CHAMPAIGN — Fact: 44 Americans die every day from prescription-drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"That doesn't happen with cannabis," Caprice Sweatt said Sunday. "Medical cannabis is a safe, legal option."

With the legal version of the drug set to debut locally in a matter of weeks, the founder and CEO of Medical Cannabis Outreach was in Champaign on Sunday to give a seminar on what's ahead.

Sweatt spoke from first-hand experience — as a longtime sufferer of Crohn's disease, her introduction to medical marijuana in Colorado was life changing, letting her trade 22 prescription medications for one $15 transdermal patch that gives her all the benefits she needs.

Sister Kate calls herself an “accidental nun.” At age 16, she tried marijuana for the first time inside a friend’s car during a cold Wisconsin winter. But that was when she was a “good mid-western Catholic girl,” and the drug did nothing for her.

Years later, after her first marriage had come and gone, after she moved to Atlanta to work for General Electric, Kate tried weed again (not to mention cocaine.) This time was different, she wrote on her blog: “I learned that weed goes better with wine, that weed is calming, that weed left me with no side effects. … I gave up the powder and partying, but kept the weed and the wine, in moderation, like medicine.”

Little precedent has been set on medical cannabis use in the workplace. Over the last two weeks we looked at two Canadian cases, Wilson vs. Transparent Glazing Systems and French vs. Selkin Logging. Both cases begin to inform employees and employers about boundaries on cannabis use at work. 

One of the main messages is that employers in Canada have a broad duty to accommodate medical cannabis as a treatment, assuming the employee has a valid prescription from a doctor. 

BERKELEY, CA - MARCH 25: One-ounce bags of medicinal marijuana are displayed at the Berkeley Patients Group March 25, 2010 in Berkeley, California. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified a ballot initiative late Wednesday to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in the State of California after proponents of the measure submitted over 690,000 signatures. The measure will appear on the November 2 general election ballot. (Photo : Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Mexican lawmakers are proposing a bill to legalize medical marijuana for patients in the country.

Oliver Miller has become the face of the fight for New York state’s medical marijuana law. Now 16, he suffered an in utero stroke that affected his brain stem and left him with myriad disabilities, the most dangerous of which is severe epilepsy, or seizure disorder.

On his bad days, his seizures number more than 100. His desperate parents tried just about everything to find some relief for him. He’s currently on a cocktail of four drugs, plus an IV infusion every three weeks.

Given the thousands of Health Canada applications filed by companies wanting to legitimize their medical marijuana grow operations in Canada and on the OTC: how did the current six publicly traded Canadian government approved cannabis grow-ops get into the OTC market quicker than others? Does a back door process exist, or a minimum monetary requirement for an initial licensed producer application?

State Rep. Mike Ball holds Leni Young on the day Carly's Law passed the legislature in 2014.

Amy Young and her family moved to Oregon because the medicine her daughter needs is illegal in Alabama.

State Rep. Mike Ball said he plans to introduce a bill next month to change that. And he's confident it's going to pass.

"The people I've talked to about it seem very receptive to it," said Ball, R-Madison. "It's nothing like it was a couple of years ago when I started on Carly's Law. This is a whole different dynamic."

A small number of children with drug-resistant epilepsy will soon be able to access a new cannabis-based drug in New South Wales which is showing promise in relieving the symptoms.

The pharmaceutical drug, Epidolex, is still in a trial phase and has not yet received full approval from authorities, but the Government has now set the date of March for a compassionate access scheme to begin.

Last year, the NSW Government approached the company that makes the drug, the UK's GW Pharmaceuticals, to see if trials could be arranged in NSW.

Pru Goward, the Minister for Medical Research, said the scheme was great news for families who had children with the condition.

Researchers looking for a drug to treat "marijuana dependence and abuse" may have found one, but the cure could be worse than the disease.

A team of scientists at Brown University conducted a pilot study to determine whether topiramate, an epilepsy drug marketed as Topamax, could be combined with motivational enhancement therapy (MET) to make MET more effective in reducing marijuana consumption.

Researchers seem to hope Topamax can be a silver bullet addiction cure. Scientists, including a member of the Brown team, have studied it as a potential treatment for alcohol and nicotine dependence and cocaine addiction, and now they are turning their sights on weed.

Sister Kate calls herself an “accidental nun.” At age 16, she tried marijuana for the first time inside a friend’s car during a cold Wisconsin winter. But that was when she was a “good mid-western Catholic girl,” and the drug did nothing for her.

Years later, after her first marriage had come and gone, after she moved to Atlanta to work for General Electric, Kate tried weed again (not to mention cocaine.) This time was different, she wrote on her blog: “I learned that weed goes better with wine, that weed is calming, that weed left me with no side effects. … I gave up the powder and partying, but kept the weed and the wine, in moderation, like medicine.”