Thursday morning, the government of Canada announced that it has created a task force that will be charged with developing a framework for legalizing recreational marijuana nationwide.

The move marks a “crucial step” in the legalization process, Rafik Souccar, a top law enforcement official on the Canadian task force, said in a press conference.

Legalizing recreational marijuana was a main part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s campaign platform, and his government has repeatedly signaled that it would be making a move toward legalization in the coming years.

When Ohio's medical marijuana law takes effect Sept. 8, people can possess and use the drug without going to jail.

But the new law doesn't specify where people can get marijuana. 

Lawmakers have said that until the state's dispensaries are set up, residents can travel to Michigan or another legal state and bring marijuana back. But legal experts say doing so would violate state and federal laws, as well as a key provision of the federal government's hands-off approach to regulating state medical marijuana programs. 

So most people will likely buy marijuana through Ohio's existing black market.

Here's why.

Strings attached 

This Tuesday, the organizers of a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in California had their petitionscertified, meaning Californians will vote in November on the question. Even though a legalization measure failed at the ballot in 2010, this one is almost sure to succeed (polls have shown support at around 60 percent), adding 39 million Americans to the still-modest number who live in states where pot is legal.

Rumor has it that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plans to legalize marijuana any day now. Rumor also has it that Barack Obama is secretly a foreign-born Muslim and that the CIA had a hand in the attack that brought down the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, that first claim is about as likely to be true as the other two.

These are the states that have legalized marijuana in some form—and those voting soon.

Colorado’s legal marijuana sales grew more than 40% tonearly $1 billion in 2015, creating $135 in revenue from taxes and fees that the state put toward school construction and other public projects. But, as Fortune reported, an increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits and the persistent black market has dampened some public support for legal pot in Colorado.

The decision by Washington voters to legalize marijuana as medicine took root in the fall of 1998 — the season when Initiative 692 became law. 

That makes the state’s experiment with legal medical marijuana almost 18 years old, a tumultuous age for humans and, as it turns out, an industry being forced to go legit as the state folds medical pot into the regulated system for recreational marijuana Friday. 

The pot dispensaries and the green crosses that marked many of those stores are going away as the state works to regulate the dispensaries’ share of the market — a market variously described by its detractors as “gray” and having the traits of “the wild West.” 

The next time you want to get something completely off your chest, use the Jake Plummer scale of honesty. If your words don't measure up to the words the former Broncos and Cardinals quarterback used to talk about the NFL and Jerry Jones, then you're not doing it right.

Speaking with BSN Denver, Plummer (wait for it) EVISCERATED the league for its marijuana ban and the Cowboys' owner for his CTE stance. He even called Jones a "billionaire a--hole."

Advocates for legalizing marijuana in Arizona say they will file more than 260,000 petition signatures Thursday with the secretary of state. That total is at least 100,000 more than is needed to qualify for a statewide vote in November.

The Arizona marijuana initiative -- officially known as the "Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act" -- would treat pot much the same way as alcohol. 

Under the initiative:

- The sale of marijuana and related products like edibles would start March 1, 2018, to people 21 and older.

- Individuals could possess and use one ounce or less of marijuana and possess up to six marijuana plants.

- Marijuana buyers and business would pay new taxes and fees to state, county and local governments.

Just four years after Washington and Colorado led in legalizing recreational uses of marijuana, the pot train has left the station.

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia allow legal marijuana access in some form, with legislatures in Ohio and Pennsylvania approving medical marijuana in 2016. Full legalization measures are polling well in California and Nevada. Nationwide, a majority of Americans now support tossing out the drug-war ban on cannabis.

But Congress hasn’t gotten on board. Despite small tweaks in the law and promising cracks in the prohibition regime, leadership in the Republican-controlled U.S. House have again blocked meaningful changes needed to facilitate the state-level experiment on marijuana.

A board for the Democratic National Committee approved a proposal that will allow the Democratic Party to include marijuana reform in its official 2016 platform.

This come despite anti-pot commentary made earlier this year by DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz suggesting that the United States should avoid marijuana legalization, like the plague, because it would provide citizens with a gateway to addiction.