today some hurting Illinois residents can't get the aid they seek because of Rauner's approach.

[continues 585 words]

Department Investigates Alleged False Testimony That Could Derail Cases

Chicago police have begun an internal investigation into allegations that as many as six officers lied in their court testimony and are prepared to take at least one of the officers off the street because of a judge's determination he had testified falsely in a narcotics case.

The inquiry, confirmed by a police spokesman, comes in response to a Tribune investigation that documented more than a dozen examples over the past few years in which judges concluded officers gave false or questionable testimony in court.

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Pot ticket option, fewer cops lead to lowest narcotic bust numbers in three decades, but special unit arrests up ' considerably'

The war on drugs may not be over in Chicago, but it's in retreat.

In 2015, total drug-related arrests dropped to the lowest level in three decades, a Chicago Sun- Times analysis of city crime data found.

And the rate of drug busts plunged more sharply in the first four months of 2016. Chicago Police are on pace to make 13,000 narcotics arrests by year's end. That would be the smallest annual tally since 1973, two years after President Richard Nixon declared a national war on drugs.

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3 Men Among 58 Nationwide to Get Commutations

WASHINGTON - Three Illinois men who received long federal prison terms for drug crimes will be freed in late summer after their sentences were commuted by President Barack Obama.

The three cases were among 58 commutations the president granted Thursday.

One of the Illinois men is Artrez Nyroby Seymour of Chicago Heights, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2005 for his role in a narcotics conspiracy.

Seymour's term was cut to 20 years in March, and the commutation means he will be freed after serving almost 11 years. Seymour, 36, is in prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and had been set for release in November 2019, records show.

[continues 275 words]

Illinois lawmakers have a solid shot of passing a law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana - and of seeing Gov. Bruce Rauner actually sign that legislation.

Lawmakers last year sent Rauner a bill to make possession of up to 15 grams of pot a ticketable - rather than a criminal - offense, but Rauner vetoed it, saying it would allow people to carry too much pot and that stiffer fines than $55 to $125 were warranted.

A new version of that bill, sponsored by Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), picks up language from Rauner's amendatory veto. It would allow possessors of even less marijuana - 10 grams - to face slightly larger fines of $100 to $200.

[continues 631 words]

Medical marijuana dispensaries would be permitted in a wider swath of downtown Chicago thanks to a zoning change advanced Tuesday at the behest of the City Council's most powerful alderman.

Ald. Edward Burke ( 14th) persuaded the City Council's Zoning Committee to allow dispensaries in the zoning district known as the "downtown core."

Currently, there are four zoning districts in downtown Chicago: residential; mixed-use; service; and the area known as the downtown core. That last category includes office buildings, residential high- rises, stores, theaters and government buildings.

[continues 446 words]

Burke Teams Up With Donor on Zoning Proposal

Medical marijuana dispensaries would be allowed in the Loop under a change to Chicago zoning regulations pitched by Ald. Ed Burke and a campaign contributor he once helped nearly double his state pension through a one-month sweetheart deal.

Former-state-lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Robert Molaro told the City Council Zoning Committee on Tuesday about the roadblock that pot dispensaries now face: They're technically allowed in some Loop areas, but the potential sites are within 1,000 feet of a school or day-care facility, and that rules them out under state law.

[continues 331 words]

The Chicago Sun- Times editorial ["Law needs to rein in government seizures," April 19] supporting the reform of Illinois and federal forfeiture laws regarding drugs and suspected drug proceeds was spot- on correct, and former administrator of the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration Peter Bensinger's contrary opinion was dead wrong. ["Seize cartel assets best way to beat them," letter to the editor, April 22].

As the Chicago Sun- Times editorialized on June 22, 2010, "America's War on Drugs is over - we lost - and it's time to get real about our drug laws."

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SPRINGFIELD (AP) - Medical marijuana in Illinois would be required to carry warning labels about possible side effects under a bill of a Republican lawmaker.

Rep. Dwight Kay, of downstate Edwardsville, said the goal is to treat medical marijuana like other prescription drugs that warn patients about possible adverse effects. His bill, up for a House committee vote Monday, doesn't specify what warnings should be on the products, leaving it to the state health department to decide.

But Kay said he would like to see warnings about how marijuana can cause drowsiness and impaired driving, and that it can affect pregnancies.

[continues 80 words]

Clinical Trial Shows Reduced Seizures in Children, Possibly Increasing Chances of FDA Approval

A marijuana extract significantly reduced seizures in severely epileptic children, according to a landmark study conducted in part at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

Supporters said the results greatly improve the chances for the drug, called Epidiolex, to win eventual approval by federal regulators for prescription use to treat Dravet syndrome, a debilitating type of epilepsy that strikes in early childhood. The drug would be the first derived from the marijuana plant to win such approval.

[continues 1054 words]

But Opposition Fierce From Foes Including Law Enforcement Officials

SPRINGFIELD - Another attempt to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana statewide is again in front of Illinois lawmakers, but as before, the proposal faces strong opposition from law enforcement and anti-pot advocates.

The omnibus bill in the Senate also sets a standard for what's considered too high to drive and automatically purges municipal citation records for possession annually, unless local governments decide against it. Opponents of the legislation dislike both of those provisions, too, saying there should be zero tolerance and that expunging records will make it difficult to determine when someone needs drug treatment.

[continues 468 words]

There is no problem so bad that government-imposed remedies cannot make it worse, spawn new problems or both. A new confirmation of that phenomenon may be on the way, thanks to new recommendations from an agency intent on curbing the use of opiates.

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines for medical professionals to discourage them from prescribing these medicines to relieve pain. The agency has grounds for concern: Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, with prescription and nonprescription opiates accounting for the biggest share of those fatalities.

[continues 640 words]

Tim Ryan, a Former Heroin Addict Who Lost His Son to the Drug, Aims to Bring Users into Rehab and Recovery, but Some Question His Methods

Two years after emerging from prison on drug-related charges, Tim Ryan has become a beacon for families scarred by Chicago's heroin crisis.

The brash and salty former corporate headhunter has launched a public crusade to take addicts "from dope to hope" by running recovery groups, performing interventions and handing out advice via Facebook. He claims he ushers hundreds of people a month into rehab, and that he does it with remarkable speed.

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Study Drives Home Need for Substance Counseling Services

More than 90 percent of males and nearly 80 percent of females who went through Cook County's juvenile detention center were diagnosed with drug or alcohol abuse and dependency at some point in their lives from childhood through their 20s and 30s, according to newly released findings from a Northwestern Medicine study.

The study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at 1,829 youths detained at Cook County's Juvenile Temporary Detention Center between 1995 and 1998 and followed up with them at least nine times over 12 years. According to the findings, by the time the group members reached their late 20s and, for the older participants, their early 30s, more than 9 in 10 males and more than 3 in 4 females were diagnosed with a "substance use disorder," meaning they abused and were dependent on substances ranging from alcohol and marijuana to cocaine and opiates.

[continues 502 words]

When you create an underground market for anything, you create a profit incentive for people to break the law. Once they do, many of society's laws cease to apply.

As the rest of the country moves toward more sensible criminal justice policies by legalizing marijuana and reducing overly punitive sentences, the Chicago City Council seems headed in the other direction. The Council is considering anti-tobacco legislation that would increases taxes on cigarettes and double fines and impose jail sentences for those avoiding taxes by selling loose cigarettes ( loosies).

[continues 582 words]

America's epidemic of heroin and prescription-pain-reliever addiction has become a major issue in the 2016 election. The epidemic is worse than ever: Deaths from overdoses of opioids - the drug category that includes heroin and prescription analgesics such as Vicodin - reached an all-time high in 2014, rising 14 percent in a single year. But because drug policy has long been a political and cultural football, myths about opioid addiction abound. Here are some of the most dangerous - and how they do harm.

[continues 1540 words]

I am writing in response to the Feb. 19 article by Dean Olsen, titled "Medical marijuana dispensary opens its doors for first time in Springfield."

Opening up a medical marijuana dispensary in Springfield is yet another step in the right direction to make it more socially acceptable and moving marijuana from the bad drug category into the useful medical category. While the steps are very involved to get accepted into the pilot program with fees and a lot of paperwork, they are very much worth all the effort put forth once accepted. This law will help many people in the state of Illinois who are interested in trying out an alternative method to the constant pills and their side effects.

[continues 143 words]

The opening of the medical marijuana facility in Springfield is proof positive that our state's political leaders are driven by money, not facts. Marijuana continues to be a dangerous drug that has not been proven to have medicinal effect on more than one or two relatively rare conditions. National medical organizations continue to argue strongly against its use as medicine.

It is certainly heartbreaking that many people experiencing serious pain or other severe symptoms are seeking help from cannabis. The sad truth is that marijuana might very well dull the discomfort, but at what cost? Marijuana, as with all mood altering drugs, offers great front-end promises, but then delivers rear-end tragedy. It would be great if everyone who felt bad, either physically or emotionally could be made to feel good with a drug. Every physician with a conscience knows that, when possible, pain relief needs to result in a productive human being. There is little to suggest that treatment with cannabis will produce such results. The more marijuana is promoted as a cure-all, the fewer contributing members of society there will be.

[continues 52 words]

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and the District of Columbia has led to a so-called green rush of prospectors looking to cash in. Can the commercial potential from this newly sanctioned vice revitalize a newspaper industry struggling in the Internet age?

Documentarian Mitch Dickman's "Rolling Papers" follows Ricardo Baca, marijuana editor at the Denver Post since 2013, to find out. Yet despite slick production values, this look at the intersection of two potentially fascinating subcultures - journalists and stoners - yields only halfbaked results.

[continues 195 words]

As a Certified Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Counselor, I see first-hand how the number of drug overdoses from abusing opioid pain medications is at epidemic levels.

I believe medical cannabis can help.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014 there were a total of 47,055 drug overdose deaths that occurred in the U.S., more than any other previous year on record. There has never been a documented overdose death from cannabis.

In an October 2014 study in the American Medical Association's Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers conclude that medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose rates. States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 percent lower average annual overdose rate compared to states without medical cannabis laws.

[continues 136 words]