She is 77 years old and best known for dispensing advice on such vital matters as how to tidy up a linen closet or make the perfect cheesy vegetable frittata.

Now Martha Stewart is branching out into the marijuana business, as America's most celebrated domestic goddess teams up with a Canadian cannabis business, Canopy Growth Corporation.

In perhaps the most eye-catching demonstration of how cannabis has entered the mainstream, Ms Stewart will help the company develop an array of products for humans and animals.

Recreational use of cannabis is now legal in 10 states in the US and four others – New Jersey, Utah, New Mexico and Missouri – are likely to join their ranks in the foreseeable future.

According to one study, as many as 55 million people – roughly 17 per cent of the US population – are regular cannabis users.

Ms Stewart is hardly the only establishment figure to have embraced the relentless march of legalised pot.

John Boehner, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, has joined the board of Acreage Holdings, a multi-state cannabis business, and has said he opposes jailing people for possession of small amounts of pot.

Ms Stewart's route into the marijuana industry has been unconventional.

She has been co-hosting a show with Snoop Dogg, who memorably admits to having smoked pot in front of the White House and launched his own line of cannabis products in 2015.

Ms Stewart had been approached by a number of cannabis-linked companies who believed that her imprimatur would underline marijuana's new-found respectability.

"I've been asked to design recipes and even ointments, healthy ointments for humans as well as for animals like cats and dogs," she told The Hollywood Reporter.

"I've had two companies recently in my office bringing in very interesting ointments, rubs and massage creams."

However, it was the unlikely chemistry between the home guru and the gangsta rapper, who has been working with Canopy for some time, which seems to have done the trick.

She visited the company's headquarters in Smiths Falls, Ontario.

Bruce Linton, Canopy's chief executive, said the duo's co-operation on their show, "Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party", had an appeal to a new and broad market.

"I think it covers a whole bunch of people who will say they really must look at this. It is from the young ones who think Potluck is hilarious to people who get her magazine and say they really like her style."