Cannabis expo showcases booming marijuana business

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Marijuana is becoming big business. As more states legalize it for medical and even recreational use, companies are looking to cash in. Hundreds of those companies displayed their wares at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan.

Vacuum sealers, oils, sprays, pills, drops, lights, edibles, vaping devices, and all their suit-wearing purveyors filled a floor of the Javits Center to showcase the hundreds of tributary businesses now feeding into and out from the cannabis industry.

"We were the first publicly traded company in the medical marijuana and industrial hemp space," said Dr. Stuart Titus, the president and CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc. He cited dozens of studies he believes prove the dozens of medical benefits associated with the various forms of marijuana use. "Pennsylvania: 18 different medical indications. Ohio: 21 different indications," he said.

While this expo provides an opportunity for these businesses to gain new clients and connect with others in the industry, those in attendance talked less about the success of the present than their wild expectations for the future."

"Based on Colorado's numbers, if it was legalized throughout the U.S., we'd have a $120 billion business just on recreational," Titus said.

And when one factors in all the predicted medical applications of cannabis, those in the industry talk seriously of this plant one day generating trillions of dollars a year in this country alone.