While Woody Harrelson isn’t known for holding his tongue, the actor’s courtroom antics at a marijuana cultivation trial in May would have made even Larry Flynt blush. While testifying on behalf of B.E. Smith—a defendant in California’s first marijuana trial since voters legalized its medical use in 1996—Harrelson took pot shots at the judge. “How do you sleep at night?” the eco-activist snarled, angry that the court would not allow Smith to levy medicinal benefits against cultivation charges. (Smith testified that smoking pot successfully curbed his alcoholism.) The judge warned the former Cheers star that he’d find himself behind another barin jail—if he continued to defy the court.

Harrelson wasn’t the only one up in smoke: In May, President Clinton passed guidelines easing restrictions on government-grown weed for medical research. While prior regs allowed only federal researchers to dip into Uncle Sam’s stash (grown on a farm in Mississippi), the new laws allow a pinch for anyone blessed by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Agency. At press time, NIDA had received a handful of research proposals, said spokesperson Steve Gunt.