Press Banner:  “The so-called “green rush” has jarred Santa Cruz County, where the value of a retail cannabis license has soared to more than $2 million.  Of the 14 dispensaries in the county, four have changed hands in the last 12 months. . . . What’s driving the prices up, according to sellers and lawyers, is the July passage of the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis and Safety Act that allows owners to possess two licenses – medical and recreational – and sell both products at the same location.

Los Angeles Times:  “A leader of California’s marijuana industry warned Wednesday that the state’s cannabis growers produce eight times the pot that is consumed in the state so some will face “painful” pressure to reduce crops under new state regulations that will ban exports after Jan. 1.  Some marijuana growers will stay in the black market and continue to illegally send cannabis to other states, which is also not allowed under federal law, said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers’ Assn.  ‘We are producing too much,” Allen said, adding state-licensed growers “are going to have to scale back. We are on a painful downsizing curve’.”

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Daily Mail:  “In California, illegal marijuana farms are taking over thousands of acres of land as toxic wastes are increasingly corrupting ecosystems. California is responsible for the majority of illegal U.S. marijuana farming. New data says the state holds ‘731,000 pounds of solid fertilizer, 491,000 ounces of concentrated liquid fertilizer and 200,000 ounces of toxic pesticides.’ The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2011 its planned to ban toxic fertilizers like zinc phosphide. Chemicals of the kind have been linked to serious health effects in both animals and humans.

The Californian:  “a big white bus was waiting to whisk 14 seniors off on a new adventure: a shopping trip at a medical marijuana dispensary.  ‘I don’t want a buzz,’ passenger Kay Nelson insisted, shaking her silver head. ‘I want relief from pain.’  Nelson has been a member of the Laguna Woods Medical Cannabis Club for two years. She uses a vaporizer and oils supplied by the senior-run collective to ease her chronic backache.”