Moving the black market in marijuana into the light has been a boon for state tax coffers, entrepreneurs and cannabis users, but an inconvenient fact went unaddressed in the process: Potentially dangerous chemicals are used to grow it.

That changed last fall, when a Colorado newspaper’s investigation found shelves stocked with products grown using pesticides that hadn’t been approved for cannabis farming, spurring a rush of legal, regulatory and business activity.

Since then, states have quickly drawn up regulations, companies have seen their products and methods put under the microscope — sometimes taking big hits to their businesses — and cannabis product and pesticide buyers have filed lawsuits against their manufacturers.

When I was invited to attend the Viridian Capital Advisors Cannabis Investor Conference in January, I had an image in my mind of what to expect.

The sleek, monolithic name “Viridian”—a nod to the color of marijuana that simultaneously sounds as corporate as possible—gave me a clue. I pictured rows of middle-aged men of means, eager to drop money on something still mostly on the precipice of becoming a truly legitimate industry in 2016 in the United States. A group of guys who spent 1969 getting MBAs instead of caravanning to Woodstock. People who do not, and possibly never have, smoked weed.

I was not disappointed.

It’s 3 p.m. on a weekday afternoon and I have wedged my mom-SUV into a parking space in a narrow lot along busy Hampden Ave in Denver. There is a sign at the parking lot entrance with the face of a green man, with flowing green hair and beard. It reads, not surprisingly, Green Man Cannabis.

The store, squeezed into the back of the lot, has no sign, but its exterior has a modern, updated design with color-blocked panels in shades of green. It looks almost like it might’ve just last week served as a computer repair shop, or a fitness equipment dealer. But no, it was designed and built from the ground up to be one thing only: a retail marijuana shop.

Whether you’re a marijuana smoker or not, there's one thing that isn't hazy: we’re on the cusp of a “green gold rush.”

Ackrell Capital, a San Francisco-based investment bank focused on middle-market and emerging growth companies, forecasts that the total U.S. cannabis consumer market (including pharmaceuticals) could top $100 billion by 2029, according to its newly released U.S. Cannabis Investment Report 2016.

Legal or not, the business of selling weed in the U.S. is as wacky as ever.

The tangle of rules and regulations that govern whether and how it can be grown, bought and sold create complexity and ambiguity that cause major headaches for marijuana businesses — and enticing opportunities for those who want to exploit it.

"It's a gray market industry, that's just how it is," says Kayvan Khalatbari, who owns a marijuana dispensary and a chain of pizza restaurants in Denver.

Morocco is one of the largest producers of cannabis resin in the world, according to the 2015 report published by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

Much of this production destined for Europe is smuggled from Morocco, notes the report of the INCB, an independent body to monitor the implementation of United Nations international conventions on drug control.

"Morocco remains one of the largest producers of cannabis resin and remains one of the main countries where the resin is smuggled to Europe," says the document, noting that "Morocco was these past ten years, among the three most frequently cited countries as source or transit area of ​​the seized resin in the world".

During the most recent trading session, shares of GW Pharmaceuticals Plc (NASDAQ:GWPH) moved in the range of $37.79 – 40.24. According to Thomson Reuters’ First Call platform, sell side analysts have provided price targets for the company. The current price target consensus projects the stock to reach $133.00 within the next 52 week time frame.

Investors and analysts often use multiple indicators to try to gauge where the stock may be headed in the future. One of the oldest and most commonly used metrics is a company’s P/E Ratio or price to earnings ratio. This calculation is made by measuring a company’s current share price relative to its earnings. Currently, GW Pharmaceuticals Plc has a price to earnings or P/E Ratio of N/A.

There is much discussion online, and also in small, private groups, about why the prices of technology companies--public and private--are falling. Valuing any company can be difficult, because it requires a degree of forecasting future growth and competition and ultimately the profits of the organization.

And there have been two big changes that are widely known--in the past quarter, the value of some very high profile companies, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, have fallen substantially, plus Fidelity (usually a public market investor) has written down the value of many of its later-stage private-company investments and made the downward valuations known.

Jamaica decriminalized cannabis last year, thanks in a large part to Justice Minister Mark Golding. But Golding’s party was voted out of power last week. There’s a good chance his replacement will move forward on reform, but it’s no sure thing.

In April 2015, the government of Jamaica, under the People’s National Party, amended the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) to decriminalize cannabis possession, legalize home cultivation of up to five plants for medicinal and sacramental use, and create a new, licensed industry for medical cannabis and hemp. Such reform was hailed at home and abroad.

Canada's medical marijuana growers say a jump in the number of illegal marijuana dispensaries as the federal government decides how to regulate the drug is costing them customers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during last year's election campaign that his Liberals would legalize recreational marijuana, following Washington and Colorado in the United States.

While there are no official figures, industry experts say the pledge has encouraged illegal store fronts that compete with licensed producers to provide marijuana to Canadians with a medical prescription.