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Legal marijuana is the fastest-growing industry in the United States and if the trend toward legalization spreads to all 50 states, marijuana could become larger than the organic food industry, according to a new report obtained by The Huffington Post.

Researchers from The ArcView Group, a cannabis industry investment and research firm based in Oakland, California, found that the U.S. market for legal cannabis grew 74 percent in 2014 to $2.7 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2013.

The group surveyed hundreds of medical and recreational marijuana retailers in states where sales are legal, as well as ancillary business operators and independent cultivators of the plant, over the course of seven months during 2013 and 2014. ArcView also compiled data from state agencies, nonprofit organizations and private companies in the marijuana industry for a more complete look at the marketplace.

“In the last year, the rise of the cannabis industry went from an interesting cocktail conversation to being taken seriously as the fastest growing industry in America,” Troy Dayton, CEO of The ArcView Group and publisher of the third edition of the State of Legal Marijuana Markets, said in the executive summary of the report. “At this point, it’s hard to imagine that any serious businessperson who is paying attention hasn’t spent some time thinking about the possibilities in this market.”

Graph courtesy of ArcView Market Research.

The report also projects a strong year for legal marijuana in 2015 and projects 32 percent growth in the market. Dayton said that places “cannabis in the top spot” when compared with other fast-growing industries.

Over the next five years, the marijuana industry is expected to continue to grow, with ArcView predicting that 14 more states will legalize recreational marijuana and two more states will legalize medical marijuana. At least 10 states are already considering legalizing recreational marijuana in just the next two years through ballot measures or state legislatures.

To date, four states — Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon — have legalized retail marijuana. Washington, D.C., voters also legalized recreational marijuana use, but sales currently remain banned. Twenty-three states have legalized medical cannabis. Still, marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

The report projects that, by 2019, all of the state-legal marijuana markets combined will make for a potential overall market worth almost $11 billion annually.

Graph courtesy of ArcView Market Research.

The report also breaks out some interesting marijuana trends from around the nation. California still has the largest legal cannabis market in the U.S., at $1.3 billion. Arizona was found to have the fastest-growing major marijuana market in 2014, expanding to $155 million, up more than $120 million from the previous year. Medical marijuana is already legal in Arizona and California and recreational legalization measures are likely to appear on the 2016 ballots in both states.

More than 1.5 million shoppers purchased legal marijuana from a dispensary, either medical or recreational, in 2014. Five states now boast marijuana markets that are larger than $100 million, and in Colorado and Washington — the first states to open retail marijuana shops in the U.S. — consumers bought $370 million in marijuana products last year.

Oregon and Alaska are expected to add a combined $275 million in retail marijuana sales in their first year of operation, the report projects. And while D.C. has also legalized recreational marijuana use, ArcView couldn’t project a market size in the District because of an ongoing attempt by congressional Republicans to block the new law.

Graph courtesy of ArcView Market Research.

The huge growth potential of the industry appears to be limited only by the possibility of states rejecting the loosening of their drug laws. The report projects a marijuana industry that could be more valuable than the entire organic food industry — that is, if the legalization trend continues to the point that all 50 states legalize recreational marijuana. The total market value of all states legalizing marijuana would top $36.8 billion — more than $3 billion larger than the organic food industry.

“These are exciting times,” Dayton said in the executive summary, “and new millionaires and possibly billionaires are about to be made, while simultaneously society will become safer and freer.”

Viola Davis brought the audience to their feet with her touching acceptance speech at the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday.

“When I tell my daughter stories at night, inevitably, a few things happen,” Davis said while accepting the award. “Number one, I use my imagination. I always start with life, and then I build from there. And then the other thing that happens is she always says, ‘Mommy, can you put me in the story?’ And you know, it starts from the top up.”

Davis called out the lack of diversity in Hollywood, and thanked the “How to Get Away With Murder” producers (including Shonda Rhimes) for thinking a “mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old, dark-skinned, African-American woman who looks like me.”

This empowering speech follows the one Davis gave at the People’s Choice Awards earlier this month, in which she took a dig at New York Times’ television critic Alessandra Stanley.

“Thank you Shonda Rhimes, [producer] Betsy Beers and [creator] Peter Nowalk for thinking of a leading lady who looks like my ‘classic beauty,'” she said, referring to Stanley’s assertion that Davis was “less classically beautiful” than Halle Berry or Kerry Washington. “I’m so proud to be an actor and so happy to do what I do. And I’m so happy that people have accepted me in this role at this stage in my career.”

Speaking after the SAG Awards win, Davis said she didn’t anticipate making the speech, but also knew what had to be said:

Viola Davis didn’t plan her amazing SAG speech. “Being in the business for 27 years, you know, I have a lot to say.”

— Andrea Mandell (@AndreaMandell) January 26, 2015

The busy Northeast corridor prepared for a winter wallop that was expected to bring 2 to 3 feet of snow from northern New Jersey all the way up to Massachusetts. Here’s what residents of the big cities in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic need to know about the coming storm:

___ SNOWSTORM VS. BLIZZARD: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for a huge swath of the region, meaning potential white-out conditions as heavy snow swirls amid gusting wind. The weather service says a blizzard includes sustained or frequent wind gusts of 35 mph or greater and considerable falling snow that lasts for at least three hours. This storm is expected to last up to 36 hours in some locations, forecasters said.

___

AIR TRAVEL

More than 1,400 flights scheduled for Monday are expected to be cancelled, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. Most major airlines are allowing customers whose flights are canceled in the next few days to book new flights without paying a penalty. Customers ticketed on flights to dozens of Eastern airports are generally eligible for the allowance, though specific terms vary by airline.

___

NEW YORK

A blizzard expected to dump 2 to 3 feet of snow should begin around midday Monday and last through Tuesday night. Nearly 200 Monday flights had already been canceled Sunday night at the three major airports serving the city.

___

BOSTON

A blizzard warning will be in effect from 7 p.m. Monday to 1 a.m. Wednesday, with about 18 to 24 inches of snow forecast for the city, but up to 3 feet to the west. Hurricane force winds were predicted for Cape Cod and the nearby islands, and wind gusts of up to 75 mph were possible farther inland.

___

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

From 20 to 30 inches of snow was predicted, including snowfall rates of 2 to 4 inches per hour at some points Monday night or Tuesday morning.

___

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

Accumulations of around 20 to 30 inches were expected with locally higher amounts possible, plus blizzard conditions that include damaging winds and considerable drifting and blowing snow.

___

PHILADELPHIA

An initial shot of one to three inches of snow early Monday is a prelude for the main storm that arrives about noon, when a winter storm warning goes into effect. About 14 to 18 inches is expected before the storm ends about 6 p.m. Tuesday, with less to the west and more in New Jersey toward the coast.

___

WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE

Snow should begin falling before sunrise Monday and end by midday Tuesday, with only about 2 to 3 inches accumulating in Washington but 4 to 6 inches in Baltimore.

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In a new interview Laurent Léger, investigations editor of Charlie Hebdo and a survivor of the January 7th assault on the magazine’s Paris office, condemned President Obama for his administration’s attack on press freedom.

“You have to be very happy [Obama] didn’t come to the march in Paris,” said Léger. “[His administration’s actions are] an absolute scandal. It’s very good he didn’t come to the march that day.” A 2013 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists stated that the Obama administration’s “war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive…since the Nixon administration.” Eight whistleblowers have been prosecuted by Obama’s Justice Department under the 1917 Espionage Act, more than twice as many as under all other presidents combined.

Léger was participating in Charlie Hebdo‘s weekly editorial meeting when the staff heard what sounded like fireworks outside. Then, Léger told French radio, a man masked and dressed all in black — now known to have been either Chérif or Saïd Kouachi — entered the room, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and began shooting the magazine’s staff, killing nine. Léger survived by hiding underneath a table. After the gunmen left Léger held the hand of one of the wounded, Charlie Hebdo webmaster Simon Fieschi, until help arrived.

Léger also harshly criticized the attitude of both the British government and media toward freedom of the press. “It’s really unbelievable,” he said, that the UK Official Secret Acts has been used to prevent the British press from reporting on a 2004 meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair during which Bush allegedly advocated the bombing of the headquarters of Al Jazeera. The British government has also gagged the nation’s press from reporting that the subsequent prosecution of civil servant David Keogh was linked to his apparent leaking of the minutes from the Bush-Blair meeting.

Said Léger:

The role of the British justice system with regard to the press is just insane. You see how people’s private lives are completely trampled on by the British papers, especially the tabloids, while at the same time the justice system forbids them from publishing information… about the affairs of bureaucrats. This is not freedom of expression.

In addition, Léger pronounced it “very bizarre” that the New York Times gave a platform on its op-ed page to Marine Le Pen — leader of France’s hard-right National Front party and one of the political figures most ridiculed by Charlie Hebdo‘s staff — for Le Pen to comment on the massacre.

Léger lambasted the Western media more broadly for what he called the “dizzying” difference between the volume of the coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the simultaneous mass killings by Boko Haram in Nigeria. “It was a total distortion of the values [of the press],” said Léger. “It is the media as a whole that must reflect on its priorities.”

However, Léger did defend the recent indictment of French comedian and political activist Dieudonné for “incitement of terrorism.” Dieudonné posted “Today I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” on his Facebook page, referencing Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people at kosher grocery store in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo attack. Dieudonné has previously been convicted under French laws forbidding the incitement of racial hatred.

“Dieudonné knows the law perfectly well, and he’s playing with it, because it serves him to appear as a victim,” said Léger. “I don’t at all find this shameful that we can sometimes limit the freedom of expression. We are all conscious of that at Charlie Hebdo, we defend freedom of expression but always within the framework of the law and the values of the republic.”

Léger began his career as an investigative journalist at Paris Match, and has written and co-written many books on French politics. He later was part of the founding team of Bakchich, a satirical magazine similar to Charlie Hebdo. “The pleasure of working in satire,” said Léger, is that humor is “an easier way to reporting information that is sometimes disturbing or difficult to talk about.” He characterized his main ambition as simply to uncover “what there is in the corridors of power, what information is worth hiding.”

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Léger called upon comedians and journalists worldwide to seize “a big opportunity to express themselves, to help explain through humor, derision and satire what the big issues of today’s society really are… [to] discuss secularism, how to coexist, how to talk about culture and understanding.”

Léger said he believed many French officials at the January 10th rally in Paris protesting the assault on Charlie Hebdo were sincere. However, he described the presence of numerous government officials from countries with poor records on freedom of the press as “incredible and ludicrous. It’s too bad that the cartoonists who were killed couldn’t be there to see it. If they had, they would have made some fantastic cartoons.”