No government on earth had ever created a for-profit marijuana market – until voters decided to do so in the United States.

Now the fall of marijuana prohibition – not yet federally, but state-by-state – may feel inevitable. A record 61 percent of Americans support legal adult use, according to Gallup. That certainly sounds like the end of the conversation. But hold on a minute.

Voters in five states will decide next week whether to legalize recreational marijuana. If all those measures pass, nearly a quarter of Americans...

Hillary Clinton has long been the favorite to be the next President of the United States, but while her race against Donald Trump has tightened recently, she’ll remain the favorite through election day, especially after the FBI announcement that she won’t be facing any charges from her ongoing email scandal.

Amidst the current political debate over marijuana legalization in Massachusetts (Question 4 on this year’s ballot), state Representative Hank Naughton, chairman of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, recently argued: “Marijuana is a gateway drug to the problems of the opioid crisis that we’re having today. It’s not just a business and it’s not like a six pack of beer. There’s a lot more to it.”

There are countless nicknames tossed around for America’s most widely used recreational drug. There’s marijuana, pot, weed, herb, even reefer. But as the argument for legalization becomes more and more widespread, and as more and more companies sprout up to meet consumer demand, you might notice that the word cannabis is being placed at the forefront. 

That choice of terminology is far from accidental. For companies in the rapidly growing business, there’s a very deliberate reasoning behind it.

“We at Privateer decided that we were going to use the C word six years ago. And we’ve stuck to it,” explains Privateer Holdings CEO Brendan Kennedy in the new CBSN Originals documentary, “Big Pot: The Commercial Takeover.”

Gary Johnson has seen his poll numbers fall sharply in the final weeks before Election Day, but as he and the Libertarian Party shoot for the benchmark of 5 percent of the vote nationally, there could be an unseen and still uncounted boost from an unlikely source — marijuana.

After consistently polling over 10 percent throughout the summer, Johnson has taken a major dip in the final presidential polls as Election Day nears. The poll aggregator RealClearPolitics show him just a hair under 5 percent in the days before America goes to the polls to pick the next president.

Former NM Gov. Gary Johnson, vocal in his support of legalizing marijuana, pulled quite a stunt during a debate regarding the drug. Thanks to the reader who submitted this video, keep them coming! Happy Friday and have a great weekend everyone.

With the election less than a week away, it’s not surprising that the candidates are widening their stances on many issues in order to appeal to larger and more diverse groups of voters. For Hillary Clinton, one of these ever-changing stances focuses on the legalization of marijuana.

She consistently hides behind the veil of lack-of-information on the topic. During an interview with KNPR.org earlier this year she stated, “I support states making this decision so that we can have some good on-the-ground experience as to what works and quite frankly, what doesn’t work.”

Leaked DNC emails suggest Clinton is not in support of legalizing marijuana.

When Keith Stroup joined the movement to legalize marijuana in the early 1970s, just 12 percent of the American public supported legalization.

Today, polls show that a majority of Americans support legalization, and in the past four years four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational pot.

“We’ve made an incredible leap in support, but it has been slow and gradual,” said Stroup, who founded the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, one of the country’s leading pro-legalization groups. “Now I think we’re beginning to accelerate.”

As Election Day draws near, the plethora of marijuana-related initiatives on state ballots across the country highlight the gains made by NORML and other legalization groups in recent decades.

State legalization has unsurprisingly proved a boon to the cannabis business: Legal marijuana sales in the United States are projected to reach $7.1 billion this year, and some analysts are calling weed the country’s fastest-growing industry. Still, the plant’s pesky status as a Schedule I illegal substance—heroin is federally regulated the same way—makes cannabis a risky investment. Most publicly traded, marijuana-based businesses remain wild penny stocks, but there’s a reason to be optimistic.

The use of medical marijuana has been a hot topic in the NFL over the last decade or so, especially with the public's growing concern for the safety of the league's players. In ESPN The Magazine's November 14 "Pain Issue," the sports imprint polled 226 players from the AFC and NFC to see how the one's that really matter feel about the two, medical marijuana and painkillers.

Should medical marijuana be legal in all states?

Yes 71 percent
No 29 percent

Have you ever known a teammate to use marijuana before a game?

Yes 22 percent
No 78 percent