Partying society stoners are clear about the fact that smoking a joint, just as a party hits lift-off, often prevents them from heading to the loo for a line of coke. It gives them a hint of naughtiness with far fewer consequences, they say. ‘I can get a mini-thrill, loosen up and not feel like a bore if I have a couple of puffs,’ says one West London gallery owner, ‘but I’m not the gurning loon in the corner. Coke is for losers. Getting stoned is… kind of sexy.’ Melissa, a 29-year-old stylist, says: ‘I pre-roll a spliff and carry it in cling film in my DVF make-up bag. Everything is more bearable at a fashion event when you’re stoned. At an Isabel Marant party in a derelict church on Oxford Street last Fashion Week, me and my mates smoked a joint round the side of the venue.

Brian Reichle couldn't have gotten a pepperoni pizza much faster.

Needing to replenish his stash of pot one recent afternoon, the Burbank resident dialed Speed Weed. Within the hour, a driver arrived with a white paper bag carrying a gram of cannabis, 10 joints and a handful of pot-infused candies and cookies.

"They come to my house, and they're in and out," said Reichle, 39, a comedian who spends about $100 a week on medical marijuana. "I shouldn't have to go to a store."

Once a small, word-of-mouth phenomenon, mobile marijuana businesses now number in the hundreds across Southern California. Nationwide, pot delivery services have nearly tripled in three years, from 877 to 2,617, according to Weedmaps, a Yelp-like online directory for pot businesses.

You don't have to use cannabis to support legalisation, just like you don't have to have cancer to support a cancer charity.

Cannabis has been proven to have many health benefits and to date, not one person has ever died of an overdose of cannabis - it just isn't possible to do.

Cannabis is classified as a schedule 1 drug in the UK because it has NO medicinal benefits but 'Sativex' (Cannabis oil and alcohol) is a schedule 4 because of it's amazing medicinal benefits for those with MS - This simply doesn't make sense.

I want to see a UK where people are allowed to grow their own medicine without fear of prosecution, a UK where consuming cannabis is not seen as a criminal offence.

Lt. Patrick Foy, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, knows more than a few ways to track down a large-scale marijuana growing operation: Air surveillance, reports from neighbors and sometimes, dead fish.

“A bunch of fish may turn up dead in a creek, so we’ll go look, walk upstream, and inevitably run into a marijuana growth site,” says Foy.

Growers in remote areas, Foy explains, often end up destroying local creeks and other water sources, or using harmful pesticides to keep their plants healthy, which damages the surrounding environment.

Why Washington State's Pot Industry Could be the Most Profitable

The dominos are starting to fall.

Just six months ago the state of Colorado became the first jurisdiction to legalize the recreational consumption of marijuana. This week it was the state of Washington’s turn to drop its pot prohibition, handing-out its first recreational marijuana retail licenses this Monday. And there are at least eight other states lined up behind them that are either considering or are already in the process of doing the same.

Marijuana sales are spreading across the nation thanks to the growing legalization of the drug. Now a new financial firm, KindBanking, wants to be the financial backbone for the hemp and cannabis industry.

"Think of us as the GE Capital of this under-served, but potential multi-billion dollar industry," said KindBanking's founder and CEO David Dinenberg.

Barcelona’s cannabis clubs have been under intense scrutiny and pressure by city administrators and police during the month of June, 2014. Clubs have been raided, staff and board members arrested and imprisoned and members have been harassed and ticketed in some cases. Several clubs have been closed permanently by Spanish police. Fortunately, many cannabis clubs in Barcelona have survived this onslaught, but according to some, this will only be a temporary reprieve. Next year, if some administrators have their way, the clubs will be shuttered.