Although marijuana is famous for causing the munchies, it turns out that despite all the snacking, there isn't much need for concern about weight gain. According to science, in fact, smoking marijuana might cause people to lose weight. Which is unexpected, but there is an explanation.

San Diego rapper MC Flow appears poised to assume a higher profile, thanks to her new cheery new holiday video, “Pot in the Latkes.”

A four-time San Diego Music Award winner, Flow may be the first hip-hop artist to combine Hannukah and marijuana in a song. Or, at least, the first white female feminist hip-hop artist to combine Hannukah and marijuana in a song that begins with a musical quote from “Hava-Nagila.”.

With a reasonably straight face, she delivers a series of wining lines. They include: “I rap the truth so I got a witness, sometimes it’s hard to be a Jew at Christmas”; “I was stuck in a latke cannabis trance”; “I was straight up trippin’ on the Hanukah miracle, I was so damn high I felt practically biblical”; and “I guess you could call them Pot-kes...”

In the 1990's, California's decision to legalize medical marijuana put it at the forefront of pro-pot policy. However, California's failure to pass recreational marijuana legislation in 2010 led to it taking a backseat to other states when it comes to reforming recreational marijuana laws.

Today, four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational pot and the experiences in those states, including better-than-hoped tax revenue in Colorado and Washington, and an increasingly laissez-faire attitude toward marijuana nationally, could mean that California is about to embrace recreational marijuana in 2016.

San Francisco could soon be home to the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the county, if not the world.

According to SF Weekly, the commercial building at 70 Second Street is for sale—along with the marijuana dispensary the building currently houses.

Robert Ticer is no fan of legalized recreational marijuana.

And the Avon, Colo., police chief said Thursday that more pot in Connecticut’s future would increase challenges for cops on this state’s roads.

“It’s mind-boggling,” he said of marijuana’s spread through Colorado, speaking at Webster Arena as part of a traffic-safety summit. “It’s crazy.”

Full legalization was voted as a Colorado constitutional amendment in 2013, and there are now 505 medical dispensaries and 322 retail stores selling recreational cannabis — outnumbering the 405 Starbucks stores and 227 McDonald’s — Ticer said.

The Science of Cannabis Institute Hopes to Offer the State's First Accredited Program for Medical Marijuana Consultants

A couple Saturdays ago, I took a class for the first time in years. It wasn't to relearn algebra (although I have definitely forgotten it), but to become a certified cannabis worker. The four-hour course, which is offered by the Science of Cannabis Institute (SCI) and is held on the University of Washington campus, is the first of its kind in Washington State, part of a growing cannabis education industry. The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) recently announced that it would create a medical marijuana consultant certification program, and SCI hopes to be the first accredited institution to offer it.

Although using search engine popularity as a barometer for drug usage isn't an exact methodology, it does provide a useful insight into what substances people are trying to discover more about.

Withdrawal.net has broken down the most searched for drugs on Google by each state in the US, observing an increase in methamphetamine searches, coinciding with the drug becoming more popular in the 2000s.

This mesmerising image shows the emergence of meth in the US states, particularly in the north west and mid-west.

California based Hound Labs Inc. is claiming to have made a breakthrough in the rush to develop a portable device capable of detecting THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the breath of someone that has recently smoked a substance containing the chemical. They claim also that their device will soon be small enough for use by law enforcement to remove impaired drivers from the road.

The Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald says the effects of a new strain of cannabis are still unknown.

She was responding to a Déil question from Deputy Finian McGrath who asked if she is aware of a new variant of the drug which is said to make people more violent.

Minister Fitzgerald said there has been an emergence of new synthetic cannabinoid substances, both here and abroad, which present key challenges for international and national control mechanisms.

She also said a new Bill is currently being prepared to strengthen the Misuse of Drugs Act, to clarify the provisions under which Ministerial orders and regulations are made, and which will facilitate the further controlling of new psychoactive substances when deemed necessary.

The legalisation of cannabis in Australia is pointless while all other drugs remain criminalised, a leading expert in drug policy believes.

“There’s absolutely no point in doing it just for cannabis and not doing it for everything else,” says Professor Alison Ritter of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), and a strong advocate for decriminalisation.

The Federal government had earlier in October revealed its plans to legalise the growing of cannabis for medical purposes by 2016. The announcement sparked a larger debate surrounding drug policy in Australia, including the benefits of decriminalising drugs.

Ritter believes that resistance to decriminalisation in Australia comes from a lack of understanding of what the term actually involves.