Possession of small amounts of marijuana became legal in the District of Columbia on Thursday, launching a pot “green rush” despite a face-off between local officials and the Republican-led U.S. Congress over the new standards. The U.S. capital joined Washington state, Alaska and Colorado in making marijuana lawful for recreational use.

Americans for Safe Access estimates hundreds of medical marijuana patients throughout California are being denied organ transplants that could save their lives. But that may soon change. Earlier this month, Assemblymember Marc Levine (D) introduced legislation that would explicitly protect these patients from being kept off transplant lists because of their cannabis use.

After many years of dialogue about the culturally entrenched drug, and emboldened by changes to drug laws in U.S. states, Jamaica’s Parliament on Tuesday night gave final approval to an act decriminalizing small amounts of pot and establishing a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical marijuana industry.

Compared with other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use. Those are the top-line findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature.

Smoking, growing and possessing marijuana becomes legal in America’s wildest state Tuesday, thanks to a voter initiative aimed at clearing away 40 years of conflicting laws and court rulings. Making Alaska the third state to legalize recreational marijuana was the goal of a coalition including libertarians, rugged individualists and small-government Republicans.

Medical marijuana may soon come with a kosher seal of approval. The Orthodox Union that offers kosher certification is in early discussions with parties interested in offering kosher medical marijuana products, according to the The Jewish Daily Forward.

Since 1976, authorities across the Netherlands have chosen to openly ignore that cannabis use is illegal here, and they prosecute no one in possession of less than five grams of marijuana for personal use. It’s why hundreds of “coffee shops” sprung up across Amsterdam and the Netherlands. But that’s no longer the case.

The federal government has dropped all charges against a Washington medical marijuana patient who was recently diagnosed with late-stage cancer, in a high-profile case that involves the patient and his family growing medical cannabis at their home.

A group of activists gathered in New Jersey’s largest city today to announce a new coalition that will advocate for the legalization, taxation, and regulation of marijuana in the state. A string of speakers today officially launched “New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform” during a press conference in Newark.

Vermont could become the first state in history to legalize recreational marijuana via state legislature with a new bill submitted Tuesday that aims to end prohibition of the plant. Senate Bill 95 would legalize the possession, use and sale of recreational marijuana in the state for those 21 and older.

Across the country, college students from Colorado to Ohio are clamoring to sign up for law school classes focusing on marijuana. At the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, Friday afternoon classes aren’t very popular. Unless it’s Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform.

Humans have been using cannabis for more than 5000 years. So why don’t scientists know more about it? Three experts gathered here at the annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes Science) to discuss what scientists and doctors know about the drug and what they still need to learn.

Former University of Nevada-Reno president Joe Crowley has found a new line of work — selling marijuana. The well-liked former university boss is president of Sierra Wellness Connection, one of two companies that were awarded Reno’s first business licenses for cultivating medical marijuana.

A federal judge hearing a case of nine men charged with illegally growing marijuana on federal land in California said Wednesday she was considering arguments that the federal government has improperly labelled marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs. A decision about the constitutionality of a federal marijuana ban could heat up national debate.

The grueling sport of ultramarathon has fostered a mingling of two seemingly opposite camps: endurance jocks and potheads. “If you can find the right level, [marijuana] takes the stress out of running,” says Avery Collins, a 22-year-old professional ultramarathoner. “And it’s a postrace, post-run remedy.”

Marijuana makes money. But legalizing it doesn’t eliminate the black market or solve a state’s budget problems. Those are the lessons from Colorado’s first full year of tax collections on recreational pot. The year-end report, released Tuesday, tallied about $44 million in new sales taxes and excise taxes from recreational pot.

Virginia’s Republican-dominated House of Delegates voted Tuesday for a bill that would protect users of a form of medical marijuana from state prosecution. The legislation, which passed 98-0, would allow the use of two oils extracted from marijuana that lack the plant’s intoxicating properties but help alleviate debilitating seizures.

Although Alaska will now join Washington, Oregon and Colorado among the ranks of the enlightened, the ink was barely dry on the new law before local governments moved to forestall or even reject its implementation within their jurisdictions, since Measure 2 includes an “opt out” provision.

In “the first large-scale [crash risk] study in the United States to include drugs other than alcohol,” NHTSA found that, once the data were adjusted for confounding variables, cannabis consumption was not associated with an increased probability of getting into an accident.

Jamaica took one step closer to decriminalizing marijuana for medical, religious and scientific purposes, and it couldn’t have happened on a more fitting day — the birthday of Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley, whose public embrace of cannabis made him nearly synonymous with the culture of the plant.