Austin Calhoun says he's less than two months shy of celebrating his 25th birthday. A blessing, he calls it, after surviving a sudden illness that would alter his life forever.

"I felt like I had the flu everyday," said Calhoun. "I didn't know that I'd been bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme Disease because it's nothing you really hear about down here in Mississippi."

Lyme disease, which he didn't initially know he had, led to nonstop seizures, severe joint pain, and chronic nausea and vomiting. Calhoun says he saw 20 local doctors, tried 17 prescriptions and was bedridden most of his senior year of high school. But after much research and consultation with physicians in Colorado, Calhoun moved out-of-state in order to use medical marijuana.

"... I'm going to be able to come home and be with my family."

And soon after his first dose, he says, he began to feel a difference.

"I noticed that I wasn't having those small black out periods throughout the day due to the seizures. My joints weren't hurting as much anymore. I was actually able to keep my food down for the first time in almost a year," said Calhoun.

Calhoun says he prefers to vape or use tinctures with a combination of THC and CBD extracts from the marijuana plant. The Puckett native has been living in Colorado away from his family and friends since 2015. But because Mississippians voted by an overwhelming 74% majority to legalize medical marijuana, Calhoun says he's coming home.

"I was left, honestly, just shocked. I did not expect my home state to be in such support of medical marijuana," said Calhoun.

"The first thing I thought was I'm going to be able to come home and be with my family. That's literally the only thought I had. I'm going to be able to come home to my family."

Voters passed Initiative 65, a comprehensive medical marijuana program, to treat 22 debilitating conditions including seizures like the ones Calhoun suffers. It requires the state department of health to implement and administer the program's rules and regulations, like deciding the process for licensure to grow and sell and the price for a patient I.D. card.

Felix Murry, III is CEO of Gas House Cannabis, a licensed marijuana business headquartered in Oakland, California. Murry is originally from Rolling Fork, a small town in the Mississippi Delta. He says he got his start in Oregon in 2014 growing and supplying marijuana to retailers who sold to residents with qualifying conditions.

"I just wanted to help people. I wanted to help sick people (and) sick children," said Murry. "That's how I initially got into the cannabis business in Oregon producing a medical grade product."

Murry says he too needed help. A medical marijuana patient himself, Murry says he suffers from chronic back pain.

"I would love to come home and help people out and bring some of the knowledge that I've acquired in this business home."

After a couple years in Oregon, he relocated his business to a larger medical and recreational cannabis market in California. Currently his product is sold in stores statewide and across the nation.

"We have an indoor cultivation as well as a greenhouse cultivation," said Murry. "And typically the life cycle of a cannabis plant, they way we produce it, is about three months before the product is cured then it's packaged and then it is delivered."

Murry says he believes having cannabis crops in Mississippi could help grow the state's economy and workforce. He believes this move is going to improve the quality of life for people in one of the sickest states in the U.S. and he wants in on it. Once the program is fully implemented, which could be as early as next summer, Murry says he sees himself extending his business in the place he calls home.

"I would love to come home and help people out and bring some of the knowledge that I've acquired in this business home," said Murry. "I've been talking to several people from the state of Mississippi already. So yea, I would definitely come home."

Mississippi is the 35th state to legalize medical marijuana.