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Cow Palace Hosts First Ever Medical Marijuana Job Fair

DALY CITY (CBS SF)— Even though the federal government threatened a crack down on California's medical marijuana clubs this week, The Cow Palace is brazenly hosting a Cannabis Expo that includes a job fair just south of San Francisco.

Medical marijuana growers and sellers gathered this weekend with no sign of the feds in sight at the West Coast Cannabis Expo. However, an array of aromas emitting from medicinal marijuanas and their budding entrepreneurs was prevalent as they displayed their wares, almost like a wine-tasting.

KCBS' Doug Sovern Reports:

At a time when many Americans are looking for any job they can get, medical marijuana is still proving to be a growing industry. Eager applicants showed up as the cannabis fair doubled as the first-ever medical marijuana job fair.

Larry described his citrus-scented cannabis.

"It's grapefruit. It smells exactly like a grapefruit, right? It's got a really good nose, really strong grapefruit flavor," Larry said.

Larry runs the Oaksterdam Bakery in Oakland. He gets 10 job applications a day and he doesn't even have any openings right now.

"This industry is growing and it's going to continue to grow. A lot of good things are going to happen for a lot of people," Larry commented.

In the job fair section of the expo, Bob Calkin, CEO of CannaJobs, and of the Cannabis Career Institute, said this field is awash in, so-called green jobs.

"Most of the people coming to the classes are retired people or people from another line of work, or business that have either crashed like the real-estate market or some other thing they're leaving and they want to try something new," Calkin said.

The cannabis crowd remains skeptical that the government will really shut down one of the fastest-growing sectors of the California economy.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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