Cannabis has “helped me beat cancer”

She says: “I was not scared this time round. I’d been here before and I knew there were things that would help.” Luzita, 51, of Kent overcame breast cancer in 2012 after undergoing surgery, whilst also using cannabis creams and oil to deal with the side-effects she encountered after radio and chemotherapy sessions.

She believes the cannabis had also helped shrink an inoperable tumour which had developed in her shoulder. As a result, for the next three years, she was able to return to work running her own holistic therapy business from her Kent countryside home. But, she was left distraught in March 2017, after learning a new primary cancer had metastasised. She was diagnosed with terminal Stage 4 lung cancer and was given three months to live.

“I was told my options would be surgery, involving the removal of two-thirds of the lung, then chemo and radiotherapy. But I declined surgery, it was a small lump and I decided to try a different approach.

“I’ve had some terrible and long- lasting side-effects of the chemo and radiotherapy from the previous breast and lymphatic surgeries. All but five of my teeth fell out after treatments in 2012, and I was told the new chemo would destroy my jawbone, the strongest bone in the face, and I’d lose my remaining teeth, which are very important to me.

“Essentially I have no vein access in one arm, and the other arm is not suitable as all the lymph nodes were removed. “This makes it incredibly difficult to have blood tests and scans, and worries me if I ever need to use the veins, if I have an accident, for example.

“I’m still holding off on this treatment. I’m not going to have any whole body toxic treatment again.” Luzita had started using cannabis infused into a coconut cream which she rubbed on her shoulder, on the recommendation of, and the supply of a friend. Latterly she has used it as an oil, sometimes in a tincture and sometimes from a plant.

She continues: “You start taking something which you know will help, which is what I did. The cannabis was part of a whole regime change. I lived better, took regular massages, exercise, hypnotherapy, and worked on keeping my head straight.

“The consequences are death, but it helped my sanity having some hope. I’m still here, I’m still well, all the side-effects I was told I was going to get as I was deteriorating haven’t occurred, so something is definitely helping.

“And I can’t say it’s anything other than the cannabis, really. It’s very difficult to be told that you’re going to die. It’s very hard. But, as yet, the condition has not changed. It’s two years on and the the lung cancer has not grown. I’m a living cannabis trial, one with no placebo or time frame to it.

Luzita welcomes the shift in attitude of the Government and the general opening up of the debate on the use of medical cannabis.

“As a cancer patient, and one of thousands who could benefit from its more widespread use, it is madness, and patients are being denied access to it because the doctors say this is rubbish; it’s no good for you.” However she is confused, like many, of the way in which it will be prescribed.

“Will I be offered it, I don’t know? But that’s OK. I have what I’m taking and I will continue to take it. It can’t be denied, what I’m saying. I will continue to use it.”