SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Both the Utah Senate and House of Representatives unanimously passed changes to the state’s medical marijuana bill, allowing for 14 privately-owned dispensaries and increasing the number of growers.

Changes from Monday’s special legislative session also eliminated a state-run, central-fill location. Some members of the legislature called for an unlimited number of dispensaries while medical marijuana advocates worried more dispensaries would be needed to meet demand.

For patients suffering from chronic illnesses, they just wanted relief to be available as soon as possible.

“We will likely be here all night or until they wrap up,” said medical cannabis activist Nathan Kizerian. He never thought he’d be organizing a vigil on the steps on the Utah State Capitol or that he would become an outspoken voice of support for patients’ rights.

“I testified in front of the House and the Senate the other day,” he said. “I told them how my wife died and I even held up her funeral program.”

He never expected he would have to watch his wife suffer.

“On April 27th of 2017, my wife was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer,” Kizerian said.

He said chemotherapy took a toll on his frail wife.

“She took OxyContin for a week and was throwing up blood,” he said.

Kizerian said he looked to alternative ways to ease his wife’s pain.

“That was the game-changer,” he said, referring to driving across state lines to get cannabis. “She would crawl around on the floor and throw up sometimes 20 times a day. (Cannabis) stopped that within 24 hours. I know it alleviated my wife’s suffering.”

Things didn’t end the way he’d hoped for his wife.

“I was holding her hand when she took her last breath,” he said.

Now, he wanted lawmakers to know her story.

“It’s relevant,” he said. “She used cannabis for two years. I can tell them what worked, what didn’t work and I can tell them the struggles we faced.”

On Monday, as supporters of medical cannabis gathered on the south steps of the Capitol, they stood together to remember those lost and to honor those who are still fighting.

“Being a caregiver is not an easy thing especially when you’re fighting the world for that person and their right to medicate,” he said.