In 2012, Colorado became one of the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Four years later, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — who initially criticized the move as "reckless" — has changed his tune.

Though Hickenlooper remains skeptical about the long-term impact of legalization and encourages states to compile data on the pros and cons of marijuana reform, he acknowledges that many of the concerns expressed by opponents have not come to fruition.

November 8th is almost here (Thank you, Baby Jesus!) and Donald Trump still has a puncher’s chance of winning the presidency over Hillary Clinton. I have seen some legalization supporters post online about how Donald Trump would be good for the legalization movement, but I beg to differ. If cannabis legalization and greater civil liberty issues are important to you, then I argue that Donald Trump is the worst candidate available. If you are in a swing state, I urge a vote for Hillary Clinton.

Never mind Clinton vs. Trump: Millions of Americans can expect to wake up Wednesday and indulge in a soothing palliative to take the edge off the results of a contentious presidential election.

On Tuesday, five states will decide whether to join Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, DC, in legalizing marijuana for “adult recreational“ use.

Polling in California, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts and Maine shows that, while legalization is slightly favored by voters, the margins are very close.

Taken together, a successful outcome for these ballot measures could add $4.2 billion to legal marijuana retail revenues by 2018, on top of the $6.5 billion projected for the current year, according to Matt Karnes of GreenWave Advisors.

Before Chanda Macias drops her 6-year-old son off at school, she spritzes some Febreze on herself. If anyone sniffs a trace of marijuana on her, the mother of four worries she would be labelled an unfit parent — or at least a mother unfit to host play dates.

Macias, a former cell biology specialist at Howard University, left her job last year to foray into Washington, D.C.’s nascent pot industry and open a medical marijuana dispensary. Her business is legal, but the stigma has her questioning how to discuss her profession with her children.

In the male-dominated industry, there are few mothers she can turn to. Macias connected with other moms in the local marijuana business, forming a support group to navigate child-rearing in the murky age of legalization.

Californians are expected to pass a ballot measure on Election Day legalizing recreational marijuana, and the prospect has cities and counties seeing dollar signs.

Proposition 64 would impose state taxes on the cultivation and sale of marijuana. But it also allows local jurisdictions to add taxes of their own, something many cities and counties said they plan to do.

Economists warn that burdensome taxes and fees on the nascent industry could backfire, fueling the black market and pushing marijuana businesses to decamp for towns where it’s cheaper to operate. For many city and county officials across California, however, the promise of new revenue to fill budget gaps and fund services is too alluring to pass up.

Legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is a big step, and it’s natural that some Nevada voters would be concerned about taking it.

But it’s a move that makes sense when marijuana is placed in the same context as alcohol.

Like marijuana, alcohol has been subject to a ban. But Prohibition didn’t work, so Americans undid it with the 21st Amendment in 1933 and began regulating alcohol again.

Eight decades later, the War on Drugs has been as ineffective at eradicating marijuana as Prohibition was for alcohol. Surveys and studies show that at least 30 million Americans use the drug, and the percentage of adults users has only grown in the last decade.

As cannabis wafts back into mainstream America on growing winds of legal change, a west coast company says it has reached a technological milestone that is quickly becoming crucial to the justice system: a device police can use to detect recent marijuana use—and the amount consumed—in the air a driver exhales.

But don’t hold your breath.

A ban on the sale of marijuana passed in San Jose, California on Tuesday. The actions come as election-day voting on Proposition 64 approaches.

The city’s urgency ordinance “would prohibit commercial use of non-medical marijuana in the city, including commercial cultivating processing, manufacturing, distributing, testing and selling of recreational weed,” according to the Mercury News.

San Jose is only the latest in a run of California cities quickly passing restrictive marijuana laws. Bans are also in place in Berkeley, Palo Alto, Campbell, Foster City, Hayward, Davis, Martinez and more.