By the end of this year, several more states in the U.S. could be among those who have legalized cannabis for medical and recreational purposes. Of course, their success is up to the activists and voters in each state. If you’re in one of these states, here is what you need to know.

States where recreational legalization is on the ballot: Nevada

States where medical legalization is on the ballot: Florida

States where activists are going through the legislature or attempting to make the ballot for recreational or medical legalization: California, Vermont, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Rhode Island, Maine, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas

Long Shots

Voters in 20 U.S. states could potentially legalize some form of cannabis use in the November 2016 election — part of a historic backlash to the century-old war on marijuana.

According to Ballotpedia, the encyclopedia of American politics, activists have submitted ballot measures for public vote in: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

A report published last fall claiming that an estimated three in ten consumers of cannabis suffer from a ‘use disorder’ has been dismissed in a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Missourians supporting medical marijuana are hoping 2016 is their year. Will lawsuits crush that hope?

Pot activists are confident that 2016 is the year that Missouri will finally legalize medical marijuana — with a slew of big donations aimed at placing a measure on the ballot this fall. 

But Show-Me Cannabis, the group that's helping to spearhead the effort via the campaign committee "New Approach Missouri," will have to do it without one of the group's founders. Leah Maurer, a prominent pro-marijuana activist, resigned from Show-Me Cannabis' board on Friday.

COLUMBIA - Marijuana supporters are collecting signatures for a petition to legalize medical marijuana in Missouri.

The Missouri Secretary of State approved an initiative earlier this month that allows for the circulation of a petition for medical cannabis.

"This law would set up access for patients to safely obtain their medicine in a legal way under the supervision of a doctor, so I think it just makes sense," Spencer Pearson said, Vice President of Mid-Missouri NORML.

Pro-marijuana group New Approach Missouri is in charge of collecting signatures. Other groups like Mid-Missouri NORML will be working with them to train volunteers and collect signatures.

The complex politics of cannabis make for some very strange bedfellows, and the latest case is no exception. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration approved the New Jersey-based organization Catalent to receive imported cannabis for research purposes.

Catalent Pharma Solutions, which is classified as a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), is based out of Somerset, New Jersey, but the site it registered with the DEA is in Kansas City, Missouri. The Federal Notice released by the Administration states:

Legislative proposals to legalize marijuana and hemp production will not alter the plans of the best-funded group pursuing an initiative petition for medical marijuana.

New Approach Missouri, which has raised more than $125,000 for its campaign, would be happy to support a proposal that mirrors its initiative but can’t rely on lawmakers passing an acceptable plan, spokesman Jack Cardetti said.

COLUMBIA — When Sheila Dundon began chemotherapy treatments to combat breast cancer in 2007, she experienced all the side effects she'd seen in patients as a registered nurse. She felt the shooting pains, the pale-in-the-face nausea, the unwillingness to get out of bed each morning.

One symptom she didn't expect was fuzzy-headedness, the sense that her brain was trapped in an egg beater. Her psychiatrist pointed out that all those anti-depressants she was taking might have led to a mental condition called serotonin syndrome.

Off the record, he told her that marijuana could help. Asked how she got it in a state where it’s still criminalized, Dundon called it a “gift from God.”

ST. LOUIS, MO -- This #GivingTuesday, Show-Me Cannabis released the first commercial in the state of Missouri advocating for medical marijuana reform. The video, entitled "Guilty," is now available for online viewing on the crowdfunding website for nonprofits, Gladitood.com, where the organization is also raising $100,000 in support of its public education efforts around medical cannabis policy in Missouri.