Will Connecticut be the next state to legalize recreational marijuana? Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska and Washington D.C. have already done it. There is now a bill in front of our state legislature that would make recreational marijuana legal in Connecticut. Backers say it would help with the state’s budget deficit, but is it a good idea?

“Haha so, is your middle name Jane?” asks user name Greenery4daSceneryN8. Normally, this would be an exceptionally lame joke (because my name is Mary), but on High There—the Tinder for stoners—it's an apt question.

BARRE — Vermont police dogs are no longer trained to recognize the smell of marijuana, a decision made in preparation for possible marijuana legalization.

“The class that is going through right now is not being trained to alert on marijuana odor,” said Robert Ryan, Vermont’s head K-9 training coordinator.

This year marks the first Vermont Police Academy K-9 class in which marijuana is left out of the training.

“We started talking about it last year and we made the decision for this class to not do marijuana,” said Ryan.

The reason according to Ryan, is the assumption that Vermont will legalize marijuana. “And if for some reason it doesn’t become legalized, it’s an odor that (dogs) can be trained to alert on later.”

A new study claims that the previously reported numbers related to marijuana use and related problems are incorrect.

Although marijuana use is on the rise, with approximately 12.5 percent of adults in the United States using the drug at least once in 2013, a new study by Washington University School of Medicine researchers claims that the increase is not as big as previously believed. The team points to a previous study that claimed that use has doubled from 2002 to 2013 and reports that this is false, as well as revealing that the problems related to the drug have remained steady.

Saskatoon’s police chief says the Liberal government needs to clarify Canada’s marijuana laws to combat serious misunderstandings about the legality of the drug. 

“The police aren’t anti-marijuana,” Chief Clive Weighill said. “But we are in a situation right now that is a very grey zone.”

Weighill said despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election promise that pot will be legalized for personal use, smoking, growing and selling weed in Canada is still against the law. 

Weighill, who is also president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said the government needs to offer clarity to people — especially those who believe that because of the election promise, the drug is already legal. 

Colorado cop Jim Gerhardt, whose state legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2012, has a message for Massachusetts voters and lawmakers weighing whether the Bay State should do the same.

"My message is: Slow down. Study what's going on," he said after speaking with state legislators at the State House.

Gerhardt, an officer in Thornton, Colo., and vice president of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association, said marijuana is the "most highly regulated industry in the entire state" of Colorado.

In Massachusetts, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol hopes to place a measure legalizing marijuana on the November statewide ballot.

Marijuana use is on the rise, with an estimated 12.5 percent of adults living in the United States reportedly using the drug at least once in 2013, according to a new study that looked at drug usage over the span of a decade.

Why Is It So Hard To Test Whether Drivers Are Stoned?

Law enforcement officials would love to have a clear way to tell when a driver is too drugged to drive. But the decades of experience the country has in setting limits for alcohol have turned out to be rather useless so far because the mind-altering compound in cannabis, THC, dissolves in fat, whereas alcohol dissolves in water.

Anybody attempting to make marijuana concentrates using butane, propane or any other such chemical had better think twice. Not only could using these gases result in a potentially deadly explosion, they will now result in misdemeanor charges, too.

Without objection, the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly passed an ordinance Monday evening making it illegal for anybody without a license or permit to make marijuana concentrate — waxes, oils, etc. — using extraction methods that are not alcohol-, food- or water-based. This ordinance applies to all city zones; no permit or license, no gas-based extraction.

Cannabis-infused edibles are about far more than peace, love, and higher consciousness.

Peggy Noonan knows a thing or two about marijuana. She was a drug runner between Mexico and the U.S., before earning her living as a dealer in Arizona. Both stints ended badly, with Noonan serving time in a Mexican jail and slapped with federal probation in Arizona. All that feels like ancient history, says Noonan, who’s among the thousands of “ganjapreneurs” in the burgeoning market for edible marijuana products. “It was pretty wild, life coming full circle,” she says.