The 2016 Election is not that far away, especially for campaigns. Signature deadlines vary across the country, but they will be up sooner than later. Campaigns are working very hard to get marijuana legalization on the ballot in many states, some having better chances than others of making it on the ballot. I was hopeful that over a dozen states would make the ballot in 2016, and maybe there will be some significant changes that help some states catch up. But for now, below are the states that I feel will make the ballot, and in the case of Nevada, already have made the ballot:

California

FALMOUTH — The leader of a Colorado drug-prohibition enforcement program warned Mainers on Tuesday about the implications of recreational marijuana legalization, including increases in use among youth and problems with edible marijuana products.

Thomas Gorman, a former undercover drug agent and current director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, spoke at a forum in Falmouth about the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado, marijuana commercialization, and public health and safety issues connected to legal pot use.

The company also has sizable debt but hopes for revenue from three marijuana cultivation projects as it woos the Maine tribe.

The company that hopes to land a contract with the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township to design and build a marijuana-growing operation on tribal lands is struggling to generate revenue and is carrying substantial debt, according to its latest financial filing.

Passamaquoddy officials say the facility will be used for industrial hemp production, but would not rule out a shift to medicinal and recreational marijuana cultivation as state and federal cannabis laws continue to change.

The Passamaquoddies have tried, in vain, to bring more economic opportunity and good-paying jobs to tribal members, living Down East in Maine's poorest county.

Efforts to build a casino on tribal lands have been consistently blocked at the ballot box and in the Legislature. Plans to build a $120 million wind farm have not panned out.

A Passamaquoddy leader says a letter of intent with a Colorado consultant is about hemp production, but that could change, and legal gray areas abound.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township has signed a letter of intent with a Denver-based medical marijuana management and consulting company to develop a cultivation facility on tribal land in Washington County.

Monarch America Inc. announced last week that it intends to design and manage a “state of the art” marijuana cultivation facility in an existing 35,000-square-foot building on Passamaquoddy Tribal Trust Land in Princeton, Maine.

INDIAN TOWNSHIP, Maine — Denver-based Monarch America Inc. has signed a letter of intent with the Passamaquoddy Tribe to design, construct and develop a marijuana cultivation facility on tribal land.

Monarch America President and CEO Eric Hagen said Tuesday the Passamaquoddy Tribe reached out to the company, which recently contracted for a similar facility with the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe in Moody County, South Dakota.

Wellness Connection of Maine has recalled two varieties of its medical marijuana from four of the state's dispensaries.

According to necn affiliate WCSH, the operator of the dispensaries is recalling a portion of "Blue Dream" and "LA Confidential" after finding high microbe levels during lab tests.

The company said the small group of patients impacted will be contacted by mail. WCM is offering to refund the purchase price ore replace the product. It said it has not received any reports of adverse effects related to the use of the product.

SANFORD — Eric Chipman doesn’t hide his medical marijuana use, which he says best treats the lasting effects of a severe accident he was in 40 years ago.

So, during a two-week stay at Southern Maine Health Care in Sanford, Chipman told his doctors he was rubbing a marijuana-based lotion into his skin that relieves pain better than the narcotic drugs he tries to avoid. After making that disclosure, however, Chipman was told by hospital officials he was in violation of hospital policy and must remove it from the property.

The loss of his medicine slowed Chipman’s recovery, he said, because of pain and inflexibility that makes it harder to do physical therapy sessions and gain back the strength he needs to care for himself and get in and out of his wheelchair.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said he was still practically a “child legislator” when, in 1973, he joined other lawmakers voting to make Oregon the first state where marijuana possession earned the offender a civil citation rather than a criminal record and jail time.

Blumenauer was also among a smaller group of Oregon legislators who voted – unsuccessfully – to legalize possession of two marijuana plants for personal use.

“I am told that if the 19 of us that voted for it were joined by the people who voted ‘no’ but smoked dope, Oregon would have been the first state to legalize adult use” of marijuana, Blumenauer joked Thursday as he talked in what Mainers refer to as “the original Portland” about his decades of work on marijuana issues.

1. Ohio - Ohio voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to legalize marijuana with a constitutional amendment to institute a revolutionary proposal that backers say will create a billion-dollar industry in the next four years.

Secretary of State Jon Husted said Wednesday the private investor group ResponsibleOhio had collected 320,267 signatures of registered Ohio voters, 14,676 more than necessary to qualify for the general-election ballot. ResponsibleOhio spent more than $2 million since March on the petition drive to put its proposed Marijuana Legalization Amendment before voters.