The choices the federal government must and will make will have far-reaching consequences.

As marijuana legalization proceeds, new issues will arise and the pressure to deal with existing issues will increase. How local, state, and federal governments as well as international bodies deal with these challenges and questions will determine the future success of marijuana legalization policy.

I can recall a time when it was a rarity to hear or read about a news story about cannabis. For almost two decades I kept a database of every cannabis related news story that I came across. I could never keep up with the torrent of pot news coming out now. 

As someone who was a child in the 1960’s and a counter-culture teenager in the 70s, I recall the intense stigma and controversy that the herb had attached to it. 

One year after the legalization of recreational marijuana, Oregon’s pot industry is booming with more than $400 million in projected sales in 2016.

But like any new industry, pot entrepreneurs are faced with the challenge of building a strong brand and developing new products to attract underserved customers.

The industry has to work fast to establish itself as a leading manufacturer and retailer of marijuana products because cannabis will probably be legal in the United States in a few decades, predicted Renee Spears, creator of Smuggle, a cannabis products retailer.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is considering a policy change to the state’s limited medical-marijuana law that would raise the fees for dispensaries and growers from $6,000 to $1.3-million dollars. 

At the end of 2015, the Public Safety Commission passed an initial set of rules, part of which set the rate that would be imposed on businesses wanting to become dispensaries and grow operations at $6,000.  This month, the state agency proposed raising that fee to $1.3 million dollars.

The stigma of the drug is harder for them to overcome, advocates say.

For older adults exploring the new world of medical marijuana, age 65 seems to be a tipping point. Those under that age use the drug for medical purposes at largely the rates of other adults. Usage among people over 65 appears to drop significantly, though, perhaps because of the culture in which they came of age.

A rendering of a 1 million-square-foot marijuana greenhouse and processing center AmeriCann Inc. hopes to build in Freetown.

On the eve of a vote that could legalize recreational marijuana in Massachusetts, a Colorado company is preparing to build the state’s largest marijuana greenhouse, a sprawling, high-tech complex that could eventually grow to nearly 1 million square feet.

Denver-based AmeriCann, Inc. completed a deal last week to lease a 53-acre parcel for the project near Route 24 in Freetown, where officials have welcomed the company’s proposed Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center as a potential economic boon.

Even by the usual standards of politics, this election’s campaign against marijuana legalization has made strange bedfellows. The largest donors to the various anti-weed political groups around the country include a billionaire casino tycoon, a woman who believes in reefer madness, a drug-crusading former U.S. ambassador, cops, prison guards, booze merchants, and a pharma company that sells the powerful painkiller fentanyl.

With nine states voting on different forms of marijuana legalization on Election Day, the red and blue map U.S. residents are used to watching on election nights should have a little green on it.

Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington have passed recreational marijuana laws in the last four years. California, Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona and Nevada have legalization initiatives on the ballot in November. Florida, Arkansas, Montana and North Dakota also have forms of medical marijuana legalization on the ballot next month.

The Puget Sound Business Journal looked back at Washington's recreational marijuana industry since the passage of Initiative 502 in November 2012 and the opening of the first retail store – Cannabis City – in July 2014.

‘The media has ridiculed presidential candidate Donald Trump for suggesting the election is “rigged.” While his comments should always be taken with a grain of salt, a case of a missing amendment in a Florida ballot is raising some eyebrows.

Anne Sallee, an Oakland Park resident and former city commissioner who lives in Broward, Florida, says she was shocked to notice her ballot had arrived in the mail without one of the most discussed amendments of the season. After spending a week trying to get the Broward elections office to listen, she decided to reach out to the Florida branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) for help.

CS Compliance Systems ran into trouble this month over its ability to accept credits, even though the Denver-based consulting and technology firm doesn’t sell marijuana.

Merely working with cannabis dispensaries was enough for CS Compliance Systems to have its credit card processing privileges revoked by the merchant service provider it’s working with, operations manager Ryan Lewis said.

“It’s huge bump in the road” for growing the small company, Lewis said. 

This situation is also a reminder of the strange financial spot the marijuana industry is currently in with banks and other companies that are hesitant to work with dispensaries and other marijuana-related businesses without a green light from the federal government.