Before Election Day, San Bruno software application engineer Stephen Zyszkiewicz was busted on a charge of having cannabis with intent to sell– a felony that might have put him behind bars in state prison for three years.

But this month’s passage of Proposition 64 implies the 32-year-old is qualified for a much lowered charge– a misdemeanor that brings a maximum penality of 6 months in county jail and a $500 fine.

“I am enthusiastic. It’s the will of the voters,” stated Zyszkiewicz, who ran The Opposite of the Fence Collective, an unlicensed marijuana operation.

More than half of the United States allow marijuana use of some kind after voters in eight states passed legalization laws following the 2016 presidential election. Since then, cannabis advocates in other states have been pushing even harder for marijuana reform, and some states have already hopped on the legalization bandwagon and started considering making changes to weed laws in Texas, Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee.

Some devotees of the Our Lady of Guadalupe portrait report seeing tears miraculously appear on the 500-year-old image of the Virgin Mary.

Anne Armstrong, of West Greenwich, viewed a replica of the venerated illustration and saw marijuana blossoms adorning Mary's dress.

Her interpretation ultimately landed her behind bars.

For of all things: too much pot in her possession.

The story of the icon and how it played a role in Armstrong's arrest is now part of a federal suit she has filed claiming religious infringement by law enforcement officials and defamation by a Vermont man who has the 6-foot replica in question back in his custody.

Four more states just legalized marijuana for all adults, and more than half the states now allow pot use by people with a long list of ailments. But don't break out the Goldfish and Cheetos just yet.

That's what the Colorado governor famously said after his state and Washington became the first to legalize recreational pot in 2012.

The joke belies an important truth about the nation's evolving marijuana experiment: It's too soon to say how these experiments will turn out. States wading into legal weed are in direct defiance of federal drug law, so they're on their own when it comes to regulating a drug that had been illegal for almost a century.

A look at the top issues facing states that are moving toward legalization:

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In the days following the American presidential election, pharmaceutical stocks soared. The market’s response was more in response to Clinton’s loss than Trump’s victory—while the Democratic nominee was a vocal critic of the pharmaceutical industry, Trump’s position always seemed less clear. Nevertheless, investors have welcomed the unknown: as CNBC reports, the drug industry has gained almost ten percent since election day.

It was with a measure of surprise I received word that the Medicines Control Council (MCC) declared a desire to reschedule cannabis from a schedule 7 to schedule 6 drug this week during portfolio hearings in Parliament on the Medical Innovation Bill (MIB).

Looking at the big picture of the last apartheid laws still left in place (the 1992 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Act and the 1965 Medicines Control Act), the rescheduling of anything is a seismic step from a policy that has been enthusiastically and heavily policed for a hundred years. 

A majority of members of the ruling right-wing VVD want a change in the party’s policy towards legalised marijuana cultivation.

At the party congress this weekend, a majority of members voted to end the ‘strange situation’ in which the sale of small quantities of marijuana in licenced coffee shops throughout the Netherlands is accepted but production is not.

VVD ministers and MPs have consistently rejected calls for any form of regulated cultivation to remove the grey area between criminal growers and licenced sellers. The initiative for change came from a number of prominent members in the south of the country, where illegal marijuana cultivation is rife and drugs gang violence common.

As part of an endless flood of post-mortem election analysis, journalists and researchers recently began noticing a striking correlation between high local rates of opioid overdose deaths (and other indicators of despair and poor health) and a shift in swing state voters from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Which makes it bitterly ironic that these voters may ultimately prove responsible for unleashing the greatest threat to drug policy reform in recent history.

A law for the promotion of the cannabis chain has been approved by the Senate.

"We have finally regulated a sector that represents a great potential for our agriculture, not only from an economic point of view, but also for what concerns sustainability. We supply information to the many producers interested in this, potentially, profitable sector. Thanks to its qualities and characteristics, in fact, cannabis cultivation can reduce environmental impact," explains Minister Maurizio Martina. 

In particular, the provision identifies the varieties suitable for cultivation, as well as the sectors in which it can be employed, ranging from food, cosmetics, industry and energy, down to education and research.

The Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Congress will discuss Wednesday a bill that will allow the use of cannabis oil for medical treatments.

The initiative, if approved by the block of forces that supports the government of Mauricio Macri and a faction of the opposition, would allow the use of cannabis oil to combat diseases such as epilepsy, chronic pain and fibromialgia, among others.

The project implements the creation of a regulatory framework for medical and scientific research on the medicinal use of the cannabis plant and its derivatives.