They sit for hours at a time, hunched over tables with scissors in one hand and marijuana in the other. The work is tedious, but it pays well — for now. This once mostly black market trade is slowly becoming more regulated, hindering the flow of quick under-the-table cash.

Hours meld, the sound of snipping and sticky scissors clinking when they are dipped in jars of alcohol as the workers groom the weed.

ABC News visited a cannabis farm in Mendocino County, California, during the harvest season last fall. Workers have to cut, dry and trim the weed to get it ready for sale.

Explore the marijuana harvest in this 360 video by dragging the video with a mouse:

The workers who cut the marijuana are called trimmers, and excellent ones can make a few hundred dollars over a 60 to 90 day harvest.

While Congress has largely refused to roll back, or even debate, the federal prohibition on pot, local voters across the U.S. have cast ballots to end the war on marijuana. But the nation's patchwork of pot laws can be confusing – even in the states where it's allowed – so here's a blueprint of what you can and can't do in the eight states (plus D.C.) where weed's been legalized for recreational use.

The California craft beer industry is worth upwards of $7 billion, and with approximately 750 breweries, the state is home to more brew operations than any other in the country. Now, the Golden State’s cannabis contingent is hoping to follow suit, with many industry leaders emphasizing the importance–and frankly, rights to–self-distribution.

An uncertain future can breed both optimism and apprehension, and five months after the passage of Proposition 64, nothing is as uncertain as how California’s budding recreational cannabis industry will develop in the years to come. Cannabis growers in the Emerald Triangle are eager to inaugurate the coming era of fully legal weed, but they sometimes express an anxiety as old as the Industrial Revolution.

Some cannabis entrepreneurs worry that legalization of commercial recreational marijuana will invite investment capital from outside the area to establish giant, vertically integrated corporate behemoths with economies of scale that will enable them to fatally undercut and crush independent local growers. Think the Standard Oil or Walmart of weed.

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects one in nine new mothers. That’s a fact that Los Angeles-based life coach and blogger Celia Behar knew well through her work with clients with PPD — and it made her feel “sort of prepared” for the possibility when she became pregnant with her first child ten years ago.

Glaciers carve valleys out of rock in more than 10,000 years. Santa Rosa created the first outlines of CannaCom Valley in the past year, with some two dozen cannabis-commerce startups already shaping the valley floor.

CannaCom Valley, expected to quickly attract thick growth of new business enterprise, will become a verdant source of city revenue if voters say yes to a new tax measure in June. The cannabis industry will rival wine and beer, soaring to hundreds of millions of dollars of business.

The San Jacinto City Council meeting April 4 in a public hearing on a proposed marijuana cultivation ordinance brought strong emotional debate between marijuana cultivators, those opposed and a member of the city council.

The continued public hearing on Ordinance 17-02 that is meant to regulate the establishment of commercial marijuana cultivation in the light industrial zone of the city has been an emotional issue before the council since the passage of Proposition 64. Proposition 64 allows the limited cultivation and use of recreational marijuana.

This vast and fertile valley is often called the salad bowl of the nation for the countless heads of lettuce growing across its floor. Now California’s marijuana industry is laying claim to a new slogan for the valley: America’s cannabis bucket.

After years of marijuana being cultivated in small plots out of sight from the authorities, California cannabis is going industrial.

Over the past year, dilapidated greenhouses in the Salinas Valley, which were built for cut flower businesses, have been bought up by dozens of marijuana entrepreneurs, who are growing pot among the fields of spinach, strawberries and wine grapes.

If you hear the word “cannabis,” do your thoughts turn to edibles or a debate about the merits of Premium Jack versus Grape Stomper?

Sure, years of popular movies, TV shows and music have elevated the stoner stereotype to the top of the pop culture heap. But cannabis is making its mark in another arena, and the utterance that caught your attention may have pertained to hairstyling products, soaps or body lotions.

The beauty world is embracing cannabis like never before.

Often these products include hemp seed oil, which has been used in folk remedies for centuries and is said to ease dry skin, reduce inflammation and alleviate skin issues such as eczema.