A May series on marijuana continues with a look at addiction. Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, marijuana legalization consultant for Washington State, and co-author of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2013) talks about the drug's effects and how legalization might address treatment.  He's joined by WNYC senior reporter Marianne McCune who talks about her piece on abuse and dependence of marijuana, as part of the "Weed Next Door" series.

Jake’s life started out just right. He lived in a nice house on a nice block of the sophisticated New Jersey town of Montclair. His dad worked for the NFL, his mom a couple days a week in finance.  As long as Jake and his older brother did well, their parents weren’t overly concerned about a little partying here or there. Until Jake started to turn into someone they didn’t know.

Marijuana culture in this country is changing. There was legalization of recreational marijuana use back in November in Washington and Colorado. Medical marijuana is still legal in California. Today, we explore the different issues that weed legalization and use pose.

Meet Chuck, a San Francisco marijuana dealer. (That’s not his real name. We agreed to keep that to ourselves because, otherwise, he wouldn’t talk to us.) Chuck came to New York from California to sell weed because, here in New York, where his trade is 100% illegal, he can make more money. 

These days, many teenagers live half their lives on social media sites, and they're writing the rules as they go. One online trend 16-year-old Radio Rookie Temitayo Fagbenle finds disturbing is something she calls "slut-shaming," or using photos and videos to turn a girl's private life inside out.

Stress is often associated with Christmas along with its promise of holiday cheer. But for residents who suffered great losses from Sandy and its aftermath there are extra burdens. In some cases storm's victims are putting their lives on hold.

Danielle was 13-years-old when she left her home and her mother in the Congo.  She came to New York hoping to pursue the American dream, but she wound up living in a shelter. Hear why Danielle keeps the truth about her life in America to herself - even though it means lying to her mother.

Nearly 100,000 Americans suffer from a blood disorder called Sickle Cell Anemia, a painful disease that shortens life-expectancy. Sickle cells aren’t round – they’re shaped like a crescent moon and Radio Rookie Bree Person hates looking at them. Sometimes she hates talking about them, too – but she put together this report nevertheless.

New York state has the worst four-year high school graduation rate in the country. But when you zero in on New York City, the rates are even worse, especially for black males, with only 28 percent graduating from public high school in four years in 2010. Radio Rookie Mike Brown, 18, is a young black man growing up in Harlem and being raised by a single mom.

For homeowners of flooded houses along the shores of New York and New Jersey, the post-Sandy to-do list is endless: sort, dry, trash, clean, make calls to the electrician, the boiler guy, an engineer, a mold specialist and, all along the way, document everything for insurance claims.

Teachers were back in school Friday, preparing for Monday’s reopening.  But eight public schools are still doing double duty as shelters for those displaced by flooding from Sandy. At Brooklyn Tech, the borough's most sought after public high school, students will share their building with the elderly and people with mental and physical disabilities. Some are apprehensive.

It's been more than three days since power went out across large swaths of the city and beyond. And some New Yorkers haven’t ventured out of their apartments since the power went out. In multi-story public housing complexes like La Guardia Houses on the Lower East Side, getting in and out of the building can be daunting.

WNYC reporter Marianne McCune talks about her post-Sandy visit to LaGuardia Houses on the Lower East Side.

Five Radio Rookies walked the streets of the Bronx recently to learn more about how residents of the borough, which is 90 percent black and Latino, interact with the police. They then sat down the the city's police commissioner to ask him about community relations.

In the 7th episode of the  Women Box podcast , we bring you Go For It: Life Lessons From Girl Boxers, co-hosted by actor Rosie Perez. The hour-long special chronicles a year in the lives of the groundbreaking women (including 17-year old Claressa Shields) who fought for a chance to go to London for the first-ever Olympics to include women's boxing. 

Claressa Shields of Flint, Mich., made history on Thursday when she won Olympic gold in the boxing ring. She beat Russia's Nadezda Torlopova for the top spot on the podium in the Women’s Middleweight final.