You would think it would be a slam dunk in the Bay State, but recent polls are making for some nail-biting. Still, this thing should win.

No matter how you slice it, there’s a stark statistical reality regarding marijuana reform in Massachusetts over the past decade: it’s undefeated at the ballot box. This includes binding state-wide initiatives that were passed by voters (decriminalization in 2008, medical marijuana in 2012), and a large number of non-binding public policy question (PPQs) that were also run in state House and Senate districts since 2000.

Nearly half of the US has already legalized marijuana for either medical or recreational use. This November, nine states could continue the trend.

Of those nine states, five have ballot initiatives that could result in legal recreational use. Most significantly, California could legalize recreational use — thus making the entire West Coast a legal enclave for recreational cannabis.

All the initiatives below will be voted on this November, alongside the presidential election. Here's everything we know:

Nurse practitioners would be allowed to certify patients for medical marijuana and dispensaries would be allowed to post product prices on their websites, under new regulations proposed by the Department of Public Health.

The changes, according to state health officials, build off of lessons learned during the first three years of experience with medical marijuana in Massachusetts.

The current set of regulations, implemented after a 2012 ballot initiative authorized the medicinal use of marijuana in the state, require potential patients to register with the state after a physician certifies they qualify for the program.

As of Aug. 31, there were 167 physicians registered with the medical marijuana program and 29,999 active patients, according to the DPH.

The central, obvious debate over marijuana policy that Massachusetts voters will decide in November is whether or not to legalize and allow companies to sell it. The factions on either side — Yes on 4, the pro-legalization campaign, and the opposition Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, which is backed by some of the state’s highest-profile politicians — have begun to present more nuanced arguments. But at its heart, the conflict boils down to the legality of toking up and the sale and taxation of pot.

There will be more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the ballot this November, voters heading to the polls in nine states will also be deciding on Marijuana.

Collectively, these marijuana measures mean more voters will be weighing in on cannabis issues than any other year in American history.

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn and his family opened Takoma Wellness Center, a medical marijuana dispensary in the District of Columbia three years ago.

The butter shortbread and oatmeal raisin cookies from Better Baked in Denver look like cookies in any supermarket. But take a few bites and you might get high. The cookies are infused with marijuana.

Beginning in October, the wholesale distributor of marijuana edibles will need to mark the bottom of the cookies, which they will do using a powdered sugar-like substance, with a diamond and the notation "THC," indicating that they contain the active ingredient in marijuana.

That is just one of the latest regulatory changes Colorado is making as its recreational marijuana industry grows and the market for edible products like pot brownies and candy has taken off.

Gallup has estimated that at least 33 million adults in the United States are marijuana users right now — although government studies say the figure stands closer to 20 million. No matter what the actual number is, the fact is that a lot of people either smoke, vape or ingest weed in the land of the free.

In an article published on Harvard Health’s site, Wynne Armand, MD, shared a look into the effects the recreational and medical use of marijuana has on our health.

Faces Human Capital Management (HCM), a leader in assisting the rapidly-evolving legal cannabis industry with its unique human resources issues, marks a double milestone this month; as it celebrates its one-year anniversary and the acquisition of its 14th client. 

"We've been working with a pioneering group of cannabis companies, who are successfully applying our management solutions to issues like HR and payroll, as well as workers' compensation and benefits," says Faces HCM co-founder and managing director Caela Bintner. "It's been exciting and rewarding to know that we're helping them make the legal marijuana industry that much more of a legitimate business sector." 

This was supposed to be the year of Pot-Palooza, when five states are set to hold ballot initiatives that would make marijuana legal for recreational users. If all passed, it would bring the number of states offering pot for sale to nine, following similar measures that passed in Colorado and Washington in 2012 and in Alaska and Oregon in 2014.

Staci Gruber vividly remembers her first hit of marijuana, back when she was in college. It made her so paranoid, she locked herself in a bathroom. She couldn’t decide whether to remain in hiding or to run. But she knew she’d never try pot again.

She didn’t lose interest in the drug, however. Today, she runs the 2-year-old Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery, or MIND, project at McLean Hospital in this suburb of Boston. With cognitive testing and neuroimaging, MIND is conducting a longitudinal study of medical marijuana.