Lawyer Brandon L. Wyatt wants military veterans with PTSD to have the right to use medical cannabis.

When lawyer Brandon L. Wyatt steps into a courtroom, he’s not only representing military veterans battling for housing, benefits, and the right to use medical cannabis — he’s representing himself as well.

Wyatt was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a city built almost entirely to support Fort Bragg, the largest military base in the world by population. He says the locals have a nickname for his hometown: Fayettenam.

The controversial Mystic plant-research site that Monsanto Co. plans to shut down this year has drawn the interest of two groups looking into using the modern facilities for growing medical marijuana, First Selectman Rob Simmons said Monday.

Simmons' revelation came soon after a state website indicated that Monsanto had issued a formal notice of the closure, which will occur in two phases starting Oct. 29. The shutdown, announced last year, will result in the loss of 40 jobs locally, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification dated Aug. 29 and released Monday to The Day by the state Department of Labor.

The marijuana business in the U.S. is growing like a weed.

Nationwide, legal sales of marijuana reached $5.7 billion in 2015, up from $4.6 billion the previous year, according to a report from ArcView Market Research. For 2016, the market is projected to grow to $7.1 billion. And by 2020, ArcView says, sales of legal marijuana in the U.S. could top $22 billion.

As it stands now, about two-thirds of America’s marijuana crop — the legal and illegal kinds — is grown outdoors, according to Mother Jones magazine.

Marijuana is illegal in North Carolina, but that is not stopping one woman from getting it to her sick daughter.

Kendra Martin's daughter, Ali, has an extremely rare disease that causes constant myoclonic seizures.

Martin said marijuana has helped her daughter get off two-thirds of her prescription medications, and does a much better job at treating her condition.

"She has Unverricht-Lungbord Disease III," Martin explained. "She is the only case of its kind in the United States. Ali constantly seizes, she has a constant seizure rhythm."

Martin provides her daughter marijuana in many different forms.

North Carolina lawmakers have an opportunity to make what Martin is doing legal.

Before bed every night, Rebecca Forbes drinks a spoonful of coconut oil, infused with cannabis. It's a daily routine she credits with saving her life.

Years ago she was diagnosed with lymphoma and told she would die. For the past two years, she's been in remission.

"I started taking cannabis oil in 2010 after I left the Apex Healthplex ER with them telling me I was in organ failure," said Forbes.

At first she said she was skeptical and didn't believe cannabis would do anything for her. Still she left the ER that night and went home and took some cannabis oil someone had given her.

"It pulled me out of kidney failure within two weeks," said Forbes.