California became the first state to enact medical marijuana legislation in 1996 with the Compassionate Use Act, followed in the next four years by Oregon, Alaska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Nevada and Colorado. Ultimately, this led to Colorado being the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2014. Since then, many states have shifted their status to fully legalized, medical use and decriminalized, medical use only, decriminalized, and a few states where the main psychoactive component of cannabis, THC, is allowed to be present only in trace amounts in conjunction with CBD products.
