The United States is gradually becoming the land of the red, white, and green.

After a historic election cycle, which saw four states pass ballot initiatives legalizing nonmedical marijuana, one in five Americansnow live in a state where it's legal to smoke weed without a doctor's letter.

The industry is on track to post $20.2 billion in sales by 2021.

Here's a summary of where Americans can light up legally so far in 2017.

Colorado’s top marijuana regulators are starting a private consulting business.

The marijuana coordinator for Gov. John Hickenlooper and the head of the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division say they are leaving state government to offer their services to other clients.

Andrew Freedman was tapped by Hickenlooper to coordinate administrative agencies that oversee marijuana, from the state Health Department to the Department of Agriculture.

Lewis Koski (COSS-kee) is head of the Marijuana Enforcement Division, which collects pot taxes and regulates companies that grow and sell it.

European cannabis consumers, patients, and activists are watching with a bit of envy as legalization in the United States moves beyond Colorado and Washington to other states, from California in the west to Massachusetts in the east. Mainstream media in Europe now routinely report that hundreds of millions of dollars are being collected annually in each state in “weed taxes” and how legalization has created jobs, reduced prison occupancy, and led to capital improvements at schools, parks, and community centers.

A study out of the University of California, Davis has provided new insights into how marijuana legalization affects teenagers' perceptions and use of the drug.

Researchers found that among Grade 8 and 10 students in Washington State, marijuana use increased after the drug was legalized. 

Attitudes were also affected. The study's findings showed teenagers were less concerned about the harms associated with marijuana after the law changed.

Results varied among slightly older students. Among Grade 12 students, no shift in attitude or use was reported.

In Colorado, where marijuana was legalized in 2012, the study's results were also different. Researchers found no change in attitude or use of marijuana after legalization — for any age group.

Some marijuana users in Colorado are experiencing a mysterious illness. 

And while it hasn't reached California It could eventually make its way here.  

Recreational use of the drug has been legal in Colorado for three years.

And its use for medical purposes has been allowed for even longer. 

But one emergency room doctor says he's seeing an increase of patients with specific cannabis-related symptoms such as recurring nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps. 

He believes it occurs among those who consume large amounts of the drug. 

Doctors say moderation is key when it comes to marijuana use. 

Dispensary owners agree and say if taken correctly marijuana can help relieve medical conditions such as seizures and pain management. 

You could call it the year of the cannabis consumer: retailers finally focus on UX, celebrities cater to enthusiasts, media outlets clamor for attention and a more refined world of edibles and concentrates has emerged.

Just over half the states in the union (and the District of Columbia) now have some form of decriminalized cannabis. But for medical marijuana patients living in a state not yet on that list, getting the medicine they need often means crossing state lines in violation of federal law. That’s exactly what one GOP lawmaker did to treat his cancer — and he says he’d do it again.

In 2014, CNN found at least 100 families in Colorado who had essentially “fled” there in order to ensure a regular supply of medical marijuana for a sick family member.

The first state to legalize recreational marijuana use is on track to see total sales top $2 billion by 2020. Colorado’s medical marijuana sales for this year are projected at $438 million, and recreational sales are forecast to reach $739 million. By 2020, medical cannabis sales are forecast to reach $663 million and recreational sales are expected to hit $1.34 billion.

Massachusetts, where voters last month chose to add recreational sales to already legal medical sales, is forecast to post sales of $1.07 billion in 2020, up from just $52 million in estimated medical cannabis sales in 2016.

The data were reported Wednesday by New Frontier Data and Arcview Market Research in separate reports on the cannabis markets in Colorado and Massachusetts.

Even in Colorado, breeding hemp means grappling with all sorts of legal red tape. One plant biologist hopes to beat the odds.

Bear Reel cuts a tiny gure on the vast Colorado plains, but she lives up to her name in ferocity of spirit. She has to. The 34-year-old occupies a decidedly unorthodox niche: a 21st-century scientist breeding new varieties of an ancient plant that’s also a controlled substance.

Scale-out and tape firm knows how to adapt.

Analysis Pot plant cams in a Colorado marijuana farm feeding Quantum’s StorNext multi-tiered and scale-out, file virtualisation and data services software with surveillance camera footage show the substantial market changes to which Quantum is having to adapt.

CEO Jon Gacek told a visiting press crew in December: “I feel like the captain of a small boat in a rough sea.” His company has navigated the rough seas of the tape-based data protection market downturn when it had an ocean of debt from buying ADIC, and when the nirvana of a vastly profitable deduplicating disk backup market was hijacked by Dell EMC’s Data Domain unit.