After a months-long effort to ban synthetic marijuana, spearheaded by the Empire State's very own Charles Schumer, the Senate voted today to ban the sale of fake bud.

As detailed by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco's Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal drug law does not make exceptions for disabled individuals who use pot for severe pain. Medical marijuana bans, the judges said, do not count as discrimination.

Opponents of medical marijuana tend to argue that it is dangerous and has no therapeutic qualities. We're not medical experts, so we're not going to debate the intricacies of cannabis' curative properties. But we have to wonder: Is weed really as dangerous as authorities make it out to be, since it seems a lot safer than common prescription and over-the-counter drugs?

Reichbach, you see, has battled pancreatic cancer for three and a half years. His current treatment includes high doses of chemotherapy, which leads to constant pain, nausea, insomnia, and loss of appetite. Reichbach says that cannabis is the only thing that makes him feel more comfortable, so that he can eat and sleep.

The Daily News' Ask an Expert column today has a not-too-uncommon conundrum -- sober neighbors who live next to stoner neighbors and complain about them.

An Upper West Side woman wrote in for advice on this very issue, since she can smell pot smoke in her apartment. She's trying to get pregnant, and worries about a "contact high." The woman and her husband, worried about coming across as "complete squares" want to know: "Should we narc?"

You can read the column for that answer, but we're more interested in another important question: How do you smoke pot politely in the City's close quarters?

Good, you're paying attention. As you probably know -- or knew before waking and baking -- today is 4-20.

And as you probably also know, America's pot policy sucks. Sure, in New York, possession of under 25 grams gets considered a violation -- not a criminal offense -- but don't let that give you a sense of false security. Minor marijuana arrests have boomed under Mayor Mike Bloomberg: 50,680 New Yorkers got busted for bud in 2011. As noted by the Voice's Steven Thrasher, that's "just 587 arrests before the record holding year, when the Giuliani NYPD arrested 51,267 people for pot."

So, to help you navigate these nefarious weed waters -- and legally avoid arrest -- we've put together a brief guide to your civil rights.