CALIFORNIA:  Four states out of 50 may not sound like much of a mandate, but the success of marijuana initiatives on the ballot last week suggests the nation is inching toward legalizing the once-demon weed.

California started the ball rolling 16 years ago with a medical marijuana law so broad, it makes a gram of weed cheaper and easier to get than a prescription for Vicodin. Now dozens of states allow adults access to marijuana as medicine, and four — Oregon, Alaska, Colorado and Washington — allow the drug to be sold outright, without even the pretense of illness.

All this is in defiance of a federal ban that deems marijuana as dangerous a drug as heroin with no legitimate medical use — a view radically out of step with what a majority of Americans believe.

Surveys show that more than half of the country’s voters think marijuana should be legal, and 75% believe it eventually will be.