What may seem like a surprisingly fast turn toward legalization has actually been a long, slow movement against pot's prohibition -- one that began in the early 1960s, peaked in the late '70s, and then failed to secure a single major victory again until the late '90s.

If you run a medical marijuana dispensary, or a legal marijuana business in Colorado, how do you get paid? Federal laws enacted during the war on drugs in the 1980s barred banks from doing business with "drug traffickers."