Pot smokers in the US can't get off scot free, since many will now have to take it on the chin and pay a steep marijuana penalty -- to sign up with life insurers, that is.

Marijuana indulgence, recreational or medicinal, is sharply raising the price of some premiums, with certain issuers making the same risk assumptions for pot smokers as cigarette smokers.

The cost of a 20-year, $1 million life insurance policy, for example, can be as much as five times higher for a pot smoker compared with a clean-living nonsmoker, according to one broker.

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