By Tony Dokoupil, Senior Staff Writer, NBC News

It bears an aura of inevitability, the state-by-state fall of marijuana prohibition, starting with January’s debut of commercial sales in Colorado and Washington state.

Even as the legalization trend has spread, however, gathering momentum in at least 11 other states and setting up a prolonged clash with federal law, the issue has drowsed in the shadows of establishment conversation. It’s been officially ignored by major editorial boards, legal and medical societies, blue-chip companies and religious groups.

But the last time the reform movement was putting this much pressure on Congress — back in the 1970s — many of the staid institutions that are remaining silent now, noisily sallied forth and grooved to the issue of legal or near-legal weed.

Read more: Then and now: Who supports pot legalization? It might surprise you – U.S. News.