CHOICE OF MARIJUANA EMPOWERED DYING CANCER PATIENT

Tammy is still amazed at all the people who arrived at her Edmonton
doorstep, trying to sell seaweed, Goji juices or miracle cures after
they discovered her son had cancer.

"People become very desperate," said Tammy, using a pseudonym to
maintain her family's anonymity.

"Cancer patients are absolutely helpless. - They are at the mercy of
the treatments."

Her son was diagnosed in his teens with a rare cancer that first
showed itself in aching joints, eventually spreading to his lungs.

Over several years, Neil (also a pseudonym) received aggressive
chemotherapy and accompanying medicines for nausea and pain. But the
side-effects were brutal: insomnia, anxiety triggered by
pharmaceuticals and thoughts of death, lack of appetite and sores from
his tongue down into his digestive system. To swallow his own saliva,
he needed potent pain medication.

When Neil told his doctor he wanted to try medical marijuana to deal
with the side-effects, the doctor acknowledged his need.

"Frankly, I think the attitude was, 'It's not going to hurt,' so they
signed off," Tammy said. For patients, she said, "the right balance of
medication that allows you to maintain some control over and quality
in your life is vital to patient well-being."

For Neil, that control meant staying alert and having conversations
over dinner instead of dozing off due to drugs. The last thing he
wanted was to get stoned.

After receiving federal government approval, Neil's family tried to
grow marijuana. When that failed, Neil turned to his own source for
cannabis, which he converted to vapour to ease the impact on his
diseased lungs. The drug improved his appetite, reduced his pain and
anxiety and helped offset his "chemo brain" so he could focus, Tammy
said.

Neil hoped marijuana could shrink his lung tumours as it had in one
study at Harvard University. "He may well have slowed the growth of
those tumours," Tammy said.

She will never know. Neil died last year. "I'm not sure health care
and governments in general have invested any significant amount (of
funding) into marijuana as a drug that can provide benefits," Tammy
said.

Neil's choice empowered him, she said. "I think it was important to
him because he was choosing a medication, a type of relief he needed.

"Patients need information. There needs to be knowledge readily
available so that patients may find that there are options."