The 2014 midterm elections will go down in history as one of the most important years in marijuana history. It provided validation that two trailblazer states — Washington and Colorado — had made the right decision two years prior in pushing through a voter-passed ballot initiative, allowing for the possession and consumption of adults. Many were skeptical when those states passed their respective laws, but in 2014, they suddenly don’t look so crazy.

Hazy Beginnings

For Canada, cannabis may have been criminalized in 1923 but the push for legalization has increased significantly over the last decade. The contention has resulted in a considerable amount of media coverage and public debate. Between its prevalence in politics, pop culture and now physical shops, we have marijuana on the mind.

WICHITA, Kansas -- A medical marijuana advocate has lost custody of her 11-year-old son at least temporarily and could face possible charges following comments the boy made during a drug education program at school.

The case of Shona Banda, 37, was forwarded Monday to the district attorney's office for a decision about charges, Police Capt. Randy Ralston said. Possible charges include possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of drug paraphernalia and child endangerment, the department said in a news release.

No arrests have been made.

The divorced mother said she did not get custody of her son back following a hearing Monday, after Kansas authorities had placed the boy into protective custody.

Marijuana has come a long way.  In just a few short years, the drug has gone from being banned throughout the United States to holding some legal status for the majority of Americans. As of April 20, four states have legalized recreational use of cannabis and 23 allow marijuana to be prescribed for medical use.

But marijuana hasn’t shed its reputation as a subversive gateway drug in the collective American consciousness on its own. For years, investors, entrepreneurs, advocates and researchers have been pushing the dialogue on marijuana forward, helping to back well-heeled campaigns aimed at changing hearts, minds and laws around the country.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri would regulate and license the growing of industrial hemp as a raw material for manufacturing under a measure supporters say is an economic development measure.

The Missouri House gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that would legalize the cultivation of hemp, which contains very low levels of the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol in marijuana.

Republican Rep. Paul Curtman, of Pacific, says many products are made with hemp that must be imported from foreign countries.

He says there's no danger that the measure would allow easier access to marijuana.

Kevin Sabet speaks Tuesday during a keynote address on marijuana legalization at the annual Police Chiefs’ Conference in St. Cloud.(Photo: Dave Schwarz, dschwarz@stcloudtimes.com)Buy Photo

Police chiefs from around Minnesota heard a case against the legalization of marijuana Tuesday from a former White House drug policy adviser.

As the summer opening of the state's medical marijuana program approaches, Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke at the annual Police Chiefs' Conference in St. Cloud about the dangers of making the drug's use legal.

Legislation extending Illinois' medical marijuana program beyond 2017 has passed the Illinois House despite some recent opposition from Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The bill is sponsored by Skokie Democratic Rep. Lou Lang. He sponsored the original legislation establishing the pilot program which is scheduled for automatic repeal on Jan. 1, 2018.

As Americans celebrate 4/20, pot culture's answer to Octoberfest, I'm getting pelted with questions about the growing legalization movement. What's the new pot like? What are you telling your kids? Right. I get those questions. But mainly I hear this one: Why is legalization happening now? 

Until recently, I cited two factors. First, the emergence of the Internet offered widespread access to scientific studies and counter-narratives that debunked the government's Reefer Madness line. Second, medical marijuana served as a 20-year pilot project that calmed the fears of a worried nation. Dispensaries opened, weed was openly sold, and the pillars of civilization did not crumble. 

Ecuador is in the process of considering a groundbreaking piece of legislation that would decriminalize the use of illegal drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, according to GlobalPost.

"Treating the drug phenomenon in a repressive way, as was done in the 1980s and 1990s when prison was the only destination for the drug consumer, is absurd," Carlos Velasco, who chairs the Ecuadorean congress’ Commission of the Right to Health and who authored the bill,wrote on his Facebook page earlier this month.

Most Lebanese hash is produced by Shia who are sworn enemies of the so-called Islamic State, but that doesn’t mean they won’t sell them a ton or two.

THE BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon — They are killing Syrians and each other at an astronomical rate but there seems to be one thing that jihadist troops and Assad allies are working together on: getting high on Lebanon’s supply.

Just across a snow-capped mountain range, in the Bekaa Valley, are weed fields tended mostly by poor, Assad-friendly Shia farmers. But business is business. They tell The Daily Beast they are selling their products to ISIS recruits, who are allegedly blazing Lebanese blond and reselling it to fund their atrocities.