MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. (WJBK) -A measure to legalize marijuana is likely to appear on next year's ballot -and not everyone is happy about it.

Petitions to place the issue of legalizing marijuana appears to be headed to the voters.  The first step was officially filed Friday. 

It is a voter initiative, a voter supported law, that supporters believe has many benefits. 

It was one of the topics at the Mackinac Policy Conference.

"It's been decriminalized in most municipalities," said attorney John Pirich. "And this state and virtually all the other states. It is a tremendous amount of revenue and policing that could come with regulation."

And the proposal would mandate State control of recreational pot.

There’s little doubt that Travis Dahl adores his dog, Dora, and absolutely none that she adores him. But their partnership is on borrowed time. Soon, Dora will leave for a new home and a new job. “It’ll be a bittersweet moment when she leaves, that’s for sure,” he says ruefully.

Dora, you see, has a drug problem. When it comes to marijuana, she can’t help herself. She’ll find it in sealed bags in the trunks of cars, hidden under floorboards, inside walls, drawers or pockets. And when she finds it, she won’t move until Dahl retrieves it and rewards her.

Governments and communities worldwide are softening their views on cannabis use. Trials of medicinal cannabis have been approved in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales. And the Australian parliament is currently debating legislation to introduce a government regulator of medicinal cannabis.

The federal government wants to be clear with its federal employees that might live in states that have reformed their marijuana laws: Marijuana remains illegal, so don't use it.

In a groundbreaking move for a group of its kind, a leading organization opposed to marijuana legalization released a report Thursday that seeks a major overhaul of marijuana research in the United States, calling on the federal government to recognize the medical value of cannabis.

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, called his group's research recommendations a "third way," positioning them between the concepts of legalization -- which the group continues to oppose -- and full prohibition, on a call Thursday.

A Bay Area company is catering to medical marijuana users statewide who have a sweet tooth.

It’s not the eggs that make these pastries special, though there are eggs along with sugar, chocolate and flour. These pastries are high in calories, high in carbs, but these are high in potency, too.

“We pretty much make our cookies like you would any other bakery, any other cookie, we just have a little bit of green in our butter,” said Danny Nunan, a baker at Korova Edibles.

The Bay Area’s Korova Edibles is making a name for itself in medicinal marijuana circles for the amount of pot it puts in its products, for having a trained pastry chef with culinary credentials, and a respected lab that works to make sure doses are accurate.

A group opposed to pot legalization is unveiling proposals on Thursday for the U.S. government to ease restrictions on scientific research into marijuana's potential as medicine, in a first step for an organization of its kind.

The plan from Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which is co-founded by former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, comes after three U.S. Senators this year introduced a bill that would require the federal government to recognize pot's medical value and allow states to set their own medical cannabis policies.

Kennedy will present his group's plan on Thursday to officials in Washington, said Kevin Sabet, the group's president and chief executive.

Marijuana was once the drug of choice for hazy-eyed potheads with no ambition and a loose grasp of new-age philosophy. But step aside, stoners. Since recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Washington DC, weed has become associated with up-and-coming entrepreneurs with networking charm and business nous.

Establishment figures are turning to marijuana as inspiration for the next big entrepreneurial idea. Or ganjapreneurial idea, if you will. The United States is now home to the Martha Stewart of weed, a women’s cannabis networking group, and Uber for weed. Meanwhile, the former chief of homeland security for New York is currently in charge of protecting marijuana shipments. Meet the very respectable leaders of America’s weed revolution.

SALEM — Pot growers worry that Oregon’s emerging hemp industry could take the buzz out of their recretional and medicinal weed.

Some lawmakers hope to clamp down on the state’s still-embryonic industrial hemp crop due to concerns that through cross-pollination hemp could harm outdoor medical marijuana grows, particularly in southern Oregon.

Hemp — a cousin of marijuana which contains much lower levels of THC, marijuana’s psychoactive component — can ruin valuable marijuana crops through cross-pollination, by lowering marijuana’s THC content, pot advocatese say.

Two fast food workers in Washington have been fired after a marijuana advocate and another individual caught them on video accepting weed as payment for food.

Jonah Tacoma was ordering through the drive-thru at Frugals in Tacoma, Washington, last month when he offered to give the employees hits of marijuana in exchange for free meals.

“She said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ We started filming when we pulled up,” Tacoma told KOMO-TV.