One year ago, I was 30 years old, leading a $100-million-plus business as head of an Asia-Pacific-wide sales team for Google, and making more money than I ever imagined. I had lived in New York, San Francisco, Bangkok and Singapore, and travelled to over 50 countries. All this because six years before, I landed my dream job at Google in corporate strategy.

I found myself on a secondment in Ghana developing national Internet infrastructure. On my way to a voodoo ceremony with a Ghanian tour guide, I reflected on my career path, admitting to him that I’d lost focus and felt unfulfilled. What he told me changed the course of my life: “You either work on something you love, or work because it supports the people you love.”

That’s when I quit Google.

SEATTLE -- Banned pesticides recently found in legal marijuana are highlighting the need for better consumer protection for weed buyers.

State law doesn't require mandatory recalls when marijuana products could pose a health hazard, but some people now say recalls are needed.

The owner of Hashtag, a Seattle marijuana store, recently pulled products from his shelf that used a banned pesticide even though he didn't have to under state law.

"Even products that were fine but we couldn't trace the linage of the ingredients we pulled to be on the safe side," said owner Logan Bowers.

Unlike Colorado, Washington state law doesn't have a mandatory recall mechanism to pull bad weed products off the shelf.

Yes, a couple of exhibitors were selling pipes and bongs. And a few showgoers looked like they had dressed in the dark.

But they were a small minority at CannaCon on Thursday when the annual marijuana industry trade show opened its three-day run at Seattle’s Pier 91.

The rapidly growing and changing marijuana business is attracting big money.

Out with the stoners, in with the suits.

“Our industry is growing so amazingly fast it’s ridiculous,” said show founder Bob Smart. “When we did the first show there were three retail stores open. The second show last February there were 34. This year there’s 200.”

Dave Kallas spent over two decades busting drug dealers on the streets of Las Vegas.

On Saturday, he became a dealer himself — a legal one — when his medical marijuana dispensary The Apothecarium, 7885 W. Sahara Ave., officially opened for business.

Kallas, 60, and his business partner, Ryan Hudson — who runs/owns the original Apothecarium in San Francisco — both see the business as an opportunity to help people who might benefit from the medicinal benefits of marijuana by giving them a legal means of getting their hands on it.

Hudson called it a "harm reduction program," noting people won't have to head into a sketchy neighborhood to buy marijuana from a shady dealer.

"We have a lawful way for you to obtain the relief you're looking for," Kallas said.

As the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs seek to become the first in the state to sell reservation-grown marijuana, they have looked out of state for help with growing and selling their new cash crop.

That’s where Sentinel-Strainwise comes in. Just created in May, the joint venture between Florida-based investment group Sentinel Capital Partners and Strainwise Inc., a corporation that provides consultation, services and support to marijuana cultivators and dispensaries in Colorado and elsewhere, was sought out by the tribes last year.

HANOVER - A prominent Morris County physical therapist and entrepreneur is banking his future on the growth of the medical-cannabis testing industry. But rest assured, David Cunic has not gone from fixing joints to smoking them for a living.

"Most people say 'Oh, if you need a tester, I'll test a joint for you,' " said Cunic, a native of Denville and graduate of the Delbarton School, where he played varsity basketball with future NBA star Troy Murphy. "And I say, 'No, it's not that type of testing.' "

Cunic and his publicly-traded corporation, Pazoo Inc., are instead taking a scientific approach to testing medical cannabis in laboratories for potentially harmful impurities before the product is sold at legal dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is approved.

Social media giants Facebook and Instagram have gone into overhaul by eliminating accounts that share information or products related to cannabis usage, The Guardian reports.

The business crackdown comes after retailers and marketing companies have existed on the sites for a number of years without breaking any laws. More than likely, the aggressive campaign is another method to eliminate the war on drugs. Suppliers are have been able to take a new route (social media) to sell and distribute drugs within the past five years, taking the industry to a new level.

Legal marijuana has been having banner year after banner year since various states havelegalized the sale and consumption of the plant and its derivatives starting back in 2012 within Colorado and Washington. It should be noted that the process of marijuana’s status as a demonized drug has been slipping for much longer than the past 4 years.

Marijuana delivery is efficient. Marijuana delivery is convenient. Marijuana delivery is illegal.

At least that's the case in the city of Los Angeles, where voters passed a measure, 2013's Proposition D, that outlaws delivery of otherwise legal medical cannabis except by "primary caregivers" such as home nurses.

"There is no lawful delivery service under Prop. D," L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer has said.

Yet delivery services have, er, mushroomed, and SpeedWeed is the local big daddy of them all. Prosecutors say it has 25,000 customers.

Marijuana is legal to buy in several states, but no law says that selling it will be free from cumbersome expense and paperwork, especially when it comes to taxation.

Sales of the drug are permitted for recreational use in just four states — Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska — and the District of Columbia; 18 other states allow sales for medicinal use. But marijuana is still illegal under federal law, and that helps explain why production and sale are tightly controlled.