T.O.P, a member of a K-pop boy group Big Bang, has been lighting up local headlines for… well, lighting up. He is being charged by South Korean prosecutors for smoking marijuana. Many people want him punished for this “indecent” behavior — according to South Korean law, he could face up to five years in prison or pay a 50 million won (44,500 U.S. dollar) fine.

News of T.O.P.’s subsequent hospitalzation after overdosing on prescription tranquilizers didn’t win him much public sympathy. While lying in a state of severe lethargy in an intensive care unit, he was dishonorably discharged from the conscript police force.

There are very few industries that offer the growth potential of legal marijuana, which is probably why investors have flocked to marijuana stocks over the past year. Many with a market cap of $200 million or more have doubled or tripled in value.

At the heart of investors' excitement is a surge in legal sales and a change in the public's opinion toward weed.

Marijuana industry insiders say they have met with the operators of Canada's largest stock exchange to devise a policy on investing in the U.S., where growing and selling cannabis violates federal laws.

Lawyers who work with publicly traded Canadian marijuana producers say there is an unwritten rule that companies traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSX Venture Exchange are not permitted to have investments in the U.S. cannabis sector.

TMX Group — the company that operates both the TSX and Venture Exchange — is now looking to codify that policy, particularly given the uncertainty since stemming from the change in administration in the U.S., according to industry observers.

Driven by concerns over marijuana marketing to teens, state lawmakers are weighing strict rules for recreational pot advertising but entrepreneurs seeking to take advantage of legal weed say that would block them from selling their products.

A voter-approved law allows adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana in public and up to 10 ounces at home, and to grow up to a dozen plants on their property. Retail pot shops are expected to open sometime next year.

On Beacon Hill, legislative leaders are working on a raft of regulations for pot sales and use, which they say are aimed at keeping the drug out of the hands of underage users.

With little more than a week left in the legislative session, some state lawmakers and community advocates are renewing the push for legalized recreational marijuana in New York State.

Buffalo Assemblymember Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Manhattan State Senator Liz Krueger are joining with advocates organized by the Drug Policy Alliance Monday afternoon to announce reintroduction of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.

Past efforts have stalled in legislative committees. The bill would establish a legal market for marijuana in New York and tax and regulate it like alcohol.

Medical marijuana dispensaries and growing farms could begin popping up along Missouri's southern border.

Officials with the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission last week finalized details and applications for prospective growers and vendors will become available to the public on June 20.

Under Arkansas law, there can be five cultivation sites statewide; for dispensaries, the state is divided into eight zones that each can have at least four dispensaries, for a total of 32 statewide.

Northwest Arkansas — Benton, Washington, Carroll and Madison counties — is defined as one zone.

Each of those four counties voted to approve medical marijuana in November, as did the state overall, by a vote of 53 percent to 46 percent.

Governor John Hickenlooper announced on June 7 that he would send a marijuana-related bill to the Colorado Secretary of State to become law without his signature. Why the lack of endorsement?

The 2017 legislative session, also called by many the "marijuana session," just ended, and lawmakers introduced over a dozen marijuana-related bills.  Roughly a third of them are likely to become law.

Last November, voters approved recreational pot last, so during this legislative session, lawmakers scrambled to regulate the budding industry.

Dr. Bronner’s, the soap company with the eccentric on-bottle messaging, really loves cannabis.

It’s not just that they’re one of the largest U.S. consumers of hemp oil, an ingredient derived from the non-drug version of the plant. The All-One also is a longtime advocate of recreational marijuana.

And that’s why the activist personal hygiene business just planted itself amid one of the most important debates of the legal marijuana industry: Who gets to decide what’s ethical and organic when it comes to cannabis?

“I feel like we’re in a good position to be able to assist and maybe help shape some of the standards for the cannabis industry,” said Les Szabo, director of constructive capital for Dr. Bronner’s.