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.

Canada will soon introduce legislation to legalise recreational marijuana. Pot advocates are not as happy as you might think.

The Cannabis Culture dispensary in downtown Toronto gets a steady stream of foot traffic around noon on a weekday.

But Marc Emery, who helped set up the franchise that flouts Canadian drug laws by selling pot to anyone over 19, is annoyed.

The dispensary had been raided the day before by Toronto police.

"It's the government's intention to legalise it. So why is the government still arresting people?" he asks.

Mr Emery is just one of many owners of illegal marijuana storefronts that have mushroomed in cities across Canada after the federal Liberals were elected in 2015.

As the rest of the world seems to be maturing to the idea of discussing, and even allowing, marijuana usage, popular culture might get a bit of a shock. For years it’s been fantastically used in popular culture but usually as something that’s taboo. Whilst some parts of popular culture in the past have painted marijuana as some form of devilish crime, others sell it as a blissful blaze.

So, how has recent popular culture been helping to paint the picture of pot?

Everyone is Enjoying a Smoke

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.

Not all products made from cannabidiol, a chemical compound found in marijuana, are the same—not only does the potency vary from product to product, but so too does its legality in the United States. In large part, where the CBD oil, as it’s called, is derived from makes a big difference.

The Canadian Paediatric Society is urging the federal government to take steps to protect children and youth should it follow through on its plan to legalize recreational marijuana next year.

Cannabis is hugely popular. 182m people use cannabis across the world and, with this level of exposure, the way cannabis is regulated matters. As does the evidence of risks and benefits to health which underpins regulation.

Sometimes saying nothing is as telling as saying something. Silence can suggest retaining the status quo. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been silent about the international regulatory controls on cannabis since its inception in 1935. The past 80 years have brought dramatic advances in scientific knowledge about cannabis, so it is odd that it has not provided updated advice about its legal status. 

With all the action taking place in the United States right now, it’s easy to forget that there is in fact an important cannabis scene in most nations worldwide. It may be the US that’s making the biggest news right now in terms of cannabis policy and legalization, but thousands of miles away on the other side of the world, there’s also plenty going on. Indeed, Australia isn’t usually a country to make global cannabis headlines, but there have been a couple of developments over the past few weeks which have seen Aussies hitting the front pages of countless cannabis publications.

South Tyrol (Alto Adige in Italian) is an autonomous province in Italy with a population more than 500,000. Recently, in Bolzano, the capital city of the region, the libertarians issued a motion to legalize cannabis use, however, it was rejected by the South Tyrolian State Parliament.

Now that the citizens of Nevada have decided to permit recreational marijuana both the state’s gaming licensee’s and gaming regulators need to figure out what it really means to the state’s gaming industry.

One might think – since the state has approved the use of both medical and recreational marijuana –what’s the big deal? Why not treat cannabis consumption no differently than, say, a new beer?