There are some things that opponents of the marijuana regulation initiative in Massachusetts don’t want to talk about. They’re not interested in addressing how the commercial alcohol industry bankrolls their cause and fills the campaign piggy banks of elected officials. Nor will prohibitionists answer for apparent election and ethics law violations being committed by influential Question 4 (marijuana legalization) opponents, or the lies that have been used to artificially buttress their position.

Marijuana advocates are heading into the final weeks of the 2016 campaign with the wind at their backs as the latest polling shows legalization measures currently favored by voters in all five states where they're on the ballot.

This is something of a reversal from just a month ago, when the most recent polling had shown voters wary of legalization measures in Massachusetts and Arizona. But the margins of support aren't huge in any state, meaning that the contests could still swing either way.

All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground.

Margaret Holcomb said she was growing the plant as medicine, a way to ease arthritis and glaucoma and help her sleep at night. Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21.

In a joint raid, the Massachusetts National Guard and State Police entered her yard and cut down the solitary plant in what her son, Tim Holcomb, said was a “pretty shocking” action — one that he argues constitutes unlawful surveillance and illegal search and seizure.

If you vote in Massachusetts, you've probably had a least one debate with a friend this year about whether the state should allow marijuana for recreational use.

But have you looked at the mechanics of the legal marijuana industry that ballot Question 4 would create? We've summarized key elements, in case you don't have time to read all 24 pages of the proposed act before voting on Nov. 8.

Here's a list, beginning with broad and general items and moving into details. If we've missed something you think is interesting or critical, let us know!

Campaigns to legalize recreational marijuana use in Massachusetts and Maine launched their first television ads on Monday, hoping to boost public awareness and support ahead of November votes on the issue.

The ads began just over a month before Election Day, when voters in five U.S. states will determine whether to legalize the recreational use of the drug, following the lead of Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia.

The Massachusetts ads feature Tom Nolan, a former Boston Police Department officer and current professor of criminal justice at Merrimack College, advocating for legalization as a way to better regulate marijuana use.

Despite a united front of opposition from leading Beacon Hill politicians and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana in Massachusetts are striking back at critics with a new advertisement featuring a former Boston police lieutenant who is now a criminology professor.

On Monday, the advocacy group, “Yes on 4,” is scheduled to debut a television advertisement that will run on networks and cable stations in the Boston market. The $650,000 ad is the first television buy for either side of Question 4, one of the more contentious statewide referendums that voters will decide the fate of on Nov. 8.

Voters on Nov. 8 will decide ballot measures in nine states that would expand legal access to marijuana. Here's a rundown:

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RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA

In five states, the ballot measures propose to legalize recreational marijuana use for anyone 21 and over.

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When searching for America's fastest-growing industries, chances are you'll find marijuana near, or at, the top. Cannabis research firm ArcView pegged legal sales of the drug at $5.4 billion in 2015 and believes the legal industry can grow organically by 30% per year through 2020. This would bring legal sales for the industry to nearly $22 billion if this estimate were to come to fruition.

The battle over the Massachusetts ballot question that would legalize marijuana is attracting more than $100,000 from businesses that could stand to benefit from what could become a lucrative new market in the Bay State.

A vast majority of the more than $2.5 million in contributions to Yes on 4 has come from New Approach PAC, a nonprofit national political committee pushing for marijuana legalization nationwide — but at least $115,000 has been donated by existing businesses in the marijuana industry, according to a Herald review of campaign finance records.

4Front Ventures, a Boston-based consulting firm for dispensaries across the country, has donated $28,500 to Yes On 4 and its original committee, Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is in position to establish one of the lowest consumer tax rates on recreational marijuana in the country.

This November, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and over.

The initiative, Question 4, would assign a 3.75 percent excise tax on recreational marijuana products.

When combined with the state’s standard sales tax, the total tax rate for consumers would be just 10 percent.

This rate is extremely low compared to the 37 percent tax on all marijuana sales in Washington State and Oregon’s 25 percent tax on such products.