Marijuana advocates are heading into the final weeks of the 2016 campaign with the wind at their backs as the latest polling shows legalization measures currently favored by voters in all five states where they're on the ballot.

This is something of a reversal from just a month ago, when the most recent polling had shown voters wary of legalization measures in Massachusetts and Arizona. But the margins of support aren't huge in any state, meaning that the contests could still swing either way.

Police in the Niagara Region say Health Canada medical marijuana licences are being used to hide illegal grow-ops, after 18 people were arrested and more than 4,000 plants seized in three raids.

Niagara Regional Police investigated over the past 13 months and executed three search warrants at 1651 Lakeshore Road in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Eighteen people were arrested and 4,015 marijuana plants seized, after police said the grow-ops were using their Health Canada issued licence to hide thousands of illegal plants.

The most recent raid occurred on Monday and police said the suspects arrested were “shrouding their criminal activities” by using legal medical marijuana licences to “over produce.”

All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground.

Margaret Holcomb said she was growing the plant as medicine, a way to ease arthritis and glaucoma and help her sleep at night. Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21.

In a joint raid, the Massachusetts National Guard and State Police entered her yard and cut down the solitary plant in what her son, Tim Holcomb, said was a “pretty shocking” action — one that he argues constitutes unlawful surveillance and illegal search and seizure.

If you vote in Massachusetts, you've probably had a least one debate with a friend this year about whether the state should allow marijuana for recreational use.

But have you looked at the mechanics of the legal marijuana industry that ballot Question 4 would create? We've summarized key elements, in case you don't have time to read all 24 pages of the proposed act before voting on Nov. 8.

Here's a list, beginning with broad and general items and moving into details. If we've missed something you think is interesting or critical, let us know!

Prohibition The ban on cannabis was supposed to protect society from the threats of murder, mayhem, addiction, and full-scale collapse that were trumpeted by everyone from politicians to Parent Teacher Associations. Nearly a century later, its illegality has caused the very problems it was intended to solve. So who benefits from cannabis prohibition really?

Colorado voters approved a constitutional amendment in November 2012, making it the first American state to legalize recreational marijuana. Since January 2014, when the residents began legally buying marijuana, a billion–dollar–a–year legal marijuana industry has emerged (expected to surpass $1 billion in sales by November 2016).

Did legalization cause marijuana abuse to skyrocket? Or did marijuana legalization actually work? The just-released Colorado Department of Public Safety report shows how legalizing recreational marijuana has affected Colorado. Here’re the key findings:

Former prisons minister and Tory MP Crispin Blunt has said the best way to move ahead with more progressive drugs legislation would be to initiate a Royal Commission on the matter. 

Blunt told a fringe event about cannabis legalisation at the Conservative party conference last night that doing so would take the debate about changing drugs policy, which includes areas such as medicinal cannabis, "out of the purely political sphere". 

The Conservative party does not currently support the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis for medical or recreational use.

Blunt, who revealed in January he had used the legal high poppers, has said he is in favour of decriminalising cannabis.

Medical marijuana advocates have a new ally ― and he’s tweeting his support to a massive audience.

Justin Bieber criticized pharmaceutical companies on Twitter Sunday to raise awareness of the industry’s attempts to block medical marijuana legislation.

Drivers in Ontario who get caught high on drugs can now temporarily lose their driver’s licenses on the spot, courtesy of a new law that went into effect October 2.

If a motorist fails a roadside sobriety test due to drug consumption, they will lose their license for three days – the same consequence for drunk driving. The motorist also has to pay a $180 license reinstatement fee to the provincial government.

"It's great because we now have more tools for us to do our job," Sgt. Kerry Schmidt, spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police, Highway Safety Division, told CBC News.