Unfairly or not, most people think of marijuana as an illegal drug that thrives on the black market. They don’t view it as a highly regulated commodity packaged in one of the most high-tech surveillance systems on the market. But that’s exactly what it is — at least, in four states where it is legal, primarily in Colorado.

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

Doctors are successfully using cannabis to treat a schoolboy with an ‘uncontrollable’ form of epilepsy.

Billy Caldwell, 11, from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland has been suffering frequent and life-threatening seizures for almost all his life.

But he’s gone 15 days without a fit after doctors in Los Angeles started giving him daily doses of cannabis oil to swallow.

His mother Charlotte, who flew to the US with him now hopes politicians in the UK will legalise the drug for medicinal use.

‘Billy isn’t sitting smoking joints, obviously, he gets daily syringes of the oil into his mouth – and the results speak for themselves,’ said Charlotte.

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.

Discussions regarding the use of marijuana as a safer pain-relief alternative have become more prevalent in the NBA since Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr acknowledged in early December he tried using it to treat chronic back pain, and former NBA All-Star Chauncey Billups spoke up on the topic Friday.

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.

Crowds from around the globe flocked to Tel Aviv in March for the second annual CannaTech conference. The summit was aimed at attracting fledgling marijuana ventures to the country and included speakers from medicine, politics, science, agriculture, and investments.

“Everything is set up here to be the epicenter of cannabis research,” organizer Clifton Flack told Quartz.

Why medical marijuana research is blossoming in Israel.

The Israeli government's stance on medical marijuana research and the country's cultural landscape make it far friendlier to marijuana than the puritanical policies of the U.S. government.