Powerful NC senator says smoking marijuana saved his life during chemotherapy for cancer

North Carolina state Sen. Bill Rabon of Brunswick County told fellow lawmakers on Tuesday he believes illegally smoking marijuana saved his life after he was diagnosed with colon cancer more than 20 years ago.

“And there’s no science behind it, but I can tell you: I know. I know that tens of thousands of people in this state could benefit just as I did,” said Rabon, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Rules committee, a high-ranking legislative position. He gave an impassioned rendition of his cancer and chemotherapy experience during state House Health Committee hearing for Senate Bill 3, the Compassionate Care Act.

Rabon’s bill would legalize medical marijuana in North Carolina. The GOP-majority state Senate passed the bill on March 1 and it is pending in the House.

Rabon’s experience did not persuade anti-marijuana advocates who attended the Health Committee meeting.

Corrine Gasper of the Jennifer’s Messengers anti-marijuana organization told lawmakers her daughter, Jennifer, was killed in a car crash by a driver who was intoxicated by marijuana.

The driver's car reeked of marijuana, he had a medical marijuana card, "and he admitted smoking it just before the crash," said Gasper, who is from Ohio. "So this is just an example of the unintended consequences that you will suffer from marijuana in your state."

More from Corrine Gasper: United States should not ease banking restrictions on cannabis-related businesses.

David Evans of North Carolinians against legalizing marijuana said he has had cancer three times. He argued that legalized medical marijuana will lead to abusive use and to legalization of recreational use.

“We do not decide medicine in the United States by anecdote or by stories,” Evans said. “We decide it based on science.”

The Health Committee took no action on the bill.

Previous coverage: Details on how the NC Senate prefers to legalize medical marijuana.

Doctor: ‘You need to get some good marijuana’

Rabon was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer when he was 48, he said. During his first visit with his oncologist, the doctor told him, “You have 18 months to live, I’ll make most of them good,” he said.

Three months into the chemotherapy, Rabon said, he didn’t feel any change. He told the doctor he wanted more aggressive care.

“I said, ‘You’ve got 12 months to cure me or kill me. That’s the way I want to go through this treatment,’” Rabon said.

“He said, ‘I’m going to make you sick. I’m going to make you real sick. And I don’t know if you can take it. But I’m gonna try.’

The doctor also him, “You need to get some good marijuana” to help with the side effects of the chemotherapy, Rabon said.

Rabon had a prescription for Marinol pills, he said. Marinol is a synthetic THC prescribed to treat the nausea and other effects of chemotherapy. But the doctor told him, “you may as well stick ’em in your ear. They’re not gonna work,” he said.

Rabon, who was a veterinarian, told the doctor he didn’t use drugs, he said, and he did not want to jeopardize his license to buy and sell controlled substances for his clients' animals.

The doctor said that if Rabon wanted to live, Rabon said, he needed marijuana, and he asked Rabon if he was able to get it.

“I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a problem. I own a fleet of fishing boats, and my problem is keeping drugs off those boats,’” Rabon said.

“So I went home. I talked to my chief of police. I talked to my sheriff. I told them what was going on,” he said.

“I said, ‘I’m going to have to buy drugs illegally to stay alive. And I want you to know it,’” Rabon said.

“And I never bought the first drug,” Rabon said. “It appeared in my mailbox on an as-needed basis.”

Daily, he said, he went to his vet clinic at 7 a.m., and spent the day in an easy chair in between seeing patients. “I never missed a single day’s work. Not one. I knew if I stopped, I would die,” he said. “And I knew that I loved my mother too much to die while she was alive. Scout’s honor.”

Bill Rabon: Three puffs eased chemo misery ‘before you could bat your eye’

Around 1:45 to 2 p.m. every day, Rabon said, “I would get so nauseated that I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I would walk outside, I put my hands on the back of my building, and I would heave until I got enough strength to get in my truck and drive home,” Rabon said.

At home, “I’d take about three puffs of marijuana. My symptoms would go away before you could bat your eye,” he said.

Rabon did this every day until he completed his chemotherapy, he said.

“That’s the only reason I’m alive today,” Rabon said.

Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: NC lawmaker: Pot eased side effects of chemo during cancer treatment