Cory Persing News Today

Contraband Chinese pesticides present a new challenge for California cannabis regulators as they struggle to keep harmful chemicals out of licensed products. Some of the poisons are so unfamiliar that few chemical analysis labs in the state would be equipped to test for them if California required it.

Illegal cannabis farms are engulfing parts of California and exploiting farm workers who work in squalid, deadly conditions, a Times investigation finds.

Wary of local authorities, a community forms an ad-hoc firefighting force to defend its property.