Eight state senators traveled to Denver this month to study the highs and lows of marijuana in Colorado, one of four states where voters have legalized the drug’s recreational use. With Massachusetts voters likely to vote on a legalization ballot question in November, the senators quizzed top officials about how legal pot impacts everything from public health to drugged driving to taxes. They aimed to gain an understanding of how to regulate the new industry, should Massachusetts give it the green light.

How do you like your weed? Whether you smoke to relax, get creative, or for medical reasons, a new online tool will help you decide which marijuana strain is best for the job.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - When the California Legislature passed the state's first comprehensive medical marijuana regulations in September, pot advocates hoped the move heralded a new era of trust in their often-tumultuous relationship with wary local officials and police.

So far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Facing what appears to be a rapidly closing window for action, dozens of cities and counties from across California are racing to enact new bans on marijuana-growing. Some apply only to commercial cultivation, both indoor and outdoor, but many would also prohibit personal pot gardens that have been legal — or at least overlooked — for 19 years.

Drew Riegel makes a six-figure salary in the marijuana business without touching the plant, holding any physical inventory, or hiring any employees. Instead, he closely watches the development of the emerging industry, identifies the web domain names the players there might want, and buys them. Keeping about 1000 names at a time, he sells them to companies or individuals, through his web site MarijuanaNames.org. He keeps some names for himself and uses them to create web sites offering marijuana-related content that link to other web sites where customers can buy related products. Riegel receives a percentage of those sales revenues, a common internet practice called affiliate sales.

Researchers from the U.K. make an interesting find when it comes to the correlation between adolescent marijuana use and IQ score

The year may have only just begun, but 2016 is shaping up to arguably be the most important in marijuana's history.

A district court issued a permanent injunction Friday prohibiting Iowa State University administrators from using trademark policy to stop a campus group from printing university-themed T-shirts that depict a marijuana leaf.

In a 45-page ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa permanently barred ISU from enforcing the university's trademark licensing policies in a discriminatory manner against the campus chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The court specifically blocked ISU "from further prohibiting plaintiffs from producing licensed apparel on the basis that their designs include the image of a similar cannabis leaf."

Researchers looking for a drug to treat "marijuana dependence and abuse" may have found one, but the cure could be worse than the disease.

A team of scientists at Brown University conducted a pilot study to determine whether topiramate, an epilepsy drug marketed as Topamax, could be combined with motivational enhancement therapy (MET) to make MET more effective in reducing marijuana consumption.

Researchers seem to hope Topamax can be a silver bullet addiction cure. Scientists, including a member of the Brown team, have studied it as a potential treatment for alcohol and nicotine dependence and cocaine addiction, and now they are turning their sights on weed.

Sister Kate calls herself an “accidental nun.” At age 16, she tried marijuana for the first time inside a friend’s car during a cold Wisconsin winter. But that was when she was a “good mid-western Catholic girl,” and the drug did nothing for her.

Years later, after her first marriage had come and gone, after she moved to Atlanta to work for General Electric, Kate tried weed again (not to mention cocaine.) This time was different, she wrote on her blog: “I learned that weed goes better with wine, that weed is calming, that weed left me with no side effects. … I gave up the powder and partying, but kept the weed and the wine, in moderation, like medicine.”

Everyone wants to get in on the marijuana business. States are making it legal and business is booming. Many entrepreneurial ventures can be started from merchandise to accessories to marijuana itself; many millionaires will be minted. Founders Fund, a major institutional funding company, and Privateer Holdings have invested in a Canadian medical growing facility, Leafly, and Marley Natural which grows recreational strains branded with Bob Marley’s name. MedMen marijuana (operational) consulting firm raised over $3.7 million from large institutional investors. British pharmaceutical giant GW has marijuana stock available as an investment opportunity.

The Internet can be a treacherous place.

So treacherous, that in order to meet the mounting cybersecurity challenges posed by hackers, Congress has tasked the FBI with hiring some 2,000 new recruits to fight computer-related crimes.

But the hiring process has hit an unforeseen snag: the FBI’s drug testing policies are making it nearly impossible for them to hire hackers with enough skills to best the cyber-criminals the feds are trying to take down.

“I am absolutely dead set against using marijuana,” FBI director James Comey told those in attendance at a senate hearing on the bureau’s oversight, “I don’t want young people to use marijuana. It’s against the law. We have a three-year ban on marijuana.”