(Cannabis News) A forthcoming biography on President Obama is making headlines, with new details about the president smoking marijuana with his teenage friends in Hawaii.

David Maraniss’ book, Barack Obama: The Story, describes Obama as a marijuana enthusiast: “When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!’ and took an extra hit,” Maraniss writes. Maraniss also describes Obama’s technique of “roof hits” while hot-boxing cars. “When the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling,” he writes. Obama has been less than shy about his drug use in the past, writing about the topic in Dreams from My Father, “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it,” he writes in the memoir.

(NBC) Californians seeking to use cannabis as their medicine need to get a recommendation from a doctor in order to enjoy legal protection. They don’t, however, have to actually grow the plants, a court ruled.

The California Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from Attorney General Kamala Harris in the case of a Hollywood medical marijuana dispensary operator, according to SF Weekly.

Harris was appealing the dismissal of charges against a Hollywood-based dispensary operator, on the grounds that his customer base was “too big” for everyone to participate collectively in its operation, and therefore he didn’t enjoy legal protection under state medical marijuana law.

The dispensary operator, William Colvin, was denied a medical marijuana defense when he was arrested for transporting a pound of marijuana between two dispensaries, the newspaper reported. On appeal, his conviction was thrown out, but Harris sought to press the charges further.

(BBC News) A 14-year-old who made cakes containing cannabis in a school cookery lesson has been expelled.

The pupil at All Saints College in Newcastle shared the brownies with four other boys in his year nine class.

Once alerted to what had happened the school called the police and paramedics and the five were taken to hospital for checks and discharged the same day.

One boy was arrested and later bailed. He has now been expelled and the other four suspended.