Let’s say you’ve just come up with that brilliant-but-practical cannabis idea that’s going to get you your share of the explosive new marijuana industry. Here’s the problem: perhaps you have insufficient business experience and you’re not exactly flush with cash.

As new industries arise, old problems can resurface and cause a lot of headaches for employers. The most common one for employers right now is employee status. Who is considered an employee? How can you provide work for someone without being responsible for workers compensation premiums for them, especially if the work is high risk?

It often makes more sense in a burgeoning industry to farm out some operations to independent contractors. Non-employee producers are less expensive since they don’t require as much oversight, equipment or space as employees. Businesses also don’t have to provide workers compensation insurance coverage or employee benefits like medical insurance or paid vacation time to these workers, and training costs are nil.

Del Rey Oaks >> Besides holding the distinction of being the only city in Monterey County to have a medical marijuana dispensary, Del Rey Oaks seems poised to be the only city on the Peninsula to allow the cultivation and delivery of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

“I anticipate that will be the case,” said Del Rey Oaks City Manager Dan Dawson of what will happen Tuesday night as the City Council votes on whether to allow the delivery and personal cultivation of medicinal cannabis within city limits.

Cities throughout California have been in a frenzy to get municipal codes on the books to control marijuana dispensaries, cultivation and delivery.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Senate on Monday approved a bill aimed at slowing a rush of cities and counties racing to ban marijuana cultivation.

The measure corrects what lawmakers say was a mistake in California’s first comprehensive medical marijuana regulations, which were adopted in the closing hours of last year’s legislative session.

A paragraph in that 70-page bill gave the state authority to license growers in jurisdictions that do not have their own laws on the books by March 1.

A group of nuns are fighting to keep to keep weed legal in California. The Sisters of the Valley are based in California’s Central valley, and manufacture weed-based products they sell on their Etsy store. It’s worth pointing out that their products won’t get you high – they’re more like an alternative medicine.

The Sisters have got their habits in a twist because the city of Merced, where they live, last week passed a law banning medicinal weed. Although weed is legal in California, the Governor has given all cities in the state the opportunity to set their own cannabis legislation – and Merced has voted to ban the drug. 

Although commercial cultivation of medical marijuana is prohibited in Newark under an ordinance unanimously approved Jan. 14 by the City Council, qualified patients and their primary caregivers will still be allowed to grow their own plants.

The city specifically banned medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011. However, the city's zoning ordinance did not specifically address whether commercial cultivation of medical marijuana is a permitted use or a conditionally permitted use in any zoning district. The new ordinance is meant to clearly prohibit commercial cultivation.

Sister Kate calls herself an “accidental nun.” At age 16, she tried marijuana for the first time inside a friend’s car during a cold Wisconsin winter. But that was when she was a “good mid-western Catholic girl,” and the drug did nothing for her.

Years later, after her first marriage had come and gone, after she moved to Atlanta to work for General Electric, Kate tried weed again (not to mention cocaine.) This time was different, she wrote on her blog: “I learned that weed goes better with wine, that weed is calming, that weed left me with no side effects. … I gave up the powder and partying, but kept the weed and the wine, in moderation, like medicine.”

Forget waiting for that shady dude perpetually claiming he'll "be there in five." Online services linking patients with cannabis-friendly doctors are the future. The rise of telemedicine has made cannabis accessible to everyone - even those who loathe the hassle of lining up at dispensaries or sealing grey-market deals.

One of the biggest players in the nascent online-delivery game? California's SpeedWeed.

Commercial medical marijuana dispensaries are prohibited throughout Ventura County.

Now, to meet a March 1 deadline under a new state law, six of the county's 10 cities — Camarillo, Fillmore, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Thousand Oaks and Santa Paula — are rushing to go a step further by formally banning small-scale, personal cultivation of medical marijuana. The Ojai City Council will take up the issue in February, but currently forbids personal cultivation.

Officials argue that they want to retain control over marijuana in their communities, while opponents contend that heavy-handed ordinances reduce patients' access to medicinal pot.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - When the California Legislature passed the state's first comprehensive medical marijuana regulations in September, pot advocates hoped the move heralded a new era of trust in their often-tumultuous relationship with wary local officials and police.

So far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Facing what appears to be a rapidly closing window for action, dozens of cities and counties from across California are racing to enact new bans on marijuana-growing. Some apply only to commercial cultivation, both indoor and outdoor, but many would also prohibit personal pot gardens that have been legal — or at least overlooked — for 19 years.