With recreational marijuana on the ballot, some worry that big business will transform the way pot is grown, distributed and sold.

More than 20 years later, Hezekiah Allen remembers the Blackhawk helicopters hovering over his childhood home, the armed soldiers barricading the road to the family’s northern California pot farm, the neighbor who hang-glided to escape from the Feds. More than once, Allen came home from a friend’s house to find his mother and stepfather had been arrested again. 

It looks like Avery Collins - the ultra-marathoner who uses cannabis as part of his training regimen - is built for speed as well as distance. The 24-year-old from North Carolina won the third annual 420 Games road race in San Francisco on the weekend in a time of just nine minutes. Mind you, he didn't run 4.2 miles in that time (the race was shortened to two miles at the last minute because of some traffic issues in the area) but that's still really fast.

To prep for the race, the Colorado resident told SFGATE he ate some potato chip edibles and toked a couple of times.

The cannabis sector seems to be attracting many brilliant minds. According to reports, former Barclay’s banker Roger Jenkins is making significant investments in marijuana projects. The cannabis investment by Jenkins, who is now residing in California, goes against the normal antipathy of banks and bankers in getting involved with marijuana industry projects.

Jenkins cannabis investment is part of a group of investors who had recently acquired land in California for expanding the marijuana-related business.

California is gearing up for cannabis vote in November and aims to legalize the adult recreational use of cannabis. The Jenkins group is apparently trying to get a lead on the green rush by taking up valuable land now.

With passage of the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MCRSA), my firm’s California cannabis lawyers have been representing a steady onslaught of investors looking to get into California’s MMJ industry in some way, shape, or form. And with the vote on Proposition 64 coming up in November, excitement about the Golden State is palpable.

But it’s not all roses when it comes to current California MMJ laws and investing.

Last week, I got legal pot delivered to my Bay Area doorstep faster than most Postmates orders.

I picked out a new cartridge for my vape pen from Eaze, a medicinal marijuana delivery startup that's been dubbed the "Uber of weed," and fewer than 20 minutes later, a courier pulled up outside my apartment and handed me a white linen bag that hid my purchase.

A new "Uber of weed" or "Yelp of marijuana" crops up on the legal pot landscape every other week. There's a Birchbox-like service for "every kind of stoner." Users find love on High There, the "Tinder for weed smokers."

Like wine growers, Mendocino area farmers want Emerald Triangle recognised for its superior product.

Mendocino marijuana farmers are taking a leaf out of France's book and plotting to arrange a "champagne of weed" and other appellations for cannabis from the Emerald Triangle of northern California.

Pot grown in the region is a unique product and appeals to the discerning stoner palate, some farmers suggest. Marijuana grower Justino Calvino and supporters hope to market to consumers using a special, legally defined and protected geographical identification system, similar to that of the wine industry.

Health officials are waiting on test results to determine if San Luis Creek or other water sources were contaminated by a banned pesticide that may have been used on an illegal marijuana plantation off Highway 101 north of San Luis Obispo.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department narcotics detectives discovered 5,880 marijuana plants on the east side of the highway about halfway up Cuesta Grade, said sheriff’s spokesman Tony Cipolla.

In addition to the plants and trash located near a San Luis Creek tributary on private land bordering Los Padres National Forest, investigators also found a variety of toxic chemicals, Cipolla said.

Those included Carbofuran, a pesticide detectives believe was applied to the marijuana plants.

With California poised to legalize recreational marijuana through Proposition 64 in November, California’s existing marijuana cultivators in Mendocino County are looking to protect their highest quality buds by applying for wine-style appellations.

The  Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports that Justin Calvino, a “onetime Haight-Ashbury dope dealer,” is attempting to organize a formal designation, “Cannabis County,” for a specific geographically-defined region known to produce the state’s best crop.

The hope is to protect Mendocino farmers through “a legally defined and protected geographical identification system similar to what’s used in the wine industry.”

Legalizing recreational marijuana in California could create a $6.46-billion market for legal use of the drug by 2020, according to a new report.

The projection, from the Arcview Market Research, comes in advance of a November vote on legalization in the state. Legal marijuana sales would be expected to hit $1.6 in the first year of legalization.

Millions of consumers treat Weedmaps like the Yelp for pot, relying on the Irvine company as their definitive guide to marijuana dispensaries, varieties and doctors.

But a key feature — user reviews of pot businesses — may be tainted by thousands of potentially fraudulent comments, a flaw in the company’s software revealed.

Reviews on the site are pseudonymous, and visitors reasonably expect that each is written by a unique customer. But data that Weedmaps mistakenly leaked suggests a large proportion of a glowing remarks come from individual users leaving multiple reviews of a single business.

Of 598 businesses examined by the Los Angeles Times and a software developer, 70% had at least one batch of reviews originating from the same IP address.