The D.C. Council passed a decriminalization measure today that would reduce the penalty for possessing an ounce of pot to a $25 civil fine. Unless the various federal police agencies feel like busting people under federal law, or Congress uses its colonial-rule powers to throw the whole thing out.

Don't buy weed from a sketchy-looking bro with a coat full of raw fish. That's the message of the first medical marijuana ad to air on networks that people actually watch.

Sometimes you just gotta find a release, man. Like when your lady is going into labor and you're stuck in the hospital and everything's so crazy and just a couple hits could calm you down. Next time, though, spring for a better vaporizer.

The latest poll numbers, from NBC and the Wall Street Journal, are in: 55% of Americans say "they favor allowing regulated businesses to sell marijuana." What's the holdup?

Patrick Kennedy—former congressman, son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy—got on MSNBC last night to tell Barack Obama that, contrary to the president's recent statements, marijuana is terribly, terribly dangerous. It was a bizarre message. It was even weirder, considering the messenger.

America is no longer scared of pot, and it doesn't seem like Barack Obama is, either. In a long interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Obama said just about everything he should be saying about weed.

After CNN aired the latest segment of its ongoing "Gone to Pot" series on marijuana legalization in Colorado, many were quick to note that anchor and correspondent Randi Kaye looked more like an active partaker than merely a passive witness to history (skip to 4:30 if you're short on time).

How awesome is it to be a legislator in the Sunshine State this year? This awesome: You get to approve the legalization of adultery, cohabitation, and giving young children a strain of marijuana called Charlotte's Web, all in one afternoon sitting.

The primary benefits of legalizing weed are the end of the horribly racist and unjustifiable imprisonment of thousands of nonviolent Americans, and awkward columns from old white columnists. A good secondary benefit, though: it costs the police money.

Do you like your weed to have a little class? Do you prefer a nice sit-down restaurant to the Taco Bell drive-through when the munchies hit? Then do we have the place for you.

George Cushingberry Jr. is probably flying high today, and not just because of the Bubba Kush he brought home from the strip club. The recently elected Detroit City Council president pro tem got off with just a ticket after taking the cops for a ride with pot and open liquor in his car.

"For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana," writes David Brooks, the pop sociology professor of choice for Republicans hip enough to drive Audis. "It was fun." Was it, David? Was it really?

Today at a press conference in Manhattan, state Senator Liz Krueger revealed a plan to legalize and tax marijuana in the state of New York. Making weed totally chill in the eyes of the law has long been a focus of democrats in the state — including Governor Andrew Cuomo — but the New York's left currently has nothing concrete to show for their efforts.

Uruguay has legalized weed. So go to Uruguay, I guess, to smoke weed, legally. It's pretty far away though.

Like, a big bunch. And it was apparently caught only because of some random, non-routine dragnet:

It's not entirely clear how Mark Ruffalo's amazing anecdote about accidentally smoking pot on stage slipped through the Internet's cracks the first time around, but, luckily, it's being given a second chance to make your day so much better.

A Wendy's employee in Lovejoy, Georgia, ended up in jail last month after she allegedly "misplaced" the blunt she was smoking inside a burger that was served to a customer.

Miley Cyrus: gateway drug. Back in the day, the latex salvia queen peer pressured Joe Jonas of the vaunted Brothers Jonas into trying marijuana, according to frère Joe's new semi-revealing (if weird Disney childhoods are your thing) New York Magazine essay.

More than a dozen schools, two college campuses, and multiple businesses in Decatur, Alabama, were evacuated Thursday over a suspicious package attached to a railcar laden with toxic gas. But rather than explosives, authorities found the package held several pounds of weed.

A new poll shows 86 percent of Floridians want to legalize medical marijuana. So take heart, because for all of America's divisive problems, some things even you and your redneck uncle Zeb in Wewahitchka can agree on.