2016, in Massachusetts and beyond, will be The Year of Marijuana.

In the Bay State, it all kicks off Wednesday, Jan. 7, when the Secretary of State delivers to the legislature a petition signed by over 64,750 voters calling for a law repealing marijuana prohibition and replacing it with a system of regulation and taxation, similar to how we have handled the alcohol industry since prohibition died in 1933, and how Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska have handled the marijuana industry since voters repealed prohibition in those states.

Jan 1, 2016 – Signal Bay Inc (OTC:SGBY) reports that the US CannabisBenchmarks™ Spot Price Index for the week ending Jan 1 is up 1% to $2,030/lb or $4.48 per gram.                                       Average deal size was 15 pounds.

If someone told you that you could take a college course that maps out exactly how cannabis works, would you take that class?

I know I would.

The University of Vermont is going to be making that possibility a reality as they are the first to open a course dedicated to medical marijuana science. There are other universities that cover marijuana related topics – mostly law topics – but this will be the first class entirely dedicated to the science behind medical marijuana.

The class is intended to uncover the “secrets” of marijuana. With the plant being listed as one of the “most dangerous” drugs there is very little solid research around it. Ten – heck even five years ago, this class would not have been possible.

As I look back on the calendar year, one significant tipping point in 2015 was the focus on experimental design in the cannabis market that most didn’t expect to happen so soon or so respectfully.

It is the merging of traditionally trained scientist and the incumbent practitioners.

My hypothesis has been this: If more open and respectful discussions between “classically trained scientists” and “cannabis incumbent practitioners” can occur, then creative discoveries will exponentially occur.

A Portland cannabis cultivator has raised $2.8 million in the last three months.

Created last January by a former Silicon Valley startup founder, HiFi Farms started raising seed money in October. The company will stop at about $3 million, said the company's creator.

A large chunk, $1.8 million, went toward a 50-acre farm in Hillsboro, where company founder Sara Batterby's first generation plant clones are now growing.

2016 could bring major changes to the way Michigan treats marijuana.

There are three campaigns hoping to put legalization of recreational marijuana on the November ballot. Two of those groups – who appear to be raising significant money and have been collecting signatures for months – would tax and regulate marijuana for personal use for people 21 and older.

A state elections board recently gave the go-ahead for a third group to start circulating petitions. That campaign, Abrogate Prohibition Michigan 2016, would fully decriminalize marijuana use for any purpose for people 18 and older.

In addition to those efforts, supporters of bills to overhaul Michigan’s medical marijuana system are pushing for votes in the state Legislature.

Number one: Canada elects a marijuana-legalizing prime minister.

The global anti-drug regime has been in place for more than a half century now, but the prohibitionist consensus has been crumbling for at least 20 years, and the decomposition continued apace this year.

The international treaties that make up the legal backbone of international drug prohibition still stand, but they are under increasing attack at the United Nations, which will take them up again next year. They are increasingly being breached (especially by marijuana legalization at the national and sub-national level) and nibbled away at around the edges by moves like drug decriminalization and some harm reduction measures such as supervised injection facilities.

Doctors call it an important drug, lawmakers see it raising tax revenue and voters are likely to make it legal.

FALL RIVER — Marijuana will be king in 2016.

It is all coming together for pot in the coming year. Doctors call it an important drug, lawmakers see it raising tax revenue and voters are likely to make it legal.

Marijuana growers are also promising a few hundred well-paid jobs locally if they get their way. There are currently four separate proposals to build grow houses in the area.

Fall River and Freetown have both put out the welcome mat to companies that want to build and operate facilities to grow pharmaceutical-grade marijuana.

Is legalized marijuana a gateway drug to other forms of substance abuse? Or would safer access encourage people to ease back on other vices? This has been one of the major questions bedeviling the legalization debate. Now that four American states have legalized recreational use of cannabis, we ought to be getting some answers. Sadly, a review of the studies done so far suggests the picture isn't getting much clearer.