Despite Americans' statistical lack of enthusiasm for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Green Party still has little chance of getting nominee Jill Stein into the White House. But another kind of green ispoised to have a big election day this year: recreational marijuana. 

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.

As voters go to the polls this November, at least four states will consider ballot questions on marijuana legalization. Pending proposals in Nevada, Maine and California would authorize recreational marijuana use, while Floridians will vote on whether to allow medical marijuana use.

This is going to be a transformative year for the United States. Not only are we set to vote in a new president for the first time in eight years this November, but we could also see the most rapid expansion of marijuana ever, with eight states now set to vote on recreational or medical cannabis initiatives or amendments this fall.

What's at stake

The expansion of the cannabis industry was initially put in motion 20 years ago when California approved a compassionate use law for medical marijuana. Today, half of all U.S. states have approved a medical marijuana law. The two most recent approvals came from Pennsylvania and Ohio, which used the legislative process to pass medical cannabis laws.

Acceptance of marijuana seems to have reached a tipping point in the United States. Four states and the District of Columbia have already legalized it, half the states have medical marijuana laws now (two-thirds if you count the CBD-only states), and as many as a half dozen states, including California, could vote on legalization in November.

Public opinion polls now consistently report majority support for legalization nationwide, and pot is increasingly moving from newspapers' crime pages to the finance and culture sections.

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap announced June 27 that the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol will appear on the state ballot as Question 1. Historically, the first measure on a ballot gets more votes and has a higher chance of passage.

The final wording of the ballot question reads, “Do you want to allow the possession and use of marijuana under state law by persons who are at least 21 years of age, and allow the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance?”

The debate over whether to legalize recreational marijuana in Maine took center stage at an event that bills itself as New England’s largest cannabis trade show.

Home Grown Maine 2016, a major event for growers, vendors and patients of medical marijuana, took place at the Augusta Civic Center in Maine’s capital city on June 4-5, 2016. The trade show happened about five months before residents will vote on whether to make recreational use of marijuana legal in the state.

David Boyer, a Portland activist from the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said his group set up a table at the event and attempt to use the weekend to enlist campaigners at the show.

Reportedly the largest such show in New England, attendees received advice on advocating for the drug, growing and handling legal issues.

Medical marijuana advocates, some of whom say it is the only thing that stops their children’s seizures or credit it with making their own lives better by allowing them to stop taking harder pharmaceutical drugs, urged their fellow patients and caregivers at a medical marijuana trade show Sunday to stand up for their rights and fight against the stigma of their medicine.

Marijuana legalization has been growing like a weed for the past two decades, but 2016 could prove to be its most monumental year yet. Although marijuana has gained 24 state approvals for medicinal use, and four states have legalized its recreational use, we could see up to 12 separate approvals for the currently illicit drug in November.

This expansion is especially important because current President Barack Obama has suggested that the best way to get the attention of Congress is to continue legalizing the drug at the state level. Doing so would eventually force lawmakers to reconsider the federal government's current Schedule 1 stance on the drug.

A group dedicated to keeping marijuana illegal has launched an effort to convince city councils across the country to actively oppose measures to end cannabis prohibition that are expected to appear on at least five state ballots this November.