It may not signal a return to the Cheech and Chong days, but marijuana use has definitely staged a comeback on the big screen, drawing laughs and establishing cultural credibility among young moviegoers, Time magazine reported in its July 7 issue.

Movies by hot director Judd Apatow, including the 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and the forthcoming Pineapple Express -- named after a potent (but fictional) strain of pot -- have prominently featured marijuana. Movies and TV shows like Weeds, The Wackness, the Harold and Kumar films, and Humboldt County also have marijuana themes and stoner characters.

"I'm always a proponent for the comedy involved in people who are under the influence," said Apatow. "I just think it's fun watching anyone acting like an idiot."

"[Film star] Seth [Rogen] and I always argue whether or not [Pineapple Express] is an anti-pot movie," adds Apatow. "To me, it clearly is. Most of the film is people trying to murder these two guys, them trying not to get murdered, and it's all because they're smoking pot. Seth thinks that's too subtle."

In The Wackness, Sir Ben Kingsley plays a psychiatrist turned drug dealer. "For me, the pot was just a device," says Kingsley. "Through it we tell the lovely story of a fatherless child and childless father. And because I become his assistant in dealing with the stuff he's selling, I'm revealed to be the child."

In many films, marijuana users aren't portrayed as outsiders but rather as delayed adolescents. Ironically, portrayals of cigarette and tobacco use in films seems to be generating more protests these days than marijuana use.