Most medical cannabis advocates can name one key moment in their life when they knew they had to come out of the closet and campaign for regulated, legal access to the cannabis plant.

But there is also a clutch of extraordinary individuals who, when confronted with real evidence about the cannabis plant’s therapeutic potential, have done a 180 degree turn, transforming themselves from herb hater to cannabis campaigner.

1. The Doctor

Dr Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, is perhaps the most high profile cannabis critic to come out in favour of the plant. 

More than 100 new patients have received permission to use a form of medical marijuana in Georgia this month, bringing the statewide total of people using the product to more than 1800 less than three years after the state began the program.

They still don’t have easy access to the drug, which can’t legally be produced in Georgia or brought across state lines under federal law. Instead, patients and families have to find a manufacturer willing to ship products or travel to another state where the oil is made and risk being caught breaking the law as they return home.

Tight restrictions in the government’s revolutionary proposal to legalise the import and use of medical cannabis have left those supporting sweeping deregulation with a bittersweet feeling, according to biologist and Friends of Cannabis group co-founder Petros Evdokas.

Patients and activists have long fought for the legalisation of medical cannabis, but, despite mounting evidence pointing to its benefits in both pain relief and the treatment of specific conditions, have always stumbled on strong resistance by mainstream attitudes. According to Health Minister Giorgos Pamboridis, the main problem has been a “widespread, albeit false, notion that it somehow helps legitimise the use of recreational cannabis”.

A DESPERATE couple accused of snatching their severely disabled four-year-old son from a Queensland Hospital last month are living in a controversial church, where the youngster is being given cannabis oil by a deregistered doctor.

Cini Walker and Marc Steven made national headlines when they were accused of taking little Chase Walker from hospital where he was being treated for spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

Ms Walker and Mr Steven stopped vaccinating their son after the age of two, believing the injections were causing him seizures.

The parents advocate the use of medicinal marijuana and an organic diet, which they say has vastly improved his condition and reduced his epileptic seizures.

The changes medical marijuana brings to Arkansas will likely be less widespread than advocates hope or opponents fear, at least at first, recent history and research suggest.

The voter-approved constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana use will soon fall into place. The state plans to start taking license applications for shops to distribute marijuana products and cultivation facilities in July. The people who qualify to use and possess those products could be able to apply for the necessary state cards even sooner.

Delaware’s second medical marijuana dispensary opened Friday in Lewes, nearly two years after a first facility opened its doors in Wilmington.

Both dispensaries are operated by First State Compassion Center, which previously won bids with the state.

The Lewes site is located at 12000 Old Vine Boulevard. It is open six days a week from 10:30 to 6:30 weekdays and and 10 to 4 Saturdays.

“Our foremost goal is the care we take of our patients, and that includes having the best medicine and the most caring staff,” FSCC President Mark Lally said in a statement.

Five people have been appointed to the state of Michigan's newly created medical marijuana board, Gov. Rick Snyder announced Friday.

The board will be tasked with implementing the system that allows licensing of medical marijuana operations, such as dispensaries, processors, growers and transporters. It will be housed within the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

License applications for such operations will be available by the end of the year.

"This board will help provide the proper oversight of medical marihuana facilities to keep the public safe by ensuring proper health and safety standards are being met," Snyder said in a statement.

For years, parents of children with Dravet Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy, have been advocating for the use of non-psychoactive medical marijuana to treat their kids. Now, a new study shows that cannabis helped dramatically reduce the number of seizures suffered by these children.  

An experimental drug derived from cannabis to treat epilepsy is on the brink of becoming the first of its kind to win US government approval.

The drug's active ingredient is cannabidiol, the compound in marijuana thought to be responsible for many of its therapeutic effects. Cannabidioldoesn't contain THC, marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient, so it doesn't get users high.

Dive Brief:

• A Rhode Island Superior Court judge ruled against a local fabrics company after a woman alleged the business refused to hire her for an internship due to her use of medical marijuana, The Providence Journal reports.