By Jay Jay O'Brien Certified Cannabis Wellness Coach and Educator

As an ECN advocate and content contributor here at the Effective Cannabis Newsletter, I appreciate this space for its ability to inform and advocate and as an avenue to pass along what I feel are two essential messages to the world.

These transmissions came to me through crisis via a terminal cancer diagnosis that redirected my beliefs and purpose, and once these thoughts penetrated their way into my being, they changed me, my physiology, my focus, and my fate.

I’m grateful for this platform and the opportunity to share them with you now.

The first detour in my belief that changed my course was that cancer was not, is not, and does not have to be a “death sentence.”

These transcendental, profound, and simplistic words, in their expression, shook up my ideas of “normal” and enlightened me to what was possible.

Cannabis: The Gateway To Wellness

The success I’ve had using Cannabis for cancer propelled me to learn as much as I could about this plant medicine so I could help others find a hope for healing that was otherwise believed impossible.

I lost my mom to cancer. Given a year to live, she died seven days later. It was the most devastating experience of my life so you can imagine what went through my mind when they first told me I had 6 months to a year to live. I’ll tell you, my response was “F that!!!!”

My subconscious knew that this was just the doctor's limiting beliefs providing me with this outcome. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, I just knew I wasn’t going to let this disease take me out the way it did my mom.

This determination led me to my second realization that’s become another message I herald, and it’s Cannabis is medicine! (shout out to Dr. Bonni Goldstein (1) for her incredible resource of the same name.)

This understanding is why I’m here. It’s why the Effective Cannabis Newsletter is here, and EduCanNation, and W.E.C.A.N. and so many other organizations that I’m a part of because they align with this understanding that ‘Cannabis is medicine’ and desire to share that message with the world.

This plant took the death sentence the doctors offered me and turned it into an opportunity for true growth and healing, and what I’ve learned has been life-changing! Not just for me but for others as well. 

I want to shout it from the rooftops! The Effective Cannabis Newsletter is one of my many rooftops.

Winding Roads

The two realizations, that “cancer is not a death sentence’, and “Cannabis is medicine,” are liberating alone but, when combined, create a powerful healing adjuvant that, with a little knowledge, will pack more power than most pills. I had this figured out, but there was still so much I needed to learn.

Still, with minimal knowledge, I was able to manage my symptoms, shrink the tumors, and heal the metastasis with Cannabis. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was also managing my death anxiety and depression, improving my sleep and appetite, and bettering my health by supporting my elimination of harmful addictions along the way.

The first thing I did after the lung cancer diagnosis was quit smoking.Cigarettes and Cannabis joints. I was coughing, wheezing, and sometimes struggling for breath. I knew smoking Cannabis didn’t lead to the lung cancer. As there’s not much evidence to support those claims and more to the contrary.(2) (3). Still it just didn’t feel aligned for me at the time, so I stopped, but after some research, I learned that a dry-herb vaporizer would be a better option for me. I wrote about it and my research in my first article for the newsletter, Dry Herb Vaporization for Healthy Lungs - Clearing the Air.

Crossroads

I didn’t want to become another statistic. My husband's friend died right on time from a glioblastoma. When I say right on time, I mean that she was given 18 months to live and died 18 months later. She believed her doctor 100%.

We tried to tell her about Cannabis. We shared with her what it was doing for me, but the stigma ran so deep that there was “no way” she was going to be “getting high” with so little time left.
(For the last six months of her life, the chemo had deteriorated her brain so much that she no longer recognized her caregivers, her husband of 15 years, her mom, or her sister. It was devastating for them to lose her so soon before they lost her.)

Her story inspired me to write Carrying Hope: A Message for Those Fighting Brain and Aggressive Cancers. Her beliefs led her down a different path, but I hope that it won’t be in vain, as her story serves as a guidepost to others.

We all have different paths to take as we are all guided in different directions throughout life. Our friend with the glioblastoma was just doing what she believed was all there was to do. She trusted the doctors' word as scripture, and she insisted that they knew what they were doing and doing everything they possibly could. 

But they didn’t know about Cannabis.

Guideposts

It’s different for everyone. I had some history with Cannabis use, so when I heard about what it could do when it came to cancer, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.

When I understood Cannabis as the medicine that it is, something in me knew when I heard it, that it would be right for me. I explain this “inner-standing” in my article; Elevated Intuition: How Going With My Gut Helped Me Heal.

After my very first dose of Cannabis oil transformed my circumstances, I knew I was right! It worked so well for me that I was certain it could be of benefit to others, which is why I wrote My Cancer Manifesto: Waging a New War. It was a soapbox moment to encourage a thought towards Cannabis when dealing with cancer.

The seniors' issue came right around the same time I was actively assisting my father-in-law in managing the symptoms from the treatments he was receiving for his terminal cancer diagnosis. He had Lymphoma, Interstitial Lung disease, a Malignant Gastric Ulcer, and a weak heart, but his desire to live was tremendous.

I started him on low-dose THC-rich suppositories, so he wouldn’t likely experience any potential intoxication, and on a multi-cannabinoid blend tincture consisting of CBDA, CBD, CBGA, CBG, & THCA.

He was given 6-8 months to live in November of 2022 and he passed at the beginning of August 2023. The doctors were baffled that he never for a moment suffered from any pain (other than the neuropathy caused by the chemotherapy), and he still had his wits about him until the end. (and he was witty) Had the palliative care team had their way, he would have been unconscious, on morphine, and gone before he left us.

Cancer is a booming epidemic, and the elderly make up a big percentage of the collateral damage. Learn how you can avoid being a victim here in my article, Booming Epidemic: Cancer Risks and Cannabis Solutions for Seniors, and more about managing pain in Pain to Promise: Cancer Pain & Cannabis.

Destination->Advocacy 

Four years after a terminal cancer diagnosis, I’m still here and I would say, in the best health of my life. That should be reason enough, but if it isn’t, consider that for thousands of years, Cannabis roamed free on this planet providing food, medicine, shelter, textiles, and so much more, until some greedy, racist people decided they couldn’t allow that to continue without threat to their industries, so Cannabis was shamed, demonized, and banished from our medicine cabinets.

I’m here spreading the word about Cannabis. I’m here because someone else shared their experience with Cannabis, so I feel inclined to return the favor. My mission is to teach people the benefits of this plant while undoing the decades of stigma that’s been perpetuated upon it.

If Cannabis has helped you or you want to learn more about how it can, please reach out to me, or any one of the amazing ECN Advocates listed in the newsletters directory. That’s what we’re here for.

On a personal note, I would like to thank the team at the Effective Cannabis Newsletter for their hard work and dedication in putting together this outstanding publication. We are all allies of this plant, and together, we can make a better, healthier, and happier future. I’m grateful to be aligned as an ECN Advocate and will continue to support our continued mission for advocacy and education. Great work in 2023!

I Look forward to so much more in ‘24.

*this content was not generated by AI

References

1. Tashkin DP. Effects of marijuana smoking on the lung. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2013;10(3):239-247. doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.201212-127FR.

2. Joshi, Manish et al. “Marijuana and the Lung: Evolving Understandings.” The Medical clinics of North America vol. 106,6 (2022): 1093-1107. doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2022.07.010.

About Jay Jay O’Brien:

Jay Jay is the founder and creator of naturalisticallynow and the Canecdotal Collective, where she educates and assists people with cancer, implementing Cannabis into their protocols. As a stage 4 lung cancer survivor and caregiver to her type 1 diabetic son, Jay Jay has learned that you truly do "get what you give", and with Cannabis, she believes we have the opportunity to give our bodies the opportunity to truly heal rather than just masking our symptoms. Through her own experience of healing, she has now made it her mission to share the capabilities of Cannabis with all who will listen.

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Effective Cannabis Newsletter is a platform to educate on the vital role of the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) in one's health. The information is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information contained in or available through this newsletter, is for general information purposes only. It is not medical advice; it is health awareness.