CLEAR has published a revised and updated version 2.0 of its plan for the regulation of cannabis in Britain. This is based on the 2011 study 'Taxing the UK Cannabis Market' which CLEAR commissioned from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit (IDMU).

Peter Reynolds, president and elected leader of CLEAR, said:

Step back from legal wrangling in statehouses or think tanks firing off white papers about drug policy laws. What does it mean to use marijuana?

Save Socrates’ experience with hemlock, Central Washington University philosophy professor Matthew Altman joked, there’s nothing in classic philosophical writings about substance abuse. And no one talks about smoking pot in the Bible, said Pastor Don Green.

So is it wrong for an individual to smoke pot? The Daily Record asked a few locals who think about right and wrong professionally for their thoughts:

Matthew Altman, chair, CWU Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Education is fun! Gaining an understanding of how the world around us works is one of the true privileges of being a human being. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein – these are just some of the people who carved out the framework through which we view our world.

And to this illustrious list we can now add Matthew Parris louchely reclining on red velvet cushions while wafting a spliff around, like Danny in Withnail & I getting ready to expound on the benefits of the Camberwell carrot.

Records reviewed by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit show there are five marijuana businesses that owe the City of San Jose more than $2.1 million dollars in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest.

“Whether we want to be or not, we are somehow or another regulating a medical drug, something no city in the country really knows much about,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

More From NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit

The 1996 Compassionate Use Act legalized medicinal marijuana in California. Voters in San Jose then approved Measure U in November 2010, allowing the city to tax the sale of medical marijuana. Since then, the city has collected more than $17 million from the 10% Marijuana Business Tax on sales from collectives and dispensaries.

Two congressmen filed separate House bills on Friday that together would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana at the federal level, effectively ending the U.S. government's decadeslong prohibition of the plant.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, which would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act's schedules, transfer oversight of the substance from the Drug Enforcement Administration over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and regulate marijuana in a way similar to how alcohol is currently regulated in the U.S.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced the Marijuana Tax Revenue Act, which would set up a federal excise tax for regulated marijuana.

Tim Urban has created a wonderful series of infographics over at "Wait But Why."

The graphics illustrate "your life in weeks."

If you're an American male and you make it to the average life expectancy of just over 76 years, you'll live about 3,962 weeks.

If you're a American female, you'll probably live longer — about 81 and a quarter years, or 4,225 weeks.

Either way, it's startling to see all those weeks laid out in a single chart. And it's sobering to see how relatively few of them you probably have left.

Here, for example, is Urban's chart of the "life of the typical American."

Each row is a year. Each dot in each row is a week.

Nearly three months after two heartland states sued Colorado in federal court, a Frisco dispensary is now at the epicenter of the first-ever racketeering lawsuit filed against a marijuana business since the advent of legal weed.

On Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Safe Streets Alliance named Medical Marijuana of the Rockies as one of 12 defendants in a federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case.

Safe Streets sponsored the lawsuit in partnership with co-plaintiff New Vision Hotels, the Colorado Springs company that owns the Frisco Holiday Inn.

Forget the handful of states that have legalized the drug. There are 566 tribes currently mulling whether to sell pot.

Thanks to a clarifying memo from the Justice Department last October, Native American tribes can now decide for themselves whether to legalize, grow, process, or sell marijuana on their lands. Which means tribes are going to be in the “same situation” as states, says Salvador Mungia, a Tacoma-based lawyer who has represented the ACLU in recent Washington state marijuana cases. Just like a state can decide whether to allow medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, or both, Indian reservations can also choose to open a pot dispensary or grow fields of legalized weed on their lands.

A bill introduced on Tuesday in Vermont could end the prohibition of marijuana by legalizing its possession, use and sale in the state for people aged 21 and over. It would be the first in America to do so by law rather than through the ballot box.

Under Senate Bill 950, adult residents could possess up to one ounce of marijuana and grow up to nine plants (two mature, seven immature) for personal use. Cultivation would be limited to secure indoor facilities; there would be no smoking in public and non-residents could purchase up to one-quarter of an ounce from a licensed retail shop.