2015 will be remembered as the year legalization hit bumps most supporters never anticipated. For pro-health advocates that oppose marijuana legalization, it was a year of fantastic victories! Here are the top 10:

HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. -

When authorities in Warren County asked a man laying in an alley for ID, police say he handed them a wallet full of marijuana.

Hackettstown police responded to an alley in the 100 block of Main Street just after 8 p.m. Christmas for reports of an unconscious and unresponsive man, according to a news release.

There officers found Santos Vasques-Hernandez on the ground. Police say the 34-year-old was breathing and appeared to be intoxicated, when he become combative and started swinging at officers.

When police asked him for identification, Vasques-Hernandez handed officers his wallet that contained a baggy of suspected marijuana. Police also found a wooden pipe that contained suspected marijuana residue.

The end of the year is a natural time to review our progress advancing legalization over the past 12 months, and to look ahead to what we hope to achieve in the coming year.

Looking Back at 2015

Compared to our recent dramatic electoral victories in 2012 and again in 2014, 2015 was a slow year. We made some modest gains, but nothing dramatic.

During the current phase of legalization, when our victories primarily come by way of voter initiatives, we have become accustomed to expecting more progress in election years, especially presidential election years when the youth vote is highest, than in non-election years. Those basic rules still apply.

But even with that caveat, 2015 moved us forward and positioned us well for 2016.

Medical marijuana could be a big topic of discussion for state lawmakers in 2016.

Bills in the state Senate would create protections for dispensaries and people who use non-smokable forms of medical marijuana, such as baked items and oils.

Now, Democratic state Rep. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, has introduced a new bill that would ban employers from firing workers for having a medical marijuana card.

Singh says firings have become a problem in many states where medical marijuana is legal.

“We’re definitely seeing it across the country. And so therefore we know it will happen here in Michigan, if it already hasn’t,” he said.

First, kudos to the Hawaii Department of Health for publishing interim administrative rules for the state’s new medical marijuana industry weeks earlier than anticipated.

The Dec. 15 rollout gave prospective business owners nearly a month to look at how the department will regulate the industry before the license application period opens. The interim rules offer a guideline under the statute, passed last legislative session, allowing the creation of a grow-and-distribution industry for Hawaii. They will guide the first legal marketplace for the medicine since Hawaii first legalized it 15 years ago.

Harris County is Texas’ most populous county, and is the third most populous county in all of America. There are an estimated 4.337 (2013) million people in Harris County, Texas. To put that into perspective, there are less than 4 million people in the entire state of Oregon. Starting Friday, marijuana will be decriminalized for all first time offenders that are caught with up to two ounces of marijuana, per the directive of Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson.

On Jan. 4, 2016, eight new medical marijuana licenses for vendors will be announced.

This follows the state's new interim rules regulating future medical marijuana dispensaries to be built, which were released on Dec. 15. In 2000, Hawai‘i legalized medical marijuana, and patients were allowed to grow their own plants. At that time, medical dispensaries were not permitted. The eight new dispensaries will change these rules.

One of the most startling developments in recent US politics is how quickly support formarijuana legalization grew in just a few years. Ten years ago, 36 percent of Americans supported legalizing pot. Today that number is at 58 percent, according to Gallup.

By 1971, marijuana’s scent hung over most of Canada. Some 1.5 million folks had taken at least one drag on a joint. Hundreds of thousands were regularly firing up, grooving to Three Dog Night and learning from the leaked Pentagon Papers that the U.S. administration had lied about the Vietnam War.

Convictions for simple pot possession exploded: from 431 in 1967 to 5,399 in 1970 and 8,389 in 1971. More than half were against otherwise law-abiding baby boomers under 21 who would now carry criminal records along with their university degrees.