Weedhead winos among us, rejoice: The legal-marijuana future is nigh, and the opportunities for a wine-like cannabis culture are endless! 

This fall I was on one of many 30th-birthday-wine-country-bingefests up in Napa. The field was aglow, the flight of wines was delectable, and all I can remember thinking was, Damn, why can’t I do this with a joint in hand and have it be equally socially acceptable? 

When Willie Franklin visited a sick friend who was using medical marijuana for pain relief from throat cancer, he also walked into a whole new industry for his business. “You should get into these dispensaries,” his friend said, “They’re just handing me my medicine in ziplock baggies.”

As a packaging creator for the defense industry, Franklin knew how to create robust bags, boxes and other containers that wouldn’t tear or leak. “I was already selling flame-retardant crush-proof boxes around the world,“ he said. In the five years since that meeting, Franklin has taken his friend’s advice and started courting both medical and recreational marijuana businesses. He says his sales have increased significantly every year.

As if America's legalization project didn't have enough on its plate: social, political and legislative hurdles. Fighting stigma. Banking issues. The spectre of Big Cannabis swallowing cottage producers. But there's another, massive problem that the industry hasn't yet tackled: what legal cannabis could do to the planet. 

"If marijuana producers continue to use energy at current rates, their electricity use in the Northwestern states alone will nearly double from 130 megawatts in 2015 to 237 megawatts in 2035," according to new data from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. It's estimated that 1% of America's energy consumption is now attributable to legal growing operations.

When Vancouver resident Jon Britt and his girlfriend, Calista Crenshaw, won a Cowlitz County retail marijuana license in the 2014 state lottery, it seemed like perfect timing.

Angler’s Workshop, the fishing supply store Britt’s family had owned in Woodland for 30 years, was being sold to a Colorado company, and the building seemed the ideal spot for a recreational pot shop.

But the Woodland City Council thought otherwise, and it banned recreational pot stores in city limits. Britt and Crenshaw, who had been required to get the store set up to open before receiving their state license, saw their dreams go up in smoke.

“We were sitting with a license we could never use,” said Crenshaw, 36. “We thought we were done.”

Then, the winds shifted in their favor.

It’s been a couple years now since Colorado and Washington first legalized recreational use and sale of marijuana. In that time we’ve seen lots of changes, but one of the most important things that needs to change, but simply hasn’t, is the lack of banking access for cannabis companies.

One of the most dangerous things about the current legal status of marijuana is the continued cash-only nature of the business. Dispensaries operating in big cities like Denver or Portland face a much higher risk of robbery than the smaller towns, but for each and every one of them it should be considered a very real possibility.

Despite legalization of marijuana, local businesses still struggle for recognition as legitimate enterprises.

With few resources to help promote their interests and more friendly business legislation, three local dispensaries, Herbal Choices, Positive Vibrations and Stonies, LLC, joined the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce more than a month ago in hopes of turning that around.

"That's what we are trying to work on, getting people to recognize us for what we are," Herbal Choices owner Jim Deatherage said. "We have a big road ahead to educate people, and we're struggling, even (to get) a bank to allow us (to do business), so it's a pretty crazy business to get into.

Legal marijuana is a $5 billion business in the U.S., and Steve Janjic figured he’d get a piece of it. With a commodity exchange. For a product that can’t be transported across state lines.

Not to worry. “It’s never easy to pioneer an industry,” says Janjic, a former foreign-exchange executive at Tullett Prebon LLC who has put $1 million into Amercanex Corp., an electronic cannabis-trading platform that handles sales of about 100 to 150 pounds of weed a week.

Silverpeak Apothecary is the only cannabis shop in Aspen, and probably all of Colorado—perhaps the world—where a 74-year-old, four-foot-eleven, bespectacled Jewish grandmother greets you at the door. “I’ll show you around,” Ellen Haas cooed last September as I entered the shop on East Cooper Avenue, hidden below street level, near a Rolex retailer, a Ralph Lauren boutique, and a Lululemon store. A retired fashion designer, Haas first ventured into Silverpeak to seek relief for her rheumatoid arthritis. “I educate people now,” she told me, clutching my arm with surprising strength.

PORTLAND — The owner of the World Famous Cannabis Cafe announced she will close her doors next week after another warning by public health officials that the establishment violates indoor air rules.

The cafe will host its final Stoner Bingo session March 7, said Madeline Martinez, a longtime marijuana legalization advocate and owner of the business, which offers people 21 and older a place to socialize and use cannabis.