By Katie Klabusich, The Influence

I don’t know how you’ve been functioning.”

My new psychiatrist’s assessment may seem harsh when you read it, but to me her matter-of-fact words came as a massive relief.

Last year Jake Heimark launched Plus Gum, a Palo Alto-based company with 10 employees that makes cannabis-infused chewing gum. The gum costs $15 for a pack of six pieces, each containing 25 milligrams of THC and just five calories. After working at Facebook FB -2.28% and payment platform company Gumroad, he was searching for a startup opportunity in a fast-growing field.

The 2016 NORML Aspen Legal Seminar

I just returned a few days ago from a lovely long weekend in beautiful Aspen, CO, a charming old silver-mining town in the Rocky Mountains with breath-taking views, that serves as a popular playground for skiers in the winter and biking and hiking enthusiasts in the other seasons. And it is the location of an annual NORML legal seminar held each year in early June.

The Seminar Itself

First, for those attorneys who attend this event, it is a truly unique opportunity to hear from some of the most brilliant and creative criminal defense and marijuana business attorneys in the country.

Some have messy buns and sleeve tattoos. Some have salon cuts and $2,000 suits.

Some are joining blue-collar unions, getting health benefits as they grow and sell a plant they’ve long loved. Some say they never touch it, but they’re standing guard outside shops and fiercely lobbying legislators in Sacramento to ensure that others can.

For years, Lisa Tollner, co-founder of the California marijuana edibles company Sensi Products, says she’s received calls and emails from customers reporting her cannabis-infused Sensi Chew caramels had helped alleviate pain, insomnia, nausea and other ailments. But Tollner wanted more.

“These people are telling me their stories, but with no real consistency,” said Tollner, who was interested in hard data on how her products worked, not shifting anecdotal evidence. “I need ways to prove our products’ efficacy.”

The marijuana industry is blossoming, and 2016 could wind up being its best year yet in a number of ways.

Marijuana keeps expanding despite federal inaction

Since California first approved Proposition 215 in 1996 to provide certain patients with medical marijuana on the basis of compassionate use, the marijuana industry has been trudging forward. Today, two dozen states have approved medical marijuana, while another four, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

For Ralf-Rainer von Albedyhll and his start-up, new rules that allow small companies to sell stock through Kickstarter - like online offerings might have been the answer to a question that has dogged him for years: How do you find investors willing to back a company in the medical marijuana business?

He’d tried to convince professional investors, including members of an Oakland marijuana investor network group Arcview Group, but to no avail. So he turned to equity crowdfunding, a newly legal practice that allows start-ups to raise up to $1 million from the general public.

Tomorrow evening, June 14 at 6:30 p.m., at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Michael Sutton will lead a discussion on whether Californians should vote “yes” on an initiative this November that would legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana.

It’s like forecasting early gold reserves in the heady days of California’s Gold Rush era. Revenue estimates that will come from legalizing marijuana are growing almost like weed itself.

In analyzing the ballot initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana, California’s legislative analyst and finance director estimates that legalizing marijuana for casual use could net as much as $1 billion in new tax revenue for the state and local governments.

That estimated revenue, however, dwarfs the amount calculated by the state’s tax board, the Board of Equalization, based on legal medical marijuana-related sales.

California officials want to ensure that those once punished over harsh weed laws aren’t overrun by wealthy entrepreneurs once it’s legalized recreationally.

Joshua Weitz’s marijuana delivery company was supposed to be the biggest achievement of his life. The San Francisco native began dealing weed when he was 14 years old, and by 2013 he was eager to apply his skills in a legitimate medical cannabis business with a California license.

“You get this sense of a real supreme accomplishment. It felt so good to build something,” said Weitz, now 33.