As politicians across the U.S. debate medical marijuana laws and legalization for recreational purposes, a group in Nebraska is taking a different approach: forming a political party supporting medical marijuana legalization.

The group, Legal Marijuana Now Nebraska, will need 6,500 signatures by Aug. 1 supporting its effort for legalized medical marijuana use and hemp production, KETV-7 reported. The group wants to reach 8,000 signatures, noting it is also working with groups in other states including Colorado, Iowa and Minnesota.

Marijuana's safety profile could take a hit following the release of a new study from Colorado State University.

The year may still be young, but 2016 promises to be pivotal for marijuana one way or another.

The expansion of marijuana at the state level is looking like a win-win for residents and legislators. Consumers now have the freedom to purchase legal amounts of marijuana for recreational purposes in four states, and medical marijuana patients in 23 states have access to a new pathway of treatment that may prove safer, cheaper, and more effective than traditional pharmaceutical products.

Liberal-leaning Vermont could become the first U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana use through legislation, rather than by voter initiative, in a move that advocates for the drug say could speed its acceptance across the nation.

State representatives this month are set to take up a bill passed by the state Senate in February that would allow adults over 21 to purchase and smoke the drug beginning in 2018.

The move follows a year of hearings in the Senate that lawmakers say allowed them to closely consider appropriate limits to place on the drug's use. The current proposal would prohibit users from growing plants at home and ban the sale of edible products containing marijuana extracts.

Colorado Springs isn't alone in banning cannabis clubs. Washington state did so last summer, and Portland, Ore., followed suit this month.

Englewood, Colo., was set to ban them but decided to extend its moratorium to June 15 while it explores how to regulate them instead.

But while the Colorado Springs City Council on Tuesday ordered cannabis clubs to phase out their businesses over the next eight years, Denver residents will vote Nov. 8 on an initiative to license and regulate the clubs.

In 1968, at the height of the hippie movement, everybody was convinced cannabis would be legalized next week. It would take another 40 years. Why?

It would appear that when a subject is sufficiently peripheral to policymakers, slow incumbent industries can get whatever repressive and counterproductive policy they want, even in the face of overwhelming public opinion to the opposite for about 40 years.

In 1968, at the height of the hippie movement when everybody and their brother were doing joints, everybody and their brother were equally convinced cannabis would be legal in just a few years. How could it not be?

Twenty years later, in 1990, the war on certain species of plants was harsher than ever before.

When Logan Bowers opened his marijuana retail store Seattle Hashtag in April 2015, he entered an arena far different from his tech-industry background.

Bowers, co-owner of Hashtag and president of the Cannabis Organization of Retail Establishments (CORE), had the same task as other marijuana license holders in the state: bring an industry relegated to street corners and sidewalks into a legal and regulated retail environment.

"We get a lot of local traffic," Bowers said. "A lot of folks kind of walking by who are like, 'What's this about?' And they come in and checked it out and realize we're just a normal business."

GAYLORD — Maureen Suggitt travels nearly 120 miles from Sault Ste. Marie to obtain her medical marijuana and Sunday she traveled that same distance to protest a recent sting that has blocked her from purchasing her medicine.

Suggitt joined a group of more than 100 in Gaylord Sunday for a march that began around 3 p.m. to protest raids of every medical marijuana dispensary in Otsego County by numerous law enforcement agencies Thursday.

With the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in place, Suggitt said she was confused as to why the raids were warranted.

Virginia lawmakers are paving the way for the production and distribution of medical marijuana oils. 

Senate Bill 701 passed in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. The bill allows for the eventual production and distribution of cannabis oils, which supporters say can ease conditions for people with severe epilepsy.

The bill now goes to Governor Terry McAuliffe’s desk for his signature.

Steamboat Springs — A unique marijuana education curriculum created and piloted in Steamboat Springs through the past year is gaining the attention of schools across the country.

The Marijuana Education Initiative offers four types of school curriculum to address prevention of marijuana use, intervention for self-identified habitual users, alternative to suspension and athlete awareness.

The initiative acknowledges that marijuana is a legal recreational and medicinal substance that many adults are using and no longer an illegal drug that should be lumped together with opiates, methamphetamine and other drugs during health class.

It’s one of the main questions voters ask when they consider a cannabis measure: Will legalization — whether medical or adult use — encourage more kids to get high? 

With some form of legalization expected on at least a half-dozen state ballots this November, data showing increased or decreased use by minors will likely be a powerful weapon in the battle for votes.