Support it or not, there’s no denying that this was a watershed year for marijuana, reports the Washington Post in this comprehensive overview.
Within hours of the new year, the nation saw the first legally sanctioned sales of marijuana for recreational use in modern history. Throughout, states considered and often passed expanding access to the drug and, as recently as last weekend, Congress was interfering in D.C.’s pot policies and promising to stay out of the states.
Based on exchanges with pot advocates, we rounded up 22 of the most significant moments for marijuana in 2014, most of them advancing the cause though the list includes a few notable setbacks.
Click the links below to jump to each event.
1. Legal sales begin in Colorado
2. Obama: ‘I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol’
3. Congress allows hemp cultivation
4. CNN chief medical correspondent backs medical marijuana
5. Poll finds more Americans identify tobacco, alcohol and sugar as “most harmful”
6. Utah passes limited medical marijuana law
7. D.C. decriminalizes
8. Maryland approves medical marijuana and decriminalizes possession
9. Minnesota approves medical marijuana
10. New York approves medical marijuana
11. Legal pot sales begin in Washington
12. New York Times editorial board calls for an end to prohibition
13. Study: Medical marijuana laws associated with 25 percent fewer prescription overdose deaths
14. Philadelphia becomes largest U.S. city to decriminalize marijuana possession
15. Federal court considers whether marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance
16. Two more states and D.C. vote to legalize
17. Florida medical marijuana loses, with 58 percent of the vote
18. Native Americans reservations allowed to legalize marijuana
19. Congress blocks D.C. legalization
20. Congress ends the ban on medical marijuana
21. Colorado approves $8 million for marijuana research
22. Oklahoma and Nebraska are suing Colorado over marijuana legalization
