Good morning.

(Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

I’ve covered economic development in Texas, where communities compete for business as if it’s a sport. So this story about Needles, a struggling desert town that was name-checked in “The Grapes of Wrath,” caught my eye. The community is now looking at the marijuana industry as a kind of economic savior — but the town already faces plenty of competition. I asked our reporter Nathaniel Popper about the possibilities of pot.

Jill Cowan: Many smaller communities see opportunity in marijuana. But is there a saturation point?

Nathaniel Popper: At some point in the distant future, we will probably test the limits of how many towns and counties can cash in on the marijuana boom, but it is safe to say for now that point is a long way off.

One factor that has been limiting the growth of the industry so far is that federal laws make it illegal to transport the plant across state lines, even to other places where it’s legal. If it becomes legal to transport joints and vape pens across state lines, it’s easy to imagine California becoming the pot basket of the country, with all the jobs that entails.

On the other hand, as commercial operations spring up, the price of pot is falling fast, challenging a lot of the early players.