The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper warns against running out and firing up them spliffs before officials sort out the whole weed-still-being-a-drug thing.

Seeing the marijuana legalization wins in Washington and Colorado—and medical marijuana passage in Massachusetts -now would be a great time to read our October cover story on the new pot barons.

[photo via whats the jackanory]

The number of regular pot users is up by 3 million in the past five years, and the rate of high-school experimentation is at a 30-year high. When a kid first lights up at about age 16, it’s usually not with a cigarette. Twelve states now treat a personal stash like a minor traffic offense, 17 allow medical marijuana, and this Election Day, if current polls hold, voters in Washington State and Colorado will vote to legalize marijuana—not for medical purposes but, as Rolling Stone recently enthused, “for getting-high purposes.

From our cover story on the new pot barons.

Rihanna appears to have been photographed rolling a joint off of a bald man’s head (which she then shared on her Instagram account).

High Times magazine confirms it, Snoop smokes the most weed out of all the celebrities (they’ve ever met, at least).

Does cannabis increase creativity? Jonah Lehrer says yes!

What’s infuriating is this administration’s refusal to have a serious debate about this, to actually engage the salient arguments of legalizers. We just have a defensive crouch, and an insult to large numbers of Obama voters and supporters, who, unlike this nicotine-addicted president, do not take the question of prohibition as a joke.

Andrew Sullivan on the Obama administration’s public stance on marijuana legalization, er, their “regurgitat[ing] the standard prohibitionist crap.”

See California’s Home-Grown Reefer Madness, the latest from Newsweek’s reefer correspondent, Jess Bennett.