Next month, Greenspoon Marder is holding its “First Annual Cannabis Law and Business Conference.”

With panel discussions on finance, land use and zoning, legalization vs. decriminalization, the firm is hoping to attract 200 attorneys and so-called “Ganjapreneurs” (in practice lingo) to its Nov. 4 conference in Florida — just a few days before voters there look at a ballot initiative to legal marijuana.

Support for weed legalization in the US recently hit an all-time high, but looking at the industry, it's been a long time coming.

Sixty-percent of Americans — up from 35% in 2005 — now support legalization, according to a Gallup poll from Wednesday.

Elections aside, the marijuana industry has had an incredible run over the past two decades.

Prior to the 1996 approval of a compassionate use medical cannabis law in California, marijuana was illegal in all aspects (medical and recreational), and public support for nationwide legalization stood at just 25% per Gallup. Fast-forward to today and 25 states have legalized medical cannabis, with four states, as well as Washington D.C., legalizing the purchase of recreational marijuana for adults ages 21 and up. It's worth noting that the two most recent states to legalize medical marijuana -- Pennsylvania and Ohio -- did so entirely through the legislative process. Furthermore, public support for nationwide legalization tied an all-time high in Gallup's 2015 poll at 58%.

This past weekend, medicinal marijuana patients, business folk, and "potrepreneurs" converged at the New West Summit, San Francisco's business conference related to all things marijuana.

But there was something unusual about the event.

I didn't hear one person say the word "pot."

Or weed. Grass. Dope. Herb. Mary Jane. Ganja. 420.

Richard Branson cracked during his keynote address that entrepreneurs in the space "like to get stoned occasionally" and he would enjoy a "spliff" after his talk — maybe the only time marijuana slang was used on stage during the weekend.

Exciting news come out of California yesterday. Spark the Conversation – a nonprofit cannabis organization dedicated to changing the social stigma around cannabis consumption – leaves for a two-week California-length bus tour.

With California’s Proposition 64 on the ballot in November, the tour comes at an opportune time to discuss personal liberties and cannabis.

The bus will leave Los Angeles on October 19, run the length of California and back, and then conclude in San Francisco for an election viewing party on November 8.

Over the past few decades, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stem the flow of drugs from the Mexican border.

San Diego is on the front lines of that battle: filling in underground tunnels, taking down smuggling organizations, prosecuting corrupt border officers, freezing money-laundering operations and seizing loads of illegal drugs that come in by semi, car, person, boat and even drone.

By far, marijuana has historically been the cash crop traffickers have depended on.

Citing momentum in the medical marijuana industry, a San Diego-based real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on acquiring medical-use grow facilities has set its sights on the public market.

People in nine states, including California, Florida and Massachusetts, will vote Nov. 8 on ballot proposals permitting recreational or medical use of marijuana. These initiatives could give a big push to legalization, prompting the next president and Congress to overhaul the country’s failed drug laws.

This is a big moment for what was a fringe movement a few years ago. A Gallup poll released on Wednesday showed 60 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, up from 31 percent in 2000 and 12 percent in 1969.

Business owners are replacing idealists in the pot-legalization movement as the nascent marijuana industry creates a broad base of new donors, many of them entrepreneurs willing to spend to change drug policy.

Unlike in the past, these supporters are not limited to a few wealthy people seeking change for personal reasons. They constitute a bigger coalition of business interests. And their support provides a significant financial advantage for pro-legalization campaigns.

“It’s mainly a social-justice movement. But undoubtedly there are business interests at work, which is new in this movement,” said Kayvan Khalatbari, a one-time pot-shop owner and now head of a Denver marijuana consulting firm.

Meet the lobbyists who helped make pot respectable.

Every other Tuesday for the past several months, a group known as the “Cannabis Caucus” has gathered in the downtown offices of a leading lobbying firm to discuss, over takeout lunches, the latest political news around marijuana. Reporters aren’t allowed into the meetings, but participants acknowledge it is a testing ground for proposals on taxes, regulations, public health provisions and a slew of other details now surrounding the marijuana trade.