No, The Wire does not explain what's happening in Baltimore this week, asmy colleague Alyssa Rosenberg wrote yesterday. Still, the show's creator and former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon knows a lot more about the city than most of us. And in a wide-ranging and riveting interviewwith The Marshall Project today, he offers an unequivocal assessment of how to turn things around in that city today.

"So do you see how this ends or how it begins to turn around?" Bill Keller asks him.

The outlaw botanists who designed the marijuana Americans smoke and the money they didn't make doing it

Since almost everyone interviewed for this story is, or has been, a criminal, almost everyone long ago adopted pseudonyms. Some are no longer criminals, so don’t mind their real names being used. Some are no longer criminals, but still prefer to use their pseudonyms.

Oklahoma took a small, first step Thursday toward legalizing one form of medical marijuana after Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill that would allow medical trials of a cannabis derivative known as cannabidiol, or CBD, to move forward. Many say CBD is beneficial in treating children with debilitating seizure conditions. While Fallin, a Republican, made it clear that she remained opposed to legalizing marijuana outright, she said the bill would give researchers the opportunity to study the effects of CBD on children with epilepsy.

Big marijuana money is in the D.C. area this week.

As part of a number of marijuana-related events in town this week, business investor network ArcView Group has brought approximately 200 high-net-worth cannabis investors for a "Shark Tank"-style pitch fest starting Thursday.

In all, 15 companies were selected to make their case for funding at the Investor Pitch Forum in Alexandria before the ArcView network, which has backed 53 companies and invested more than $40 million.

Budweiser may still be smarting from its most recent public embarrassment, but the beer brand apologized yesterday for its inappropriate tagline: “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.”

In an atmosphere charged with the ongoing national conversation about sexual assault, it’s truly amazing that any brand—let alone alcohol—would be so carelessly cavalier.

But alcohol is alcohol, and Bud isn’t the first brand to tease the darker elements of its nature. A therapist might even say alcohol brands have a self-destructive personality disorder.

The knowledge that cannabis extracts can directly treat cancer has grown tremendously in the past couple years. An explosion of scientific research and anecdotal evidence has shown beyond doubt that cannabis extracts can, in many cases, kill cancer in humans. However, some patients and cancers are resistant to cannabis treatment, and we still don’t know what doses and cannabinoid ratios are best for which types of cancers.

Alabama medical marijuana advocates are set to hold a protest rally in the home district of state Sen. Jabo Waggoner on Saturday.

Medical marijuana legislation (Senate Bill 326) received approval in a Senate committee last week, but Republican lawmakers are hesitant to put Sen. Bobby Singleton's bill on the calendar to even be discussed on the Senate floor.

Waggoner, chairman of the Senate rules committee, told AL.com that Alabama isn't ready to allow medical marijuana usage, but he would poll members of the committee about putting it on the calendar.

Some Illinois teens could potentially be working in the medical marijuana industry this summer thanks to a generous donation to the city of Bloomington for the creation of a labor program for local youngsters.

Earlier this week, Curative Health, Inc., a medical marijuana corporation based in New York, submitted a check for $20,000 to the city council in hopes of greasing the political wheels enough to earn themselves a license to operate a dispensary within the city limits. The contribution, which was reportedly a suggestion made by Mayor Tari Renner, is intended to create summer work opportunities for the city’s at-risk teens.

On the first day of the special legislative session, Washington House members took up a bill that would change the way the state taxes recreational marijuana.

Washington lawmakers are back in Olympia this week after failing to pass a two-year operating budget during the regular legislative session. Now, lawmakers have 30 days to address the operating budget, a transportation package and satisfy a court mandate to adequately fund the state's public school system.

Also on their to-do list is cracking down on the illicit marijuana market by addressing the current tax structure.

With Oregon's recreational market about to come online, the bill could have particular implications for border counties such as Clark County.

Because if we're to, as Obama put it, "follow the science not the ideology" with regards to marijuana and have some hope of getting it decriminalised/legalised on a wider scale in the world, we must continue to dispel the myths surrounding it.

A chief one, regurgitated time and time again, is that weed is a 'gateway drug', a slippery slope to more damaging drugs. But is this really the case?