Early last year, the broker for a 100,000-square-foot warehouse near Las Vegas called the power company to find out how much juice the building would need.

Longtime NV Energy executive Arnold Lopez went out to meet a group on the site and asked what kind of business they planned.

After some hesitation, they told him: medical marijuana cultivation.

Lopez asked questions and started doing some quick math. And, as he recalled, “All of a sudden I came up with numbers I’d never seen before.”

That single marijuana-growing operation, he estimated, could require 5 megawatts of capacity — enough to power 1,000 homes. That’s about 5 percent of the capacity of an entire substation.

A historic Senate medical marijuana bill unveiled Tuesday would dramatically reshape the landscape for the plant, nearly 80 years after it was effectively criminalized.

The bill, introduced by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), would end the federal prohibition on medical marijuana and eliminate the ambiguity surrounding related state laws. It would untie the hands of veterans’ doctors when it comes to recommending the drug and bankers when it comes to providing business services to the industry. It would also facilitate very limited inter-state trade, expand research and shift marijuana out of the most severe category in the federal government’s drug classification.

Minnesota medical marijuana manufacturers have lined up several dispensary sites throughout state and are set to have the first harvest over the next few weeks.

In Minneapolis, construction is under way on the city's first dispensary — a standalone 100-year-old downtown building that once housed the League of Catholic Women. This summer, it is expected to be one company's flagship dispensary.

The state Department of Health has approved two manufacturers, LeafLine Labs and Minnesota Medical Solutions, also known as MinnMed, to grow, process and sell medical cannabis in pill or oil form to Minnesotans starting July 1.

The Children’s Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw has started using medical marijuana to treat nine children with extreme cases of epilepsy, with doctors praising initial results.

Cannabidiol (CBD) has been the focus of many medical cannabis studies, and continues to prove itself as a powerful anti-inflammatory drug. What makes CBD even more desirable for some patients is that it does not cause the psychoactive effects associated with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

At the very first Tribal Marijuana Conference held last weekend in Tulalip, WA, the former chairman of the Moapa Paiute tribe, William Anderson, tall and dignified and walking with a cane, explained to me what brought him: “I was just laying in bed in pain. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen because I was in so much pain.”

An infection in his foot had spread to his spine and deteriorated the bone, exposing nerves. Doctors replaced the bone with titanium steel. For two years, the infection, even with prescription creams and antibiotics, kept coming back. The Indian Health Service recommended amputation of his foot.

A bipartisan group of three Senators will introduce a historic bill Tuesday that could end the federal ban on medical marijuana, a substance that 23 states have now legalized.

The plan sponsored by Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand would “allow patients, doctors and businesses in states that have already passed medical-marijuana laws to participate in those programs without fear of federal prosecution,” according to a statement the three Senators released Monday.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you have a cookie on your computer or your smartphone that says how much you like weed—or at least how you feel about the idea of weed being legalized.

Whether it was the end of prohibition, the start of the biotech revolution or the explosion of growth tied to the first decade of the Internet, a new set of companies and powerhouses have emerged as clear winners that went on to ultimately dominate their industries. Many investors and many speculators are betting that the field of medical marijuana and legalized marijuana or cannabis will be the next multibillion dollar frontier creating waves of new millionaires.

With states being the key regulatory and driving force of the cannabis industry, there are many businesses that are anxious to jump on this green wave. The website Cannabis Business Executive (CBE) has featured what it feels are the 10 most important companies in the cannabis industry today.

Entrepreneurs in the legal weed industry are seeing green not just in their products, but in their profits. Startup companies selling everything from portable smoking devices like vaporizer pens to more efficient watering systems and state-of-the-art LED lighting panels for growers are proving that there’s money to be made in legal weed.

"Under full legalization, this could be a $36 billion industry," Troy Dayton, chief executive of ArcView Group, a San Francisco-based investment and research firm focused on the cannabis industry, told CNN Money. Most people opening legal marijuana businesses aren’t becoming growers -- that requires a special skillset. "It's like with the Gold Rush. It's a great time to be selling picks and shovels, instead,” Dayton said.