The legalization of marijuana is steadily moving — or perhaps creeping — forward in the United States.

This has some experts concerned that the public health battles fought against Big Tobacco are about to be repeated — this time against the burgeoning Big Marijuana industry.

“Given the lessons learned from the 20th-century rise of another legal addictive substance, tobacco, we believe that such an industry could transform marijuana and its effects on public health,” wrote the authors of a 2014 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Since Colorado voters legalised pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. They also point to studies showing that in other states that have legalized pot for medical purposes, we’ve seen an increase in the number of drivers testing positive for the drug who were involved in fatal car accidents. The anti-pot group SAM recently pointed out that even before the first legal pot store opened in Washington state, the number of drivers in that state testing positive for pot jumped by a third.

The greenhouse business isn’t what it used to be for Larry Gude.

To meet changing demands, the owner of Gude Brothers Greenhouse in Middletown has switched from selling ornamental plants to lettuce. Now, he’s eyeing a less conventional plant — medical cannabis, or medical marijuana.

The prohibitionists continue to dig through the latest data in the National Survey on Drug Use & Health, looking for the evidence on marijuana use trends that show ending the punishment of adults who use marijuana will turn the youth of our nation into pot zombies.

CHICAGO • Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration issued a broad rejection last week of expanding the list of diseases that can be treated with medical marijuana in Illinois, refusing to add osteoarthritis, migraine, post-traumatic stress disorder and eight other health problems.

Separately, the governor vetoed a bill that would have added PTSD via a legislative route.

The moves were a stern rebuke of recommendations from an expert advisory board appointed by Rauner’s predecessor, Democrat Pat Quinn.

Adding conditions would have expanded the potential base of patients. So far, only 3,000 Illinois patients have been approved to use marijuana for conditions listed in the original law, such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis.

Envision a day when you might stroll into a facility, something like a bar or a coffee house, have a seat at a table or possibly on a couch, and illuminate a joint.

Far-fetched? Maybe not so much. There was recently a movement afoot in Denver to obtain an initiative on the Nov. 3, 2015 tally; nevertheless, the effort was withdrawn on Sept. 3 so it will not be seeing the light of day this year.

Let it be known that we're still more than a year away from the 2016 presidential election, and the issues that will decide the election are still being felt out. However, with each day that passes it looks more and more plausible that marijuana and the federal government's views on marijuana will play an increasingly important role in the election.

DETROIT — With some medical-marijuana stores in Detroit now offering drive-through purchasing, the city's marketplace for medical pot has spiraled out of control and needs to be regulated, Mayor Mike Duggan said.

Dozens of dispensaries line 8 Mile and other major thoroughfares in the city, and a Free Press investigation found that at least three offer drive-through service.

In upper Northwest Washington, marijuana buds the size of zucchinis hang drying in a room once reserved for yoga. In the Shaw neighborhood, pot grown in a converted closet sits meticulously trimmed, weighed and sealed in jars. Elsewhere, from Georgetown to Capitol Hill to Congress Heights, seven-leafed weeds are flowering in bedrooms, back yards and window boxes.

Welcome to the first crop of legal pot in the nation’s capital — where residents may grow and possess marijuana but are still forbidden to sell it.

WALNUT CREEK (KPIX) — Across from the championship lawn bowling greens at an upscale, gated community in Walnut Creek, inside a clean, well-lighted clubhouse, there’s a meeting going on.

Welcome to the Rossmoor Medical Marijuana Education and Support Club. About a hundred members are in attendance on this evening but they’re not here to get high.

“Not at all! At my age? I’m going to be 88 and at my age if I got high what difference would it make? But I don’t, I just don’t,” insisted club member Beverly Kivel.

These seniors are looking for an alternative solution to their medical problems.