The Interior’s largest medical marijuana grow is about to sprout its first crop. The first crop will be . . . strawberries?

The strawberries will be a test crop to work out the intricacies of the system, which is extensive and expensive beyond the dreamiest visions of Cheech and Chong.

After the strawberry run-through, the farm will produce marijuana for a market of 1,000 people already signed up for delivery of the doctor-prescribed pharmaceutical.

The 12,000 square-foot building at the top of Peachland on Paradise Valley Dr. is in a different league than the usual grow, starting with the security.

Barbed wire, of course. That’s easy.

"As you can tell from the empties, we've had a few people over this weekend," says 57-year-old Jonathan Falkus as we stumble past his overflowing recycling bins, crammed to the gills with bottles, and into the front room of his flat.

Located in the middle of a Guildford housing estate, Jonathan refers to his flat as a "Cannabis Café and Hotel." But, inside, it looks less like a fledgling business initiative intent on getting UK cannabis laws changed—or a hotel of any description—and more the home of a man who very much enjoys smoking weed.

The outlaw botanists who designed the marijuana Americans smoke and the money they didn't make doing it

Since almost everyone interviewed for this story is, or has been, a criminal, almost everyone long ago adopted pseudonyms. Some are no longer criminals, so don’t mind their real names being used. Some are no longer criminals, but still prefer to use their pseudonyms.

Lawmakers in Washington D.C. want marijuana-related business to have legitimate bank accounts and end cash-only businesses where they have to stuff earnings in their mattresses.

Today, U.S. Reps. Perlmutter, D-Colorado, and Denny Heck, D-Washington, along with a bipartisan group of 16 other Republicans and Democrats, re-introduced H.R. 2076, the Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act of 2015. They said it's an effort to resolve the banking crisis marijuana-related businesses are facing.

Big marijuana money is in the D.C. area this week.

As part of a number of marijuana-related events in town this week, business investor network ArcView Group has brought approximately 200 high-net-worth cannabis investors for a "Shark Tank"-style pitch fest starting Thursday.

In all, 15 companies were selected to make their case for funding at the Investor Pitch Forum in Alexandria before the ArcView network, which has backed 53 companies and invested more than $40 million.

Budweiser may still be smarting from its most recent public embarrassment, but the beer brand apologized yesterday for its inappropriate tagline: “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.”

In an atmosphere charged with the ongoing national conversation about sexual assault, it’s truly amazing that any brand—let alone alcohol—would be so carelessly cavalier.

But alcohol is alcohol, and Bud isn’t the first brand to tease the darker elements of its nature. A therapist might even say alcohol brands have a self-destructive personality disorder.

Could your next job be in the legal marijuana industry? It's already the fastest-growing business in the U.S. and is expected to generate $10.8 billion in sales in 2019, a huge increase from $2.7 billion seen in 2014, according to Arcview Market Research.

About two dozen states have legalized medical marijuana. Colorado, Alaska, Washington State and Washington, D.C., permit recreational use of cannabis. Support for decriminalization of pot also is surging. A recent survey by Pew found that 54 percent of Americans support the idea.

Despite legal uncertainties, some pot dispensaries accept plastic.

It’s been more than a year since legal recreational pot sales started in Colorado, and as much as dispensary owners enjoy the booming business, they’re sick of swimming in cash. Though the Department of Justice released regulations last year allowing banks to accept money from legal dispensaries, it’s still a federal crime — the announcement that the DOJ won’t pursue institutions that process legal pot money hasn’t been enough to make everyone comfortable.

At the Chemsun Global pharmaceutical laboratory in an industrial park in Shanghai, the smell of fumes is so intense it leaves a bitter, chemical aftertaste in your mouth. At midnight on a recent Friday, a Chinese chemist who called himself Terry was eager to close a deal.

In the laboratory outside, a bright yellow liquid whirred around a flask. The place was filthy: surfaces were strewn with discarded rubber gloves and in one corner a sack of white powder spilled onto the floor.

April 30, 2014: The Project CBD Special Report, “Hemp Oil Hustlers,” is back in the news again thanks to the latest attempt by Medical Marijuana Inc. (MJNA) to deceive its shareholders and the general public.

Published in the Fall of 2014, “Hemp Oil Hustlers” documented Medical Marijuana Inc.’s questionable financial practices and the presence of toxic solvent residues in two of their products samples.

Let us state unequivocally: Project CBD stands 100 percent behind its Report. Medical Marijuana Inc. has been unable to refute a single statement.