Staffordshire, U.K. – In July 2012, David Hibbitt was diagnosed with bowel cancer and told by doctors that had 18 months to live. Today he is cancer free and credits cannabis oil with curing his cancer.
After being diagnosed with cancer, the 33-year-old father of one underwent chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery to remove his large bowel, according to The Daily Mail.
After all standard treatment options had proved ineffective, Hibbitt turned to cannabis oil as a last resort, and to date has been cancer free since January.
Hibbitt told The Daily Mail:
“Friends had told me about cannabis oil and I dismissed it at first. I’ve never been into drugs. But in February last year I was told I only had 18 months to five years to live, and I felt I had to try everything I could. I felt like the chemo was killing me and I had nothing to lose. I couldn’t accept I was going to die.”
Although he has had to break the law to treat his cancer, Hibbitt credits the illegal substance for his miracle recovery. After researching cannabis oil online, he decided to try the alternative therapy.
“I pay around £50 for a gram from a bloke I know who makes it,’ Hibbitt told the Daily Mail. ‘That lasts me about a month usually. It gets you pretty high and knocks you for six, but it’s nowhere near as bad as chemotherapy. The pain just seemed to disappear and it seems to have done the job. I just want to make other people aware that there are other options out there.”
After being told he was cancer free prior to Christmas 2013, cancer was found the next month in his lymph nodes. This recurrence came after having been successfully treated initially, only to have the cancer return and be treated with another surgery and round of chemo.
Feeling like all traditional options were exhausted, Hibbitt decided to go a less traditional route in treating his bowel cancer.
“This time they told me there wasn’t a lot they could do. In July, after doing a lot of research, I got some cannabis oil. I was having chemo, and I was getting to a point where I couldn’t really do much, I had no energy. In August I decided I’d had enough and I was going to stop the chemotherapy.”
Hibbitt underwent surgery to remove the cancerous lymph nodes in October, choosing to continue with cannabis oil treatment, but forgoing any further rounds of chemotherapy.
In January, he was told that his scan showed no signs of cancer.
While cannabis oil and extracts have not been approved for medical use in many places, patients have chosen to risk breaking the law for an opportunity to cure their cancer.
Dr. Kat Arney of Cancer Research UK, a charity in support of clinical trials into use of cannabis to treat disease, weighed in, stating:
“We know that cannabinoids – the active chemicals found in cannabis – can have a range of different effects on cancer cells grown in the lab and animal tumors. But at the moment there isn’t good evidence from clinical trials to prove that they can safely and effectively treat cancer in patients. Despite this, some cancer patients do choose to treat themselves with cannabis extracts…
“Researchers are collecting patients’ experiences to build a picture of whether these treatments are helping or not, although this is weak evidence compared to properly-run clinical trials. Cancer Research UK is supporting clinical trials for treating cancer with cannabinoid-based drugs in order to gather solid data on whether they benefit people with cancer.”
While experts argue over whether the data supports using cannabis extracts to cure cancer, patients such as David Hibbitt have their life on the line. They don’t have the luxury of waiting for researchers to decide whether the treatment has scientific, medical efficacy.
If you support research into cannabis cures for disease and believe that governments must allow research into this potential miracle drug, please share this article to help awaken more people to the amazing medical potential of cannabis oil.
Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on BenSwann’s Truth in Media, Chris Hedges’s Truth-Out, AlterNet, InfoWars, MintPressNews and many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.