After millions of out-of-state dollars and corporate interests helped legalize recreational marijuana in three states this past Tuesday, some pundits have said the debate over legalization is finished.

Actually, the debate is just beginning.

A new Congress and Administration are in Washington, and it’s unlikely they’ll be friendly to pot industry interests. You certainly won’t see Rudy Giuliani on the cover of High Times any time soon, and opponents to legalization are more emboldened than ever: Recreational marijuana lost big in purple Arizona last Tuesday, and almost two-thirds of localities in liberal Oregon with this issue on the ballot voted “no” to pot shops in their neighborhoods. 

MA voters have approved the legalization of recreational marijuana, making it the first state on the east coast to do so. As of this morning in ME, the "yes" vote leads by less than 1 point with 98% of precincts reporting.

Kevin Sabet, an ex-presidential drug policy adviser who is now leading the national anti-legalization association Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said, "We'd like [Trump] to enforce the law".

Marijuana is a drug that is so powerful it can make people hate democracy. Our latest example: the opinion columnist at The Boston Globe who has suggested “Five ways to fix the bad pot law Mass. just passed“.

Congratulations Massachusetts, we just passed one of the worst pot bills in the country.

Will Massachusetts hospitals be swamped by patients who’ve had a bad experience with pot? What about teens? Will they be more likely to use marijuana now that Massachusetts voters have approved recreational use?

With recreational marijuana set to become legal next month, concerns about the drugs’ effect on a wide swath of life have gained urgency, prompting Boston health officials Wednesday to seek guidance from their counterparts in Colorado, among the first states to legalize the drug.

The city's public health officials said Wednesday they're steeling themselves for the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts and looking for advice from their counterparts in Colorado, where marijuana has been commercially available since 2014.

Massachusetts voters signed off on legalization, through a ballot initiative, on Nov. 8. Boston voters approved Question 4 -- 62.4 percent to 37.5 percent -- even as Mayor Marty Walsh and other top officials painted dire pictures of a city colonized by pot shops.

A number of cities and towns are exploring ways to limit or even snuff out marijuana shops in their communities, less than a week after voters legalized the drug for recreational use in Massachusetts.

Some local officials worry that a profusion of marijuana stores will turn quaint New England downtowns into drug havens. Others are concerned the shops will crowd along the New Hampshire state line, luring unwanted out-of-state customers and clogging the streets with impaired drivers.

“I’m dead set against it,” said Mayor Stephen N. Zanni of Methuen, who wants to ban marijuana retailers from opening in his city, where 52 percent of local voters opposed the ballot question. “I don’t think it’s an appropriate fit here for our community.”

A pilot study hints at potential cognitive benefits to regular medical marijuana use, but the scope and scale of the study made it hard to draw definite conclusions.

On October 13 2016, the scientific journal Frontiers in Neuroscience published a pilot study that investigated the effect of regular medical marijuana use on cognitive function. According to the researchers (composed of scientists from Harvard University, Tufts University, and Mclean Hospital), this was the first study to address the effects using the same test subjects before and after medical marijuana (MMJ) use:

Over 63 million Americans now live in states where it's legal to consume recreational weed.

Americans said "yes we cannabis" on Election Day, when voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada passed ballot initiatives fully legalizing the use and possession of marijuana without a doctor's recommendation.

Hey, Arkansas, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada and North Dakota, you just adopted some new marijuana laws.

So what now?

One in five Americans can now use marijuana legally.

Seven states legalized marijuana in some form on Election Day. California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada showed up to support recreational marijuana, while Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota passed ballot initiatives legalizing medical marijuana.