Smoking

CHRIS GOLDSTEIN, a marijuana advocate and editor of freedomisgreen.com, pulled a lighter from his pocket and sparked a joint at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, right in the middle of Independence Park. Nothing happened, except he got a bit stoned. "This is how smoking marijuana should be," he said. But not everyone is so lucky. That's the point. "Every day, there are thousands of people getting arrested for pot, and for this amount of pot," Goldstein said, holding the burning joint as thick smoke wafted across the park.

A RIDLEY Township woman was raped in her home Saturday by an armed man who demanded that she smoke pot and cuddle with him, according to court documents. The suspect also repeatedly told the victim that he was Irish, and said that she could trust an Irish man, police said. The bizarre and brutal case began around midnight Saturday when the victim awoke in her apartment, on MacDade Boulevard in the Woodlyn section of Ridley Township, and found a man standing by the window in her room, police said.

The question can be heard up and down the Camden block where Osvaldo Rivera allegedly stabbed a 6-year-old boy to death and slashed the boy's 12-year-old sister last Sunday: Was the man known as "Popeye," who played ball with neighborhood children and gave them haircuts on his porch not who he seemed or was the dreadful attack fueled by the drug concoction called "wet" that he allegedly told authorities he had smoked that night? In the Roosevelt Manor public housing complex where Rivera allegedly committed the crimes, where residents say drug abuse is commonplace, mothers last week clutched their children even tighter and kept an eye on the doors where they said known users live.

A fight for the hearts and minds - not to mention the lungs - of every American who's lighting up for the first time or thinking of kicking the smoking habit is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a split ruling that accorded Big Tobacco little-deserved deference, a federal appeals court in Washington last week struck down the Food and Drug Administration's bold and sensible plan to require graphic warnings about the dangers of smoking on cigarette packs. The court majority ruled that the FDA requirement violates tobacco firms' free-speech rights, saying it goes too far in seeking to "browbeat consumers into quitting" smoking.

NEW YORK - Teens who routinely smoke marijuana risk a long-term drop in their IQ, a new study suggests. The researchers didn't find the same IQ dip for people who became frequent pot users after 18. Although experts said the new findings are not definitive, they do fit in with earlier signs that the drug is harmful to the developing brain. "Parents should understand that their adolescents are particularly vulnerable," said lead researcher Madeline Meier of Duke University. Study participants from New Zealand were tested for IQ at age 13, likely before any significant marijuana use, and again at age 38. The mental decline between those two ages was seen only in those who started regularly smoking pot before age 18. Richie Poulton, a study coauthor and professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, said the research's message is to stay away from marijuana until adulthood, if possible.

A PHILADELPHIA MAN was federally indicted Thursday for allegedly robbing a Wawa employee at gunpoint for a pack of cigarettes and for robbing a Northeast Philadelphia bank twice in six months. If convicted, Christopher Cedres, 37, faces at least seven years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $1.5 million. The grand jury indictment alleges that Cedres robbed the Republic Bank at Cottman and Frankford avenues on June 21, 2011, took off with $559 and hit the same bank again on Dec. 7, making off with $560.

My father has never been much of a food guy. But when it came to melons, he was way ahead of the curve. Served a wedge of cantaloupe, he'd sprinkle it with salt and pepper. I've never seen anyone else do that, but the combination is terrific - a good melon is way too wonderful to be treated only as a sweet. There are plenty of traditional examples of this. The most obvious is melon and prosciutto, and a very good one it is: the satin saltiness of the ham playing against the buttery sweetness of the melon.