Pot is everywhere in Miami. Its scent wafts from bus stops, floats through open windows, and cascades out from under lifeguard stands on the beach at night. Spend more than a week here and you will, at least once, wonder if the server delivering you overpriced cocktails is stoned out of his mind. 

Which is why it's so surprising that, according to one of the most respected marijuana-usage surveys in America, roughly half the residents in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties think smoking weed once a month is "harmful" and should be avoided. That's the highest rate in the nation.

Since the Compassionate Use Act was passed by the Florida Legislature in 2014, patients and their advocates have eagerly awaited the opportunity to see if medical marijuana could provide relief for a handful of symptoms covered by the legislation.

Media coverage has reported on the progress made at the Department of Health, Office of Compassionate Use, and the nurseries licensed to grow and dispense medical marijuana.

Now that we know the medicine is here, it matters little where the dispensaries are located, or how scientific the process of growing medical marijuana is, or who is still challenging the DOH, OCU for not being awarded a dispensary license.

Florida loves Publix, the supermarket chain routinely ranked the most valuable and beloved company in the whole state thanks in no small part to its fantastically salty sub sandwiches. So it's sure to jar a few hard-core Publix fans to learn that the family that founded the chain just donated $800,000 to a conservative-led campaign fighting medical marijuana legalization.

The Sunshine State has finally warmed up to the idea of medical marijuana.

As someone who lived in the state of Florida for almost half of his entire life, I can tell you from personal experience that the fight against marijuana prohibition has been long-fought and met with serious opposition. But, this week, the Sunshine State will finally take the leap towards legalizing medicinal use of cannabis. On Tuesday, Trulieve, one of the six Florida medical cannabis licensees thus far, will officially open the first-ever dispensary in the state, marking a major moment in the state’s fight to medicinally legalize the use of marijuana.

The first organization authorized to dispense medical marijuana in Florida has made its first home delivery.

Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, said Saturday that the company has delivered low-THC medical cannabis to a patient in Hudson, Florida, who is suffering from dystonia, a condition characterized by chronic muscle spasms and seizures. Hudson is in Pasco County, near Tampa.

Trulieve and Hackney Nursery, which is the dispensing organization for Northwest Florida, received processing and dispensing authorization from the state Department of Health on Tuesday. Trulieve plans to begin in-store sales at a dispensary in Tallahassee on Tuesday.

Florida is all set to launch its limited medical marijuana market. It will start selling medicinal cannabis but only company has been approved to dispense it. Marijuana investors are however divided in their opinion on whether this is the right time to invest in the state’s emerging cannabis industry.

“We're not talking about having a dispensary on every street corner. It is still a very controlled, closely tailored and very heavily regulated structure,” an attorney who leads the regulated products practice at the Florida law firm of GrayRobinson, Richard Blau, told CNBC.

This year, 2016, is shaping up to be a milestone for the cannabis industry, with its legal branches (both medical and recreational) continuing to show growing demand and increased revenues.

Just last year alone, market estimates for legal cannabis sales, including both medical and recreational (adult use only), were pegged at $4.4 billion. For 2016, estimates, according to the Ackrell Capital U.S. Canabis Investment Report 2016, show a 30 percent increase, to $5.7 billion, as the industry matures and new markets like Oregon open up.

More than two years after being approved by Florida's Legislature, medical marijuana is expected to be available in the state by the end of next week.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health informed Trulieve and Hackney Nursery that they have received authorization to process and dispense low-THC cannabis. The Gadsden County nursery in Northwest Florida is the first of the six dispensing organizations to receive processing authorization.

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said they will be able to begin statewide delivery almost immediately and intend to begin sales at a dispensary facility in Tallahassee on Tuesday.

Florida’s first legal harvest of marijuana is stored in multiple vacuum-packed, 441-gram bags in a freezer on the outskirts of Tallahassee.

Each is the result of months of careful growing, monitoring, coaxing, and finally cultivating, scores of plants in a hidden farm overseen by horticulturalists and protected by armed guards.

This is one of two production facilities operated by Surterra Therapeutics, the first of six companies to win state approval to grow and harvest medical marijuana for the seriously ill and dying.

It is part pharmaceutical production facility, part grow house. Its operators say it is just the start of new business they hope will bring high-quality, and formerly unavailable, medicine to patients who need it the most.

With interest in topics like “marijuana” and “cannabis” hitting all-time high levels according to Google Trends, nine states in the U.S. will vote on marijuana measures in the world’s most important general election Nov. 8, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

Voters in California, Florida, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona, and Arkansas will definitely be casting a ballot to affect cannabis policy in their state. Voters in Missouri, Montana, and North Dakota have submitted signatures to place marijuana proposals on the ballot, while Oklahoma has cleared to circulate a last-minute measure.