WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite its opposition to making marijuana use legal, the Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit from Nebraska and Oklahoma that seeks to declare Colorado's pot legalization unconstitutional.

The Justice Department's top courtroom lawyer said in a brief filed Wednesday that the interstate dispute over a measure approved by Colorado voters in 2012 does not belong at the high court.

Nebraska and Oklahoma filed their lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court in December 2014, arguing that Colorado's law allowing recreational marijuana use by adults runs afoul of federal anti-drug laws. States can sue each other in the Supreme Court, a rare instance in which the justices are not hearing appeals of lower court rulings.

What happens to the War on Drugs once cannabis is legalized?

One of the original arguments for decriminalizing marijuana in the 1970s was that it would enable the criminal justice system to concentrate resources on the manufacture, sale and use of more dangerous drugs. In other words, take the resources devoted to marijuana laws and re-allocate them to the fight against heroin, cocaine and other drugs (which, in modern times, would include methamphetamine).

Would legalization of cannabis allow for an intensified fight against other illegal drug markets? 

This seems logical and, among some folks, is a persuasive argument in favor of legalized cannabis.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to throw out a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma and Nebraska seeking to block Colorado's voter-approved law legalizing recreational marijuana use by adults.

In their challenge to Colorado's law, filed in December 2014, Nebraska and Oklahoma said marijuana is being smuggled across their borders and that drugs threaten the health and safety of children.

Nebraska and Oklahoma noted that marijuana remains illegal under federal law and said Colorado has created "a dangerous gap" in the federal drug control system.

This week, a bill decriminalizing the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana takes effect in Delaware – and with it comes questions. Here is what you need to know:

When does marijuana decriminalization begin? The law takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday – exactly six months after Gov. Jack Markell signed House Bill 39 into law.

What does the legislation mean? Anyone 21 and older can possess up to one ounce of leaf marijuana and use the drug privately without facing criminal sanctions. The penalty for possession will be a $100 civil penalty – with no threat of jail time, arrest or a criminal record.

“Perceived risk is usually a deterrent to use and it is clear that this deterrent has weakened considerably,” said lead investigator on the survey Lloyd Johnston. “In sum, there is a lot of good news in this year’s results, but the problems of teen substance use and abuse are still far from going away.”

The survey used responses from 40,000 students drawn from both public and private high schools and was carried out by National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan.

Twenty-three states have introduced laws permitting medical marijuana while four states have legalized the drug’s recreational use, along with the District of Colombia. The first year that adults could legally buy weed in Colorado and Washington was 2014.

America's high school students are using drugs and alcohol at or near the lowest levels on record, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2015 Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted by the University of Michigan and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) since 1975, found that past-year use of alcohol and illicit drugs other than marijuana continued their two-decade-long decline among America's 8th- , 10th- and 12th-graders.

Teen marijuana use has fallen slightly over the past five years, at a time when four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana and 23 others allow medical use.

Fewer students than last year think that pot is harmful

More students in the 12th grade said they smoked pot every day, compared to those who smoke daily cigarettes, finds a new federal report. It’s the first time since the survey began in 1975 that daily marijuana use surpassed cigarettes.

The “Monitoring the Future” survey released on Wednesday shows that 6% of 12th graders used marijuana every day—about the same rate as last year—while 5.5% of seniors reported smoking cigarettes daily. (That’s a drop from 2014, when 6.7% of high school seniors smoked cigarettes every day.)

Center is biggest recent private investment in medical research, according to minister

Prague, (ČTK) — The International Cannabis and Cannaboids Institute (ICCI) was opened in Prague today with U.S. and Canadian investors contributing half a billion crowns, which Health Minister Svatopluk Němeček said is the biggest private investment in Czech medical research in the past years.

The institute, for which Professor Lumir Hanus, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will also work, wants to contribute to the use of cannabis in the treatment of various diseases based on research evidence and the patients´ experience.

ICCI managing director Pavel Kubů said the research is to contribute to the tailor-made treatment of patients.

Marijuana's main psychoactive compound, THC, may increase random neural activity — or neural noise — in the brain, according to a new study.

The headline of our post reporting that Colorado marijuana sales topped $100 million in August asked the question, "How long will they keep climbing higher?"

We now have the answer to that question.

Sales dropped from that peak in September, and again in October, the most recent month for which figures are available.