Why I Chose Cannabis over Career

Cancer Patients are Not a National Security Threat

After more than 13 years serving my country in jobs requiring a federal security clearance, I made a choice that forced me to walk away from my career. As a two-time breast cancer survivor choosing to use cannabis to enhance my health, I would no longer be welcome in federal service, no longer considered “suitable” for a security clearance.

The federal prohibition of medicinal cannabis is a cruel, unjust policy, with countless victims. Cannabis has been a part of humanity’s pharmacopeia for 5,000 years, and though its medicinal use has been legalized by the majority of states — and the vast majority of the American public supports this legalization — the US Government obstinately refuses to admit cannabis has any medicinal value and forbids its use by millions of federal workers. 

I didn’t use cannabis before cancer. Doctors never spoke to me of it, and when I asked my oncologist if I should use it to relieve the agonies of chemotherapy, she scoffed. Post treatment, she shrugged off my pleas for help as I found myself buried under an avalanche of debilitating chemotherapy-induced “side effects” (or, more accurately, chemotherapy-induced “injuries”).

I was suffering from peripheral neuropathy so severe I couldn’t feel my feet or my face or my fingers. On bad days, the numbness reached all the way from my hands to my elbows, from my feet to my thighs, and my gait was so unsteady I had to grip the walls to walk. My lips and nose and tongue were numb and rubbery. The nerves in my digestive tract were so damaged, nothing worked as it should, and I avoided leaving the house. In desperation, I sought help from a neurologist, who dismissed me with platitudes: There’s nothing to be done, if you’re lucky it might go away in a year or so.  

But my desperation led me to do more research, and I found very different “advice” online, including a series of 2017 articles about cannabis on the website of the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy. On the National Institutes of Health website, an illuminating abstract from a March 2016 article in the journal Current Oncology entitled “Integrating cannabis into clinical cancer care,” stated something none of my doctors would: 

“Cannabis is useful in combatting anorexia, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, pain, insomnia, and depression… Inhaled cannabis is more effective than placebo in ameliorating peripheral neuropathy in a number of conditions, and it could prove useful in chemotherapy-induced neuropathy.” 

The abstract continued, “Aside from symptom management, an increasing body of in vitro and animal-model studies supports a possible direct anticancer effect of cannabinoids by way of a number of different mechanisms involving apoptosis, angiogenesis, and inhibition of metastasis. Despite an absence of clinical trials, abundant anecdotal reports that describe patients having remarkable responses to cannabis as an anticancer agent, especially when taken as a high-potency orally ingested concentrate, are circulating. Human studies should be conducted to address critical questions related to the foregoing effects.”

Turns out, there was something to be done.

Or, at least something worth trying. 

I started using cannabis tinctures, just a few drops at night before bed, and I found immense relief from much of my post-treatment suffering. My peripheral neuropathy abated, I was able to sleep easily and peacefully, and the symptoms of my cancer-related anxiety and treatment-related PTSD were so reduced, I threw away my prescription anti-anxiety medications — those wretched, addictive “benzos” I so hated taking.  

In spite of a global body of research indicating cannabis can reduce the suffering caused by cancer, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and PTSD, the USG continues to actively stigmatize cannabis, and the consequences of this stigmatization are enormous: Patients are afraid to try it or even ask about it. Thousands of veterans commit suicide each year (more than 6,000 in 2021), yet the government still hasn't passed legislation to allow the VA to prescribe cannabis for PTSD, in spite of ample evidence it would help. 

There is also abundant evidence cannabis is extremely effective in reducing inflammation. Imagine if, during the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors had been allowed to openly discuss the possibility of using cannabis to lower inflammation in high-risk people with chronic inflammation, such as people with diabetes and obesity who were the most numerous casualties. Imagine if, as the opioid epidemic rages on, patients with chronic pain were encouraged by doctors to try medicinal cannabis before being immediately prescribed Oxy. Due to stigmatization of cannabis by the USG, establishment doctors simply won’t "go there." 

Federal government restrictions on cannabis research has left the US decades behind other nations in understanding both the benefits — and risks — of cannabis use. Patients should be free to discuss both with doctors.

Right now, there are thousands of dedicated federal workers suffering from chronic diseases who are being denied the option of medical cannabis: Parents of children with epilepsy who know cannabis might alleviate their child's seizures but refrain from procuring it due to fear of losing their clearances and their jobs. Terrified workers with cancer, MS, or Parkinson's who are forbidden to enjoy the relief cannabis might bring for their debilitating symptoms. And cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy who are secretly using cannabis to alleviate their pain, while living in fear their "transgression" will be discovered, their professional lives ruined. 

I chose to walk away from federal service rather than deny myself the benefits of cannabis as I face cancer — fighting both for my life and for quality of life. Dedicated federal employees should not be forced to make that choice.