Marijuana turned Chris Gee’s life around. Marijuana turned Chris Gee’s life around.

The 34-year-old Coleman resident was in two auto accidents in 2003. He had more than 13 surgeries to rebuild parts of his face, back and ribs. He was taking eight 80 milligram OxyContins a day, weighed nearly 250 pounds and was not the man he wanted to be.

After medical marijuana was legalized a friend told him to try it out, Gee said.

“Everybody would tell you today, ‘If you took that away from him you’re probably making the biggest mistake of your life’,” Gee said. “That was like a 180, I lost all my weight, I had the fastest recovery ever on one of my surgeries... I gained my life back, I gained my family back.”

Taking medical marijuana helped Gee start a business and stop collecting disability unemployment, he said.

After seeing the change medical marijuana could make in his life, Gee opened the first Twinn Bridges Compassion Club about seven months ago in Cadillac, he said. Six weeks ago he opened another Twinn Bridges Compassion Club in Midland County, 559 E. Isabella Road.

“We’ve done over 200 certifications in Midland alone,” Gee said. “There is no doubt in my mind you’re helping people.”

One person he helped is now one of his employees, an Everett resident who requested to go by the name Dee.

She was a massage therapist at his Cadillac store who has voluntary movement tremors; when she tries to move her hands they shake, she said.

“I was taking a prescription. It kind of just made me really, just, out of it, all the time,” she said. “Everything that (the doctor) would give me was just putting me to sleep. I didn’t like that anymore.”

Medical marijuana is a natural alternative to the chemical substance used in pills, Dee said. So it eliminates the potential problems caused to the liver, stomach and kidney by prescription drugs.

She, like Gee, began reading a lot about medical marijuana once she saw its impact on her life, Dee said.