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.

It would cost North Dakota's Health Department more than $3.5-million a year and a small army of workers to regulate medical marijuana if the issue appears on the November ballot and voters approve it, according to an analysis by the agency.

The analysis was released last week, a few hours after Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple called a special session of the North Dakota Legislature to address a $310-million shortfall to the state treasury, which may require cuts to the Health Department and other agencies.

Rilie Ray Morgan, a Fargo financial planner who is heading the effort to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, called the estimates "overblown" and an attempt to derail the effort in a budget-challenged state, a charge the agency denies.

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.

Ever wonder how your state stands up to the others in terms of marijuana tolerance? We don't mean how much your state can smoke, but how tolerant the locals are toward cannabis. The real-estate website Estately has the answer. 

Using specialized metrics, they put together rankings for all 50 states in their "Marijuana Enthusiasm Index." The criteria are: the percentage of monthly marijuana users, the average price of cannabis, the average number of marijuana-related Google searches, the legal status of marijuana and expressions of public interest (based on Facebook user data). 

Here are five interesting findings.

Voters in 20 U.S. states could potentially legalize some form of cannabis use in the November 2016 election — part of a historic backlash to the century-old war on marijuana.

According to Ballotpedia, the encyclopedia of American politics, activists have submitted ballot measures for public vote in: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

A petition for a proposed ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in North Dakota was submitted Wednesday to the secretary of state’s office.

The committee’s petition for the statutory measure was received by the North Dakota Secretary of State’s office at about 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Group members are looking to remove from North Dakota Century Code all references to marijuana and substances deriving from cannabis as being illegal drugs as well as possession of marijuana paraphernalia.

If approved, the measure would also set a legal age of 21 for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia as well as the growing of it. Taxation of marijuana by local or state government would be capped at 20 percent sales tax.

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One of the latest studies proves how the oral use of cannabis in the form of ‘hemp oil’ can be amazingly helpful in treating leukemia and various cancer types. A young teenage girl diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Philadelphia chromosome mutation was subject to this study.

Medical marijuana advocates in North Dakota can move forward with plans to place a referendum on the 2016 ballot that would legalize cannabis for medical purposes. Secretary of State Al Jaeger approved the advocacy group's petition, enabling them to start collecting the necessary signatures of support, reported news station KVLY.

North Dakota’s Secretary of State, Al Jaeger, accepted a petition Monday to put a medical marijuana legalization measure on next year’s ballot, according to a Valley New Live report.

If passed, the measure would allow qualified North Dakota residents to possess up to 3 ounces of medicinal marijuana for treatment of certain debilitating medical conditions.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — In a story Oct. 28 about North Dakota launching a research program on industrial hemp, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a state hemp permit costs $4,275. The state Agriculture Department says the fee for the permit is $5 per acre with a minimum of $150, along with $42.75 to cover the cost of a background check.

A corrected version of the story is below:

North Dakota launches industrial hemp research program