Dad Says Marijuana Helped Cure Cancer-Stricken Tot

Montana pop credits pot to son's 'miracle recovery' from brain tumor
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted May 6, 2011 1:40 AM CDT
Dad Slips Pot to Cancer-Stricken Tot
Mike Hyde calls his son Cash (right), lying with brother Colton, a "walking miracle."   (cannabisculturemag)

A desperate dad slipped pot to his cancer-stricken son, and now credits the drug with the toddler's surprising recovery. Cash Hyde was given little chance of survival from a Stage 4 brain tumor, and struggled with several bouts of chemo, a stroke, and septic shock. So panicked dad, Mike Hyde, who uses pot for his attention deficit disorder, injected cannabis oil into Cash's feeding tube without mentioning it to doctors. Physicians are irritated, but Cash, now 3, has made a stunning recovery. Two weeks after Cash's alternative treatment, "he was weaned of all the nausea drugs, and he was eating again and sitting up and laughing," says his pop.

"When you are told your kid has cancer, whoa," said Hyde, 27, who called marijuana one of the "best anti-nausea and pain medications" out there. "It's a lot to take on." Cash, who has his own medical marijuana card, was transferred from his home in Montana, where medicinal pot is legal, to a better treatment facility in Utah, where the drug is definitely not legal. Cash was throwing up as many as 10 times a day and stopped eating for 40 days—until the pot. "He was suffering terribly," says Hyde, who lived in a camper in the parking lot during Cash's treatment. Cannabis "certainly can increase appetite and improve mood," one expert tells ABC News. "But the idea that it can cure cancer is ludicrous." Doctors say there's a 50% to 80% chance the cancer will return. (More Cash Hyde stories.)

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