California, Massachussets and Nevada will join Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State, Washington DC and the District of Columbia in allowing the use of recreational cannabis for adults.

Voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas have also passed marijuana measures on Tuesday.

Collectively, it's the closest the US has ever come to national referendum on marijuana. Marijuana remains classified as an illegal narcotic under US federal law, however.

Approval by California alone, the most populous US state with 39 million people, would put nearly a fifth of all Americans in jurisdictions where recreational marijuana is legal, according to US Census figures.

California was the first US state to legalise medical marijuana, doing so with a ballot measure enacted in 1996.