Catherine Hiller, author of "Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir," at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where she believes she first smoked marijuana in the 1960s. April 12, 2015 Side Street By DAVID GONZALEZ

As much as Catherine Hiller refuses to admit it, marijuana is a gateway drug. Seriously, after smoking more or less every day for the past 50 years, there had to be some consequences. Yet, she did not go to jail after a random police stop. She did not end up strung out on heroin, sprawled in an alley. She didn’t even binge-munch herself into obesity.

Her daily puffs led her to write a book, “Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir.”

Marijuana legalization may not be a top priority of Congress or President Obama, but the American public is certainly doing its best to make it apparent that marijuana is an important issue.

We've seen a complete transformation of the American public's opinion of marijuana and even individual state law over the past two decades. What once was an illegal substance in all 50 states is now legal from the aspect of medical purposes in 23 states, and legal from a recreational, adult-use standpoint in four states.

Nearly 80 years since the United States effectively declared marijuana an illegal drug, support for legalization is spreading like a weed.

In the past three years, voters in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia have voted to allow the recreational use of pot.

This year, Ohio voters will likely be asked to join the cannabis cavalcade.

That proposal, generated by a group calling itself ResponsibleOhio, is well into the signature-gathering process. Given its resources, estimated at more than $40 million, gathering signatures will likely not be its hardest task.

The ResponsibleOhio plan would allow adults 21 and older to possess an ounce of pot and grow up to four plants.

Marijuana-infused cookies sit on the packaging table at The Growing Kitchen in Boulder on Sept. 26, 2014. (Brennan Linsley, Associated Press file)

As a grandmother and long-time child advocate, I am appalled by the increasing availability of edible marijuana products to children.

Why? Because it is so easy for kids to ingest them accidentally.

Unmarked marijuana edibles are showing up everywhere, warns Smart Colorado, a youth advocacy group focused on protecting kids from marijuana.

Weren’t public schools supposed to benefit from taxes levied on marijuana sales? When and how will that happen?

As with most government-related questions, the answers are more complex than a yes or no. But several varieties of marijuana taxes are being collected, and schools are seeing some benefits. Those benefits are growing as the nascent industry expands and as more local governments open the doors to recreational marijuana outlets within their borders.

In fiscal year 2013-14, the state collected nearly $15 million in marijuana-related taxes and fees. The bulk of that money came from retail sales taxes and went into the state’s general fund, where it was mostly allocated to substance-abuse research, prevention and treatment.

Portland, Ore.— The legalization of marijuana is already beginning to reshape the economy in Oregon. Entrepreneurs are looking for ways to profit from products and services that support this new industry.

"Every day my scale, my business plan is constantly changing because I'm realizing the opportunity is much larger than I would have imagined," said Noah Stokes, founder and C.E.O. of OmniGuard Security.

Stokes has expanded his existing company by opening a new division 'CannaGuard Security' that specializes in protecting legal marijuana operations.

"In the industry, if you talk to anybody who grows, has been growing or is currently growing, they've all been robbed," said Stokes.

The House and Senate budget proposals would divert marijuana taxes to the general fund instead of to non-profit community health centers that serve the uninsured.

A key part of Washington state's recreational marijuana initiative I-502 is a tax on legal marijuana. Five percent of that tax was meant to fund the state's cash-strapped community health centers.

But neither the Senate Republicans nor House Democrats have called for that in their budgets, which were revealed at the end of March.

A concerning trend: More calls are coming into the Washington Poison Center about marijuana. But are more people being exposed or are people just more willing to call?

The Washington Poison Center reports more marijuana exposures during the first three months of 2015 than it did in the same period last year.

Through March this year, 72 exposures were reported to the Poison Center compared with 54 during the same period in 2014. Last year, a total of 245 exposures were recorded. Exposures reported include calls from the public as well as healthcare professionals.

Since marijuana was legalized, the number of exposures has grown, according to the center’s data.

DENVER, COLORADO -- Andrew Freedman, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's point person on marijuana policy, recently sat down with The Oregonian/OregonLive to talk about the lessons Colorado offers Oregon and other states grappling with how to regulate marijuana.

Freedman, a Harvard educated lawyer, talked about how the state has confronted challenges posed by the fast-growing marijuana-infused edibles industry, which last year accounted for about 45 percent of sales in the recreational market.

Here are five takeaways from the interview:

What constitutes a serving of marijuana? What's the effect of marijuana on breastfed infants, pregnant women, children and teens? How should Oregon address marijuana use among teens?

A new Oregon Health Authority  committee hopes to take up such public health questions as the state drafts rules for a new regulated marijuana industry that's set to launch next year. The agency plans to convene a Marijuana Scientific Advisory Committee to lend expertise to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the agency charged with regulating recreational cannabis.