Green rush.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

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"I've never smoked marijuana," TV journalist Trish Regan confesses, "and haven't ever been particularly close to anyone who has." Her book Joint Ventures: Inside America's Almost Legal Marijuana Industry (Wiley) is nevertheless a strikingly sympathetic account of the businesses springing up in the gray zone created by medical marijuana laws.

Based on the research she did for two highly rated CNBC documentaries, Regan shows that the Obama administration's combination of tolerant talk with aggressive police action has encouraged a "green rush" in places such as California and...