It can tolerate a light frost and favors northern climates with long, partly-sunny days, cooler evenings and ample rain. Eastern Washington is close to perfect as is most of New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas. This is also the reason illegal growers favor national forest land in Oregon and northern California.
Some potheads will tell you the Mexican stuff is better. The reason for that is because less rain and humidity means a higher concentration of the hallucinogenic properties. When it and its taxonomic brother hemp was grown for its commercial properties of rope making, the fiber properties were more important and, hence, a climate more like that described for the mint family was favored.
Humulus lupulus (hops) are also easy to grow and a close cousin to cannabis sativa.