We have a little more than a week of limited recreational marijuana sales under our belts here in Oregon and the eager anticipation of the unknown has given way to the frenetic energy of a freshly minted and highly successful new industry sector.

I think almost everyone, from government regulators to industry participants to the customers themselves, would agree that so far it has been a smashing success.

Initial results

When Jon Fitch had surgery to address the torn rotator cuff of his right shoulder in early 2011, he was handed a prescription for pain medicine. As a professional fighter, Fitch was quite used to handling pain in its many permutations; it was, after all, the one guarantee of his job. But something about this treatment didn't sit right with him. His mind immediately traveled back into time.

Several states will be voting on whether or not to legalize marijuana in the 2016 election. We know for sure that Arizona, California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts will be voting on the issue, and that Missouri, Michigan, and Florida might join that group soon.

That's how the question arises: Will states voting on legalizing marijuana affect who becomes the next president?

Nevada and Florida are both sought-after swing states: Whoever wins in those states often wins the election. So how do things change in the upcoming presidential election if marijuana is likely to be legalized in these states?

Legalizing marijuana Issue 3 would legalize recreational and medical marijuana in Ohio. Click here for more information about the proposal. And click here for an updated list of supporters and opponents.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's marijuana legalization issue and a conflicting measure would both pass if the election were held today, according to an independent poll released Tuesday.

Shaun Gindi brought a duffel bag stuffed with 1,000 twenty-dollar bills to open a checking account at his local Chase branch. He was successful. Until the branch closed the account a week later.

“I’ve gone through at least eight banks,” said Gindi, 38.

Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg’s involvement in the burgeoning marijuana business may not come as a shock, but professional athletes and a former boyband member are also getting in on a potentially lucrative endeavor

Lured by rapid growth prospects for a lifestyle product long beloved by many celebrities, many are starting to pour their money into one of the newest US industries: marijuana.

The cultivation and use of marijuana is rapidly rising across Africa as farmers, hit by low commodity prices, increasingly see the drug as a cash crop.

Pressure for legalizing marijuana is increasing in many African countries as legalized pot in the U.S. and Uruguay leads the way.

“At the moment, farmers choose to cultivate marijuana over traditional crops because it commands a far higher market price on the black market both at home and abroad,” Zambian Green Party President Peter Sinkamba told Anadolu Agency.

The Shell Farms & Greenhouses is an expansive 1,000-acre property in Garrard County, 37 miles south of Lexington, Kentucky. The five-generation family farm is operated by 31-year-old Giles Shell and his 60-year-old father, Gary. The two are whizzes at making ornamental flowers flourish, and like most farmers in the area, the family has grown tobacco for years.

In late June, the younger Shell stood outside one of six greenhouses on the farm and held up a yellowed tobacco plant with limp rootstock. The Shells know how to save sickly tobacco plants like this one, but they don’t want to anymore. “I’m hoping it’s our last crop,” Shell said.

The unethical greed of pharmaceutical companies has recently taken center stage in public discourse following the decision of vulture capitalist Martin Shkreli’s decision to jack up the price of a vital AIDS drug by 5,000% (which he has still failed to rescind), but the problem extends much further than the widely reviled “pharma bro.” Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has spearheaded congressional investigations into the matter, targeting Valeant Pharmaceuticals for their shameless use of similar price hikes.

A U.S. senator on Thursday connected President Barack Obama’s comments on marijuana to drug overdose deaths.

Amid a lengthy speech calling for increased penalties for drug offenders, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) noted that Obama had admitted to smoking marijuana. Last year, the president said that marijuana is not more dangerous than alcohol.

“I think it needs to be said that the president should never have said smoking marijuana is like smoking cigarettes: ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t done it,’ Sessions said on the Senate floor. “That is the kind of message people hear. Now we have states legalizing it, and they are already talking about recriminalizing it. It is a mistake. We have seen that experiment before. Lives are at stake.”