“I’m a cancer patient. I use an experimental chemotherapy that is an extraction of the cannabis plant. I don’t use it to feel good. I use it for the purpose of killing the cancer.

Right now, there are about fifty people making this experimental chemotherapy in the state of Michigan. As a result of the opinion issued by the attorney general, the number of people willing to create this substance may now be reduced to two or three. All are working at a fevered pace trying to keep patients alive. The clock is ticking. Most of the time we have one single chance to get it right. Most of the patients we deal with will die before we get a second try.

It takes about one pound of the highest quality cannabis flowers to make enough of this extract for one single procedure, for one single patient. This extract is eaten by the patient within sixty to 90 days. This is a much higher dose that normally used to get “high.”

The procedure cannot be stopped and restarted. It is used in a way that is similar to antibiotics. You can’t stop and start antibiotics. If you do, the infection gets stronger and more difficult to get rid of. The same seems to hold true for cancer. You simply can’t play the hit and miss game with cancer. If you are on target, it MUST be completed. What is required, to stay alive, is an uninterrupted supply of the medicine. Enough to last through the entire 90 day procedure.

It is very difficult to find enough material for a single patient. Within the community we have been begging for scraps for the last two years. Begging over and over again just to supply the needs for one single patient. So we work with left over trimmings that normally would have been burned or buried. Material that no one would want. Thieves that break into our growing areas would ignore the scrap. They view it as worthless.

This useless material has had negative impact on many court cases in this state. By law, if you forget to burn some scrap, it gets counted toward the limit of 2.5 ounces. Most of us are attempting to avoid that extra scrap excess. We burn and bury any hint of excess material as quickly as possible. If we’re caught trying to do so it could well mean a felony conviction. If we delay by just a few hours we could be arrested and convicted.

Those that have been already growing marijuana and receive fresh news that they have cancer are the lucky ones. The just might have the material needed to stay alive. Might. It depends on if they have been successful in growing, if they’ve avoided fungus and insect attacks long enough to produce usable material. If they’ve learned the right nutrient combinations to apply to their indoor growing plants that afford the maximum yield.

If the patient has luck after luck, they are then at a place they can attempt to make this extract for themselves.

For a very long time, there have been many studies that show the compounds in cannabis kill cancer cells. These studies first started reporting this effect in 1974. Hundreds, if not thousands, of such scientific studies have been published but our government and most other governments of the world have refused to allow testing in humans, with very few exceptions.  Only one or two such studies have been allowed. Not one single human study has been allowed in the US in the last seventy years. Without human testing, our government relies on the statement “this hasn’t been proven in human testing,” which is technically correct because such testing isn’t allowed.

The voters of Michigan have told the government that it is acceptable to use this plant for medical purposes. It’s time for those officials to obey the voters.

While it is a noble thing to decrease the suffering of someone that is dying, I would rather see these same people survive. Wouldn’t you?

Gersh Avery is Cofounder of the Cannabis Cancer Project. He lives in Dexter.”

http://themidwestcultivator.com/marijuana-news-editorial/02-2012/cannabis-cures-cancer