The legal U.S. cannabis market just got a little greener.

In midterm elections that saw Democrats gain control of the House and reaffirmed Republican control of the Senate, more states also voted to legalize marijuana. The outcome will help expand a U.S. pot market that could be worth $75 billion by 2030, according to an estimate from Cowen & Co. Pot stocks, led by Tilray Inc., surged on the news.

Michigan became the 10th U.S. state — and first in the Midwest — to legalize recreational pot. Sales there, estimated to start in 2020, could grow to as much as $1.7 billion in the coming years, according to the trade publication Marijuana Business Daily. The total legal U.S. market is expected to hit about $11 billion in sales in 2018.

With Michigan voting to legalize adult use, neighbors like Ohio and Illinois could soon follow suit to help build a market in that region, according to Ken Shea, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“Michigan can act as an anchor,” he said. “You could get a cluster effect.”

Long demonized as a dangerous drug, and still considered an illicit substance with no medical use by the federal government, marijuana is increasingly going mainstream as investors pour billions into the industry. Cannabis is now legal across Canada, and U.S. firms are rushing north of the border for public listings and to access capital markets. In the U.S., meanwhile, the steady creep of legalization has companies buying up licenses and expanding operations.

In addition to the recreational market, more states are embracing medical marijuana. Missouri became the latest state to allow medical use, while a proposition in Utah also appeared poised to pass as of Wednesday morning.

Adding two more states with medicinal marijuana would mean almost 70 percent of Americans could have access to the drug for that purpose. Some in the industry see federal legalization of medical marijuana as the best path to ending prohibition in the U.S., which has held big banks and institutional investors on the sidelines.

Still, not all states were ready to follow Canada’s lead: North Dakota’s ballot measure to decriminalize marijuana failed. More than 60 percent of Americans support making pot legal, but with cannabis still illegal on a federal level, the politics remain fraught.

Cannabis stocks gained Wednesday, led by Tilray and Cronos Group Inc. Tilray, the largest publicly traded pot stock, gained as much as 9.3 percent, while U.S.-listed shares of Cronos rose as much as 6.6 percent. Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Canopy Growth Corp. gained as well.

In the aftermath of the midterm election, attention in the cannabis industry will turn to Congress and, soon enough, the 2020 presidential election. Democrats in the House may hold hearings on marijuana and pursue legislation that would ease banking restrictions or even end federal prohibition.

It’s unclear if marijuana bills could get through the Republican-held Senate. Nonetheless, pressure will continue to mount on lawmakers to ease restrictions, particularly as more countries move forward with medical cannabis, according to Chris Walsh, vice president of Marijuana Business Daily.

“You’ll see immense pressure for them to do something,” he said. “At some point they’ll realize we’re falling behind.”

Cannabis stocks, already bolstered by wins in the midterm elections, got an added boost when anti-pot Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his resignation Wednesday afternoon.

Exchange-traded funds that track marijuana stocks, including the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF in Toronto and the U.S.-listed ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF, jumped to fresh highs on the news, gaining 7 percent and 6.2 percent respectively.

Tilray Inc. saw the biggest surge, climbing as much as 25 percent in its biggest gain since Sept. 19, when the stock almost doubled before giving back most of the gains in a wild ride for investors. Other cannabis-related stocks in both the U.S. and Canada also gained.

Sessions was a major foe of marijuana legalization, moving last January to rescind an Obama-era policy that allowed states to make their own decisions on cannabis without interference from the federal government. That announcement sent pot shares plunging three days after California became the largest jurisdiction to legalize recreational use.

Cannabis stocks were broadly higher Wednesday after Michigan voted to legalize recreational marijuana and Missouri approved medical pot. The Democrats’ House of Representatives win was also thought to be a positive catalyst for stocks, making legal reform more likely.

Move over marijuana heavyweights, the rookies are taking over.

The recent pot mania has seen a slew of companies looking to get in on the sector and stock returns this month have overshadowed larger and more established marijuana companies, including Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis and even high-volatility Tilray. September’s MVPs are lesser-known names, including India Globalization Capital, Aleafia Health and New Age Beverages, and the rallies are showing no signs of slowing ahead of Canada’s legalization of recreational use on October 17.

India Globalization Capital, a company whose legacy business is in heavy equipment rentals, saw share prices surge when it entered the cannabis-infused drinks space this week. The stock has nearly quadrupled this month, making Tilray’s 115 percent gain look tame. Other newcomers include New Age Beverages, which more than tripled in September, and Alkaline Water, which doubled its valuation. The most recent addition to this cannabis craze is Leafbuyer Technologies, which missed the whole summer’s rally, but saw nearly tripled this week after mentioning blockchain technology.

Investors may be betting on marijuana in all the wrong places.

Enthusiasm for pot stocks reached a fever pitch last week when investors piled into British Columbia-based Tilray Inc., a developer of cannabis medicinal products, doubling its stock price over three trading days through Wednesday. Volume for Tilray’s stock had averaged 7 million shares a day since it went public on July 18. Last week, that average spiked to 20 million.

Investors were already plenty high on pot stocks before Tilray came along. Three of the biggest by market value, Toronto-based Cronos Group Inc., Vancouver-based Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Ontario-based Canopy Growth Corp., are hugely expensive. None are profitable, but their average price-to-sales ratio based on expected revenue for the 2018 fiscal year is a stunning 185, or 50 times that of the S&P 500 Growth Index’s P/S ratio of 3.6.

Tilray is just the latest high-priced wager on a burgeoning marijuana business. Even after its stock dropped by 43 percent on Thursday and Friday last week, its P/S ratio is a lofty 234 based on expected revenue for 2018.

Many observers are already calling pot stocks a bubble, which isn’t unfair. Consider that at the height of the dot-com bubble in December 1999, 106 technology stocks in the Russell 3000 Index had a market capitalization of $1 billion to $15 billion, roughly the range of the biggest pot stocks. Many of those tech firms weren’t profitable, either, but they were far cheaper by comparison. Their average P/S ratio at the time was 13, with a median of 5.8. The four most expensive of the bunch had an average P/S ratio of 81 — a bargain in potlandia.

Enthusiasts no doubt expect that sales will catch up with stock prices, and Wall Street seems to agree. Analysts expect revenues for Tilray, Cronos, Aurora and Canopy to grow by an average of 304 percent in fiscal year 2018 and 389 percent in 2019.

But investors shouldn’t count their bounty just yet, because bigger players are circling the marijuana market. According to Bloomberg News, Coca-Cola Co. is in talks with Aurora to develop “drinks infused with CBD ” the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that treats pain but doesn’t get you high.”

Aurora’s stock jumped 41 percent last week on the Coke news, but it’s far from clear how much the budding pot company would benefit from the venture. Between the two companies, Coke is the indispensable one. Few firms match its global brand and its ability to make and distribute products on a grand scale. It also has no shortage of potential partners, including the option of hiring a team to develop products in-house. The majority of the spoils would most likely accrue to Coke, given its leverage.

Competition may come from other behemoths, too. BNN Bloomberg TV reported last month that Diageo Plc was in talks with unidentified Canadian cannabis producers about launching its own marijuana-infused beverages. Constellation Brands Inc., best known in the U.S. for Robert Mondavi wines, Svedka vodka and Corona, already has a stake in Canopy worth roughly $4 billion.

And let’s not forget the other possible entrants. As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tara Lachapelle pointed out two years ago, tobacco companies such as Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. are naturally suited to be big players in the marijuana market. Neither company has made any noise about its plans, but with tobacco use in decline, there’s a good chance those companies are looking for a new cash crop.

Ten years since the last bear market, blue-chip stocks are no bargains, either. But they’re a far cheaper wager on cannabis. Altria’s P/S ratio is 6 and Reynolds’s is 6.4. Coke and Constellation’s are 5.9 and 3.9, respectively.

It’s clear that marijuana will be big business. There’s little doubt about its popularity, and legalization is only a matter of time in much of the world, including the U.S. It’s also clear that some companies will make a fortune. They just may not be the startups that are making all the headlines now.

Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the markets. He is the founder of Unison Advisors, an asset management firm. He has worked as a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and a consultant at Ernst & Young.

Marijuana stock trading is dominated by dudes.

Men accounted for 75 percent of all cannabis-related securities trades over the past month, according to data from TD Ameritrade, the online broker with 11 million clients who hold more than $1 trillion in assets. At the end of last year, baby boomers were more likely to trade marijuana stocks, but now TD Ameritrade’s seeing more interest among millennials. The younger cohort also trades more actively — about 25 percent more than other groups.

Weed stocks have been caught up in a frenzy of interest that’s produced massive gains and dramatic volatility in recent weeks, with an exchange-traded fund focused on the industry surging 78 percent in just the past five weeks. It may not be surprising that men are the primary traders of weed stocks, since studies show they’re about twice as likely as women to use marijuana.

“We’ve seen broad-based interest in cannabis stocks among our clients historically, and given recent headlines, these names have regained popularity, particularly among Millennials who have recently been more likely to trade them than other groups,” said Joe “JJ” Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.

The hype around pot stocks lit up this week after shares of Tilray Inc. took investors on a wild ride, nearly doubling at one point on Wednesday before losing 18 percent on Thursday. The stock is down another 25 percent in Friday trading.

“Like any other sector that is seeing a spike in momentum or popularity, these are trades that can move very quickly,” Kinahan said. He added that it’s “critical for investors to err on the side of prudence.”

Marijuana stocks, most recently Tilray Inc., are reaching dizzy heights. So, too, is the S&P 500, which touched an all-time record on Thursday. But in this haze, investors can afford to chill. The wider market isn’t getting such a contact high.

When shares of the Canadian cannabis maker hit $50 last month after the company struck a deal with Nova Scotia Liquor, the market, as measured by the S&P 500, traded at 17.1 times 2018 earnings. Tilray stock has since quadrupled, but the valuation of the broader market has barely budged: it now trades at 17.3 times earnings.

At first glance, it’s odd to suggest that Tilray, or the wider legalized marijuana industry, would move the wider market. It ought to be the other way around: Legalized pot sales are only expected to top $30 billion in 2022, or about 0.1 percent of the U.S. economy. And tariffs between the U.S. and Canada, where Tilray and many of its publicly traded rivals are based, could curb that growth.

But that’s exactly what happens in a true bubble, where hysteria about a small number of stocks spills out into the rest of the market. And that’s not what is going on now: the price-earnings ratio of the S&P is still far short of the record 30 it hit before the dotcom bubble burst.

That hasn’t stopped investors about fretting about the risks from inflated asset prices. A few years back, there was the everything bubble: Stocks weren’t all that expensive, but every other investment, notably bonds and China stocks, looked overpriced. When those tumbled, shares would fall too. Yet, China’s stock bubble has deflated, and bond prices have dropped, though by not that much. Still, U.S. stocks, with some stumbles here and there, have done just fine.

More recently, some worried that the bitcoin bubble would sink the market as well. That hasn’t happened. The virtual currency, which peaked in mid-December at $18,674, has since fallen by two-thirds. Meanwhile, stocks are up 10 percent, with dividends reinvested.

What’s more, cannabis is still a tiny, tiny fraction of the $32 trillion U.S. market. The total market value of all companies in the industry is about $35 billion. Weed is getting disproportionate attention because it offers a glimpse of volatility at a time when there has been relatively little. There’s also its novelty value as an investment ” and the transgressive excitement of what is still, in many countries, an illegal drug.

Cut through all that, and the market’s current valuation looks more stable than at the end of other bull markets. The real buzzkill still looks most likely to be the highly valued FANGs of the technology industry. Netflix Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is a gargantuan 136. Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. have a combined market value of $3.5 trillion. Next to those giants, the bubble in marijuana stocks looks a trifle.

Stephen Gandel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering banking and equity markets. He was previously a deputy digital editor for Fortune and an economics blogger at Time. He has also covered finance and the housing market.

British Columbia-based Tilray Inc.’s shares began trading Thursday on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Initially priced at $17, the stock quickly jumped to more than $21 a share.

Tilray isn’t the first pot company to trade on a major American stock exchange, but it is the first to do so with an IPO, a step that could boost credibility and confidence in the industry, said John Kagia, an analyst with the marijuana market research firm New Frontier Data.

“It’s another high-profile marker of how the cannabis industry is maturing and professionalizing,” he said.

Two other Canadian marijuana companies began trading on major U.S. exchanges earlier this year — Cronos Group on Nasdaq and Canopy Growth on the New York Stock Exchange. Those companies already were publicly traded in Canada.

Nine U.S states and Washington, D.C., have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and about two-thirds have legal medical marijuana. But American cannabis companies have been unable to list on major U.S. exchanges because of the drug’s illegal status under federal law. Instead, some have gone public in Canada by being acquired by companies there.

Medical marijuana is legal in Canada, and on Oct. 17, the country will become the first major industrialized nation to legalize its production and sale for recreational use. Uruguay is the only other country to do so.

Tilray doesn’t do business in the U.S., but has been licensed to produce cannabis for medical use in Canada and Portugal. In documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, it said it has sold marijuana to “tens of thousands of patients in 10 countries spanning five continents through our subsidiaries in Australia, Canada and Germany and through agreements with established pharmaceutical distributors.”

Chris Barry, a partner at the Dorsey and Whitney law firm in Seattle, handles marijuana investment deals and mergers in the U.S. and Canada. He noted that major institutional investors, including the century-old New York investment bank Cowen, were involved in Tilray’s IPO.

“You wouldn’t be able to do an offering of that size without institutional participation,” Barry said. “The lesson is that the institutions will be there if you have a good business plan and your business is 100 percent legal in the jurisdiction you’re in.”

Tilray plans to use the money to build additional marijuana growing and processing capacity in Ontario, and to repay Privateer Holdings, the Seattle-based private equity firm that controls it.

The IPO “signifies tremendous validation for Tilray as a company, but really for the entire sector,” Tilray Chief Executive Brendan Kennedy said in a phone interview Thursday. “It gives us access to large pools of capital, capital that feeds the global paradigm shift taking place.”

That said, analysts will be watching to see how the Canadian marijuana stocks perform in the U.S. Many are concerned that the companies may be overvalued amid excitement around what amounts to a newly legitimate industry with vast growth potential, Kagia said. Canada’s recreational marijuana market is expected to be worth between $5 billion and $9 billion.

“Right now a lot of investment has been highly speculative. Those valuations feel a little supercharged,” Kagia said. “We expect some kind of correction in the near future.”

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Johnson is a member of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow him at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle . Find complete AP marijuana coverage here: http://apnews.com/tag/LegalMarijuana .