Uncertainty about the city's proposed commercial medical marijuana ordinance has created an uneasy situation for Jeff Nemeth.

Nemeth is CEO of a cannabis testing facility called ACT Laboratories Inc. Nearly $200,000 has been invested in his business that's been located in a light industrial corridor between Cedar Street and Pennsylvania Avenue for over a year and a half. It generates a loyal following with state-registered caregivers and patients. It hosts monthly support group meetings of up to 50 people that are aimed to educate patients, family members and organizations.

And it could soon be on its way to Jackson.

Many marijuana stocks have soared in 2016 , with one enjoying especially impressive gains of well over 2,000%. However, this speculative industry is fraught with risk . If you're considering investing in marijuana stocks in the new year, here are five numbers you should know before taking the plunge.

$50 billion

A millwright who lost his job at the Terra Nova oil field — because of a tiny amount of marijuana found in his jeans pocket at the airport — did not violate his employer's anti-drug policy, according to the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court.

Justice Donald Burrage ruled Wednesday that the zero-tolerance policy was not violated because the man had forgotten the drugs were in his pocket, and did not intend to bring them to work.

Burrage's ruling came after an appeal by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union which challenged a January 2016 arbitrator's decision on the case. 

A summary of the facts said the man had been working on a call-in basis and had made more than 40 trips offshore before his dismissal in January 2014.

Statewide efforts to legalize marijuana in Ohio failed at the ballot box last year, but several cities pressed ahead, voting to decriminalize cannabis within their city limits. This takes a solid first step toward effectively nullifying prohibition in practice.

Voters in the Ohio cities of Bellaire, Logan, Newark and Roseville all approved marijuana decriminalization measures in the November election.

Look around and you'll struggle to find an industry that's more blazing hot than marijuana.

Back in 1995, not a single state had a law on its books legalizing medical cannabis or recreational pot. Today, following the November elections in which residents in eight out of nine states voted in favor of their state's marijuana initiative or amendment, there are 28 states with legal medical cannabis laws and eight recreational weed states.

Krishna Andavolu makes a show about weed. Two whole seasons of it, with a third on the way.

But he's not some sandal-wearing hippy with a blunt fuming between finger and thumb. Andavolu is a pretty ordinary dude - American, Gen Y, a dad, bearded, a hipster in kind of a loose sense. He might describe himself, modestly, as "woke" (a slang term for someone aware of the big social issues).

He smoked pot in college, and says it was fun but hardly life-defining. He still takes an occasional puff of the devil's lettuce, and has a prescription for medicinal marijuana to help with some kind of back problem.  

"It's just weed, but it's so much deeper than it appears at first blush," Andavolu says.

Only 55 percent of staff at cannabis dispensaries receive formal training, according to a new report.

However, 94 percent of staff reported giving dosage advice to patients. 

The peer-reviewed study comes at a pivotal time as legalization of cannabis for medical use increases across the U.S.

Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have laws that permit medical marijuana.

Back in August, we learned through the Wikileaks email dump that an alcohol lobbying group was peddling propaganda to lawmakers in the attempt to stifle cannabis legalization. Claiming to be “neutral” on the subject, they did not hesitate to spout falsehoods and fear-mongering about the “dangers” of cannabis.

Legal marijuana sales are experiencing explosive growth in the United States, and are expected to top $7 billion this year.

The drug is now legal in some form in more than half of all U.S. states after ballot initiatives passed in several parts of the country in November elections.

As CCTV America’s Steve Mort reports from Florida, the increasing availability of legal marijuana is spawning a host of industries designed to support the cannabis sector.

A group representing a number of quasi-legal pot shops in the city of L.A. will throw its considerable weight behind a City Hall–sponsored effort to make those dispensaries fully legal. The organization, the United Cannabis Business Alliance, is scrapping its own measure, which already had qualified for the March ballot.