A majority of doctors would approve the use of medical marijuana, according to a new survey.

"We were surprised by the outcome of polling and comments, with 76 percent of all votes in favor of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes -- even though marijuana use is illegal in most countries," the survey's authors wrote.

The results appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 30. It included responses from 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. In addition, 118 doctors posted comments about their decision on the survey.

When it comes to the often intense debate over marijuana legalization, one side maintains that the drug is entirely benign and holds the power to bring in millions in tax revenue, while the other warns that there will be profound social costs for the states that have decriminalized it.

As the debate forges on, all eyes are on states like Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, where recreational legalization is afoot, with proponents and opponents, alike, seizing upon the issue in an effort to sway the political winds in their favored direction.

But which side is presenting an accurate cost-benefit analysis? And how do individual rights play into the debate?

SEATTLE -- Steve McNalley was in his usual spot last Tuesday, hunched over a stainless steel workbench as he used a pipette to carefully filter particulates such as waxes and plant membranes from pulverized marijuana across a row of test tubes and vials at Analytical 360 labs in Seattle. His samples had already succumbed to microscopic imaging and at least 24 hours of dehydration.

Next, the concentrated marijuana will undergo high-performance liquid chromatography to determine its potency for compounds including THC, the ingredient that causes the sensation of being high.

The more that hunter-gatherers in the Congo smoke cannabis, the less they are infected by parasitic intestinal worms, according to Washington State University (WSU) researchers who say that the tribe may unconsciously be, in effect, smoking medical marijuana.

Ed Hagen, a WSU Vancouver anthropologist, explored cannabis use among the Aka foragers to see if people away from the cultural and media influences of Western civilization might use plant toxins medicinally. "In the same way we have a taste for salt, we might have a taste for psychoactive plant toxins, because these things kill parasites," he said. Hagen's study appears in the American Journal of Human Biology.

In the suburbs of Washington, the authorized clinic opened by the former rabbi delivers to patients their dose of medical marijuana. But procurement opportunities remain limited for an ever-increasing demand.                 

The transaction takes just a few minutes behind a closed door. The client, or rather the patient recovers his wares against a handful of twenty dollar bills and left the scene, but not without welcomed Jeffrey Kahn, head of the clinic, a former rabbi. This scene takes place dozens of times a day, in a flowery decor with a cozy atmosphere, to the sound of jazz music.

THE DARK WEB may have a silver lining, according to a pair of academics: A new class of geekier, less violent drug dealers.

A law professor and a professor of criminal science argue, in a paper released online, that by reducing physical contact between drug dealers—particularly between dealers and their suppliers—the Silk Road’s bustling Web-based narcotics trade may have prevented bloodshed that would have occurred in the street-level illegal drug market.

Beijing, the capital city of China, is moving rapidlytowards banning smoking. It’s part of an ambitious attempt to curb a habit that has taken its toll on the health of Chinese citizens.

For years, Chinese health experts have pressed government officials to do something about the country’s devastating addiction to smoking. Currently, it’s estimated that more than 300 million Chinese citizens–almost the entire population of the United States–are smokers. Of course, that also means millions more are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke.

A few days after the draft psychoactive substances bill was published, its full ramifications are still becoming clear. It is one of the weirdest pieces of law ever proposed by a British government. And at a stroke, it seems to criminalise the majority of households in the UK.

I've written the following using accepted common definitions of the phrases involved, a close reading of the key passages of the draft bill and a little bit of logic. Anyone who can see how these items aren't criminalised using a strict reading of the bill is very welcome to let me know. We're all in uncharted legislative water here.

Bernie Sanders moved to Vermont in 1968, during a mass "hippie migration" that attracted young people eager for a new life and experimenting with communal living. It's the sort of thing that evokes folk music and drugs, but Sanders wasn't exactly your stereotypical hippie.

In an interview with Yahoo News' Katie Couric, Sanders said he tried marijuana but wasn't a fan.

"Because I coughed a lot, I don't know," he said. "I smoked marijuana twice, didn't quite work for me. ... It's not my thing, but it is the thing of a whole lot of people."

Federal agents near Mission Bay seized a 35-foot yacht returning from Mexico stuffed with nearly 1,200 pounds of marijuana, authorities announced Tuesday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents spotted the yacht while patrolling outside Mission Bay early Friday and took it to a nearby marina for further inspection, according to Jackie Wasiluk, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.

A drug-sniffing dog tipped off U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents to 91 packages containing 1,194 pounds of marijuana in hidden compartments throughout the vessel. Wasiluk said the pot was worth an estimated $715,800.