It’s become a common sight in Colorado — at Broncos games, in movie theaters and malls, in the bathrooms at bars and clubs, even behind high schools and in employee parking lots. People will quickly, slyly grab a device from their pocket that looks like a pen and put it to their mouth. Then, after just a tiny puff and the mere hint of the smell of pot or cigarette smoke, they’ll put the device — which doesn’t get hot — back into their pocket and go back to whatever they were doing.
The use of vape pens and e-cigarettes has been common for a while, but it caught on big in 2014 after recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado at the beginning of the year. So big, in fact, that Oxford Dictionaries chose “vape” as its word of the year for 2014. Denver Westword has more.

It’s been two days since New York City began a more lenient, pot-friendly approach to public display of cannabis. And while we won’t have any concrete data for weeks or months, we imagine it’s already changed life in the Big Apple. People aren’t going to be arrested for public display of small amounts of pot after cops stop them, frisk them and demand they turn out their pockets – eliminating a major tool that the cops used to criminalize black and brown people in the city.
But it doesn’t exactly legalize pot use, either. Woody Harrelson and the cast of Saturday Night Live summed up the changes beautifully last week. Video below.