It's known as Mary Jane, ganja, Chronic and even the sticky icky and has been featured in countless movies, including one that warned of its dangers, "Reefer Madness."

Now, marijuana is the subject of a contemporary history and science exhibit.

"Altered State: Marijuana in California," a one-of-its-kind museum exhibition focusing on the topic, is open through the summer at the Oakland Museum of California.

The night Dahlia Mertens first dropped some marijuana leaves in her bath was a revelation. “I couldn’t believe how relaxed it made me feel,” Mertens says. Soon after she created her signature "hash bath" mixture. “It’s essentially a big tea bag of cannabis mixed with lavender, chamomile and peppermint and some bath salts,” Mertens explains.

The “hash bath” is part of Mertens’ Colorado-based Mary Jane’s Medicinals topical product line, which she founded in 2010. Mertens currently works with a growing number of Los Angeles dispensaries that offer her non-psychoactive, marijuana-infused massage oil, lip balms, salve and bath products.

List of commercial registrants could top 700.

A last-day change in the application process that allowed people registering cannabis farms to turn in their paperwork and have it stamped by county workers for review at a later time relieved an anticipated crush of people trying to beat the deadline at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Calaveras County Planning Director Peter Maurer was clearly relieved when his wristwatch passed the 4 p.m. mark. He said there appeared to be more than 700 applications, but said 25 percent of those might fail to pass muster.

Bend processors say they cannot keep up with demand.

The whir and hum of pumps provided background music in a warren of small rooms in a second-floor, nondescript section of an industrial building in northeast Bend. 

That music was money being made, in the form of oil extracted from marijuana flowers and leaves, and infused into edibles like gel candies, or baked into macaroons, or, in a solid form, dusted onto nuts and pretzels. 

Cameron Yee, owner of Lunchbox Alchemy, said that since food, beverages, extracts and topical applications infused with THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, became available to all Oregon adults in June, his firm can barely keep up with demand. 

The only licensed marijuana producer in New Brunswick says the number of legal growing operations in the country will need to increase before they can haldne the demand expected from recreational users legally purchasing pot.

Denis Arsenault of Moncton’s OrganiGram, the first licensed marijuana grower in Atlantic Canada, believes federal legislation allowing widespread sale could come before the end of 2017, but the just over two dozen legal producers country-wide would have trouble providing enough of the plant to go around.

At the crux of the legalization movement, there are few better ways to celebrate freedom than with cannabis because for the first time since the 1930s, cannabis is legal in some capacity in more than half of the United States. As such, we teamed up with local hotshot bartender Nick McCleery to create three red, white, and blue canna-cocktails for the 4th. 

In July, Italy's parliament will begin debating historic changes to cannabis laws that could see the drug legalized.

On July 25th, the draft legislation will be presented in Italy's lower house for the first time. The following day, politicians will begin voting on whether or not to send the bill through to the upper house for final approval.

If new laws are passed, how will things change?

Obviously, the proposals being debated will probably undergo some amendments if they are to make it into law. However, in their current form proposals would allow:

Possession: Citizens will be able to hold up to 15 grams of herb at home and take up to five grams with them when they go out and about.

Liberal government hopes to introduce legislation to legalize marijuana in 2017.

Canada is lurching toward marijuana legalization, but the Liberals aren't being blunt about what the new law will mean for the average pot-friendly Canadian.

Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould announced on Thursday the launch of a task force to advise the Canadian government on how best to map its plan to legalize marijuana.

The task force report could give us a better sense of what the Liberals' law will look like. Still, the panel is just offering recommendations and the Liberals could always take another route.

What we know

When are we going to see new laws around marijuana in Canada?

High hopes among cannabis activists for an interim measure to decriminalize pot also goes up in smoke before serious work on legalization has begun.

With the feds scheduling a pot announcement on the day before the Canada Day long weekend, there were high hopes among cannabis activists. Last time the government made a major announcement on marijuana, it chose 420 as the date.

There is no guarantee California will vote to legalize recreational marijuana in November, but political operative and father of four Daniel Conway has already staked his future on it.

Conway left his job as chief of staff to Sacramento's celebrity mayor, former Phoenix Suns NBA basketball star Kevin Johnson, to help start the marijuana investment company Truth Enterprises.

He is one of hundreds in the most populous U.S. state already pushing ahead with plans to enter a market experts say will be worth $4 billion by 2020.

"I'm someone of an age and of a demographic that sees the legalization and normalization of marijuana as inevitable," said Conway, 35. "This was a chance not just to build companies but to build an industry."