Anyone with a modicum of perspective on the burgeoning cannabis business agrees that in years ahead, hindsight will look at these days like the era before the Gold Rush. Whereas the Gold Rush eventually peaked and dissipated, it seems unlikely that the cannabis industry will take that trajectory. But in both cases, the entrepreneurs early into the market will likely be the great success stories. The wild west businessmen who supplied the picks, shovels and dungarees to the gold rush prospectors did quite well. And the modern day equivalent is often an entrepreneur from the distaff side.

A small city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley is considering a proposal to allow a marijuana cultivation operation at a former prison.

The Fresno Bee reports that the Coalinga City Council on Wednesday directed staff to prepare an official ordinance to allow commercial medical marijuana cultivation at Claremont Custody Center. The city will also draft a ballot measure that would allow voters to decide whether to allow medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

Ocean Grown Extracts is trying to lease the city's abandoned prison for a cannabis oil manufacturing plant.

Modern farming techniques give way to mass production, thus relying heavily on pesticides and damaging fertilisers. While production rate may be high, the harvest may cause more harm to the body and damage to the environment due to “inorganic” cultivation. Today, more than ever, producers should aim for quality over quantity.

Once an emerging trend and now a major industry’s necessity, marijuana job fairs are becoming more and more common throughout the United States’ legal (and semi-legal) cannabis markets.

And California medical marijuana company Bloom Farms will announce its fourth marijuana job fair later today — the SF Bay Area Cannabis Career & Job Fair on April 10. Companies at the fair will include Meadow and Harborside Health Center; Open positions include budtender, cannabis consultant, cultivation tech and delivery driver.

Last year’s event saw more than 1,800 attendees, according to Bloom Farms, but the more important 2015 stats are these ones: 26 employers hired 125 workers at last year’s event.

Entertainer Whoopi Goldberg has started a medical marijuana business in San Francisco — and she hopes her products will provide “an alternative for relieving the pain and discomfort associated with menstruation,” Goldberg said in a release.

Goldberg paired with award-winning edibles maker Maya Elisabeth, who founded Om Edibles in 2008, to launch the brand — called Whoopi & Maya. The topicals and edibles aimed at women will be available in California dispensaries in April.

Children afflicted with Dravet Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy, have been effectively treated with a cannabis-based drug, Epidiolex, containing cannabinoids, the GW Pharmaceuticals announced Monday. Investors snapped up shares of the little-known firm, effectively doubling the company’s market value overnight. 

GW Pharmaceuticals are seeking approval for Epidiolex from U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Analysts expect GW Pharmaceuticals Epidiolex to cost $2,500 to $5,000 a month, which would be more expensive than some of the medical marijuana products, which cost from about $100 to more than $1,000 per month. However, Epidiolex might be covered by insurance, unlike the other products.

Vancouver marijuana dispensaries have a few extra days grace before an official deadline to close.

The city originally told business owners that any storefront not moving through the regulatory process was to cease operations by April 20. Now, that date as it appears on a city website has been updated to read April 29.

In a telephone interview, Andreea Toma, director of licensing and property-use inspections for the City of Vancouver, told the Straight the change is not an extension, “per se”.

“The deadlines are specific to when a six-month count starts,” she explained. “It depends on when they were notified.”

Those behind the THC-limiting proposals say they're smart, cautious moves; Opponents say they'll hurt the pot industry.

A proposed ballot initiative and an amendment to a bill in the state House would cap the THC potency of recreational cannabis and marijuana products at a percentage below most of those products’ current averages.

The initiative would limit the potency of “marijuana and marijuana products” to 15 percent or 16 percent THC.

The average potency of Colorado pot products is already higher — 17.1 percent for cannabis flower and 62.1 percent for marijuana extracts, according to a state study.

California's multibillion-dollar medical cannabis industry is largely a white man's game. It's rare to see a person of color owning a marijuana dispensary or running a major cannabis business; most black and brown people you see in the industry are working security or maybe behind the budtenders' counter.