Growing up, 36-year-old Lamine Zarrad learned the hard way what it’s like to be a disenfranchised outsider. Born in Azerbaijan, Zarrad and his parents fled ethnic conflict in the former Soviet republic in the 1990s and ended up living in a freezing former lithium processing factory in Moscow. Surrounded by contaminated machinery, they survived on condensed milk and corn flakes distributed by Western NGOs.

When it comes to growing a plant-based industry, big data and technology may be more valuable than fertilizer.

As the legal marijuana industry continues to expand, so has the need for data services to increase efficiency and consumer education. But companies like SAP and NetSuite that typically provide data collection and organization to more traditional industries aren’t extending their business to the legal cannabis industry, creating an opening for new companies catering just to the marijuana market to fill the space.

On today's episode of Daily VICE, we meet American marijuana consultant Russ Hudson, who uses Spain's loose marijuana restrictions to explore and review different types of weed. We join Hudson at one of Barcelona's cannabis clubs to check out his method for evaluating new strains of pot. Watch Daily VICE in the VICE channel on go90. Head to go90.com to learn more and download the app.

On today's episode of Daily VICE, we meet American marijuana consultant Russ Hudson, who uses Spain's loose marijuana restrictions to explore and review different types of weed. We join Hudson at one of Barcelona's cannabis clubs to check out his method for evaluating new strains of pot.

One of the biggest debates in Colorado cannabis lately has revolved around the idea of state government limiting the THC potency of recreational marijuana flower and pot products.

The average potency of Colorado pot products — 17.1 percent for cannabis flower and 62.1 percent for marijuana extracts, according to a state study — is already higher than the newly proposed limits of 15-to-16 percent.

Just as chocolatiers fancy February, florists adore May and necktie retailers love June, the marijuana industry truly celebrates April.

With the recent legalization of cannabis in certain areas of the United States, the unofficial holiday of 4/20 has legitimized itself. And the industry has the booming sales numbers to prove the holiday’s now-official status.

When dissecting Colorado marijuana sales data for 2015, three of the year’s 10 most lucrative days landed on April 20 and the weekend that preceded it, according to BDS Analytics, a firm that specializes in cannabis industry data collected from dispensaries’ point-of-sale systems.

A Winthrop lawyer and state Senate candidate who’s told local Democrats he’s opposed to legalizing marijuana until the state better educates kids on the “harmful effect of drugs” also served as a lawyer for a California-based cannabis cultivation company that once eyed the New England market.

Joseph Boncore — who’s running in Tuesday’s special primary for the seat once held by East Boston state Sen. Anthony Petruccelli — said he is against approving the recreational use of marijuana in Massachusetts, where advocates are pushing to get a ballot question before voters in November.

While Congress has prevented the District of Columbia from opening retail pot shops in the nation’s capital, a ruling handed down last month by a D.C. Superior Court judge allows District lawmakers to begin discussing the concept of recreational pot sales at the end of September.

Several weeks ago, Judge Brian Holeman delivered a historical verdict that upholds the District’s Local Budget Autonomy Act — passed in 2013 by 82 percent of the voters — allowing the local government to have complete control over their financial agenda.

The man who calls himself Kushgod is conflicted.

Normally, he wants all the attention he can get. In big, bold letters, he has plastered KUSH GODS on what police describe as his “fleet of Kush Gods vehicles.” He named his daughter Freedom Kushgod. He juggles two phones and a bevy of social media profiles featuring “Kush Godesses” striking languid poses on a Kush Gods Mercedes. Media requests are usually accepted on one condition: Cameras must be present.

At a convention center in Loveland, Colorado – an agricultural area surrounded by cattle feed yards, wheat fields and the occasional oil rig – thousands of attendees turned out for the third annual NoCo Hemp Expo earlier this month.

The event was about double the size of the previous year’s, with over 130 exhibitors, 75 speakers and about a dozen workshops for those interested in the rapidly-growing industrial hemp industry.

“I love the energy here,” said David Neisingh, co-founder of Reakiro Labs, a European-based firm that specializes in hemp production, investment and development. As one of the expo’s featured speakers, Neisingh showed off a bicycle with a frame made mostly from hemp, and powered by a hemp-oil motor.

Medical-marijuana facilities may soon have fewer options of where to open in Phoenix, through zoning changes the city is considering in advance of a possible statewide vote to make recreational use of the drug legal.

Medical-marijuana facilities may soon have fewer options of where to open in Phoenix, through zoning changes the city is considering in advance of a possible statewide vote to make recreational use of the drug legal.

The city’s planning and development department is proposing stricter regulations for new dispensaries, cultivation sites and infusion facilities. Industry advocates say the changes would make it even more difficult to find locations where they could operate.