For the past fifteen years or so, pro-marijuana students attending the University of Missouri-Columbia have printed t-shirts and banners emblazoned with versions of this design, featuring a stylized "tiger claw" made of pot leaves and Mizzou's official "MU" logo. 

The federal government will not decriminalize the possession of marijuana until it becomes law — with stringent regulations and restrictions in place, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould said on Monday.

“Our government’s objectives in doing so are to protect young Canadians by keeping marijuana out of the hands of children and youth,” said Wilson-Raybould. “We also want to keep profits out of the hands of criminals, particularly organized crime.”

The federal attorney general spoke against an Opposition Day motion introduced in Parliament on Monday by NDP justice critic Murray Rankin, who represents Victoria.

The bill urges the government to decriminalize possession of personal amounts of pot before it’s made legal.

MP Murray Rankin says too many people are getting criminal records for something that will soon be legal.

The federal New Democrats are putting forward a motion in Parliament today to pressure the Liberal government to decriminalize pot before it is legalized.

NDP Justice Critic Murray Rankin says it is not fair to arrest people and give them criminal records for possessing marijuana if the practice will soon be legal.

"Despite Justin Trudeau's clear campaign promise to immediately fix marijuana laws in Canada, the government has done nothing for eight months except continue the senseless practice of handing out criminal records for personal use," said a statement released by Rankin.

It’s easy to explain the appeal of drugs like heroin and cocaine, which directly stimulate the brain’s reward centres. What’s less easy to explain is the appeal of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin that produce altered states of consciousness. After all, there’s no obvious reason why unusual patterns of thought and perception – typically, the symptoms of poisoning or illness – should be attractive. And yet, people not only pay money for these experiences, they even run the risk of being imprisoned or worse for doing so. Why is this?

The police department in Portland, Oregon, is now offering people advice on where to buy marijuana. Seriously:

The marijuana industry is blossoming, and 2016 could wind up being its best year yet in a number of ways.

Marijuana keeps expanding despite federal inaction

Since California first approved Proposition 215 in 1996 to provide certain patients with medical marijuana on the basis of compassionate use, the marijuana industry has been trudging forward. Today, two dozen states have approved medical marijuana, while another four, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

THERE’S a secret addiction sweeping across Australia and we aren’t hearing about it.

We all know the damaging effects of the monster drug ice and other hard narcotics, but what about the substances that are a little easier to get and widely spread?

Marijuana is not something you often associate with the word “addiction” or consider it to be dangerous, but many people are hooked on the drug and it’s a problem experts say we need to take more seriously.

A National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol Use and Related Disorders found adults who smoked marijuana were more likely than non-users to also abuse alcohol.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana use is also linked to other addictions like nicotine.

Tomorrow evening, June 14 at 6:30 p.m., at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Michael Sutton will lead a discussion on whether Californians should vote “yes” on an initiative this November that would legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana.

Depending on which state you're in, getting caught with marijuana could mean getting a ticket, a criminal charge or no punishment at all. And there is no Mason-DIxon line dividing legal from illegal jurisdictions, so you often see states like Idaho - where no use of marijuana is legal - nestled among states that have legalized medical and/or recreational use.

Speaking Wednesday at an economic conference, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made one of the more buttoned-down, straight-edged arguments for marijuana legalization I've heard in recent years. It's worth quoting at length so I've done that below:

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Look, our approach on legalizing marijuana is not about creating a boutique industry or bringing in tax revenue, it's based on two very simple principles: