With the Obama administration pledging to take a hands-off approach to state medical marijuana laws, more states may make it legal for patients to use the drug, which doctors sometimes recommend to treat symptoms such as pain and nausea.

New Hampshire's state House passed a medical marijuana bill on Wednesday, USA Today reports. A similar bill failed a few years back.

A New Jersey bill passed the state senate last month, a Minnesota bill passed a state House panel earlier this week and both houses of Illinois's legislature are considering a bill, USAT says.

Under the Bush administration, the DEA regularly raided medical marijuana dispensaries, on the grounds that they were violating federal law, even if they were operating in compliance with laws in more than a dozen states that already allow medical marijuana use.

With the Obama administration's move away from those policies, "we may be seeing the end of an era," a UC Berkeley law professor told the WSJ earlier this month.