For reasons not related to sports or logic, I was sent across the country to cover the 2011 High Times Medical Cannabis Cup in Denver this past weekend. The event, held in a place called the Exdo Event Center that allegedly transformed into a gay nightclub once the sun set, featured an awards show for 45 indicas, 36 sativas, 50 hybrids, 26 concentrates, and 25 edibles from Colorado dispensaries. If you don't really know what those terms mean, it's okay: this event was primarily for professionals. And no matter how much pot you smoked in college, bro, I can now say with certainty that it does not make you a professional in the field of medical cannabis. There were seminars for legal issues and consumer rights, cultivation lessons, and a panel discussion on the ins and outs of the "Cannabusiness." And there was a giant tent — which required either a Denver medical marijuana card or a vendor's pass to enter — filled with marijuana for medicating purposes. The only rule, once you were in? No selling and no giving away of the marijuana. The tent was only for sharing. Welcome to the Medical Cannabis Cup.

North Andover High School saw their prom night cut short after four students became "violently ill" from eating some tainted pot brownies. Or maybe they just couldn't handle them? It's unclear. Fret not! A probe is underway. Once again, friends, a few bad apples have spoiled this absolutely horrendous-looking evening of rented tuxes and rubber chicken for the bunch. Unfortunately, the video from the event is pretty tame. If not a full-on Carrie moment, I was at the very least hoping to see one girl screaming that her corsage was trying to eat her. [WCVB]

A teenager has been arrested for trying to smuggle $10,000 worth of marijuana across the Mexico-U.S. border.

"An ingenious set of experiments," The New Scientist reports, "could open the way to cannabis-like drugs that provide pain relief without causing unwanted highs." First of all: Unwanted? Second of all: What is wrong with you, scientists??

The synthetic fake weed known as "spice" — the scourge of America's armed forces — has claimed the career of another Naval Academy midshipman, bringing the total number of students expelled for taking bong rips of expensive oregano to 12. From Reuters:

Here's a charmer from Courtney Love's video channel for recovery website TheFix.com: Answering a fan's question about how long she has been sober, Courtney goes on a ramble about the time she saved Kelly Osbourne's life, and it was just like the movie Pulp Fiction.

Saving smiles! Tainted IVs! Hep C! Water balls! Baby babble! No births! College hookups! And super secret squats! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your health—but just as a friend!

Cops in upstate New York seized $10 million in pot crops from a hydroponic grow house that supplied the metro area. Sixteen people—mostly illegal immigrants—were arrested. Illegal aliens distributing drugs? That's like Glenn Beck's biggest nightmare!

Surprise: The Texas prosecutor who said a judge would let Willie Nelson off on a hotboxing charge if he sang "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (in addition to pleading guilty and paying a fine) in the courtroom was joking. Judge Becky Dean-Walker told the AP that the prosecutor's joke simply "got out of hand." Still, it was fun to think about. And maybe he'll do it anyway?

Getting contraband into prison is pretty tricky. Inmates and those on the outside have gone to great lengths to get things like phones, drugs, cigarettes and other stuff inside. And this latest trick from south Jersey is pretty good, actually, and was only discovered after someone snitched.

If you're unfortunate enough to live in meth country — basically south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and across the Midwest all the way to Riverside County — soon you might be screwed if you get a cold or your allergies act up.

A 31-year-old Pennsylvania man high on America's latest drug scourge, snortable bath salts, went on a crazy rampage last month. It started when he ditched his car on the side of the highway and started running because, according to police, "he thought it was melting and electricity was following him."

Thousands of people in Brooklyn will tell you how great Brooklyn used to be. I never took those people seriously. Until I heard how once, pot plants "as tall as Christmas trees," grew in "anonymous vacant lots" in Brooklyn.

Intrepid Daily News reporter Irving DeJohn has one of the better jobs in media. He gets paid to get "high" on video and dance like Gene Kelly! DeJohn convinced his editors that he should buy some salvia, a dorm-size bowl, and get high on the street. So, what happened? As you can see in the video above, DeJohn was underwhelmed by the experience, and lamented the fact that he didn't see any goblins or have the chance to float over the Empire State Building. That's understandable, since salvia falls under the fake drugs category. But, we've got a suggestion! Tell the culture desk that you need some PCP — You get dusted, fight a cop, and maybe even carjack a cab. You'll have a one way ticket to Central Booking! Not that's an experience.

A fourth grader at DC's Thomson Elementary school was charged yesterday with possession of a controlled substance after hooking up four classmates with cocaine on school grounds. Apparently some of the kids snorted it, while others swallowed it, which made them sick. From The Washington Post:

Police in Pennsylvania say they found "54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, 8.5 prescription pills and $51.22" inside the vagina of one Karin Mackaliunas, 27, of Scranton. If this seems to you like a rather unwise place to keep one's heroin (or one's change, for that matter), know that Ms. Mackaliunas seems to have realized the same thing after only a brief period of time; she allegedly hid her contraband while being transported to the police station after being arrested for drug possession, but by the time she arrived at headquarters, it seems she was reconsidering her path of action:

Four Virginian middle schoolers have been suspended and face possible expulsion from their school after passing around a plastic bag of oregano during lunch break. Maybe it was pizza day, and they thought the cafeteria food was underseasoned?

In New York City, the WSJ reports, prescriptions for (generic Oxycontin) have doubled in the past three years. Doubled! There are a million prescriptions in the city now, one for every eight people.

A small packet of cocaine has been found at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, almost exactly 14 months after cocaine was last found at the Kennedy Space Center, as keen observers of space and/or cocaine will no doubt note. But does this indicate that NASA is the most fun government agency—or that it's a front organization for a vast, interplanetary drug ring? Seems to us it's time to put the space-detectives on the case! (This can be the basis for the sixth season of The Wire.) When asked if the recent discovery had any link to the death of a NASA contractor on Monday, spokeswoman Renee Juhans said, "maybe." No, ha, she actually said "no comment." And then she had the reporter whacked. [AFP]

Running easily purchased American guns to Mexican gangs is all the rage these days in the Great American Southwest, so you know it couldn't be long until a border town's mayor, sheriff, and city council got in on the fun.