HEALED: How I Cured My Cancer with Cannabis

The potheads did it with a rice cooker

From Compassion Chronicles
By Charmie Gholson

Mike McShane has endured five bouts of Squamous cell carcinoma cancer. He’s spent a million dollars and has been treated with radiation therapy, chemotherapy and surgery by this team of doctors at the Detroit Medical Center. Today, he believes the invasive treatments were unnecessary. He says he’s cured his latest bout with the disease using a highly concentrated form of marijuana oil called Simpson Oil.

Michael McShane and Gersh Avery are hanging out in my office, chain smoking cigarettes and talking about Jesus.

“That may be why they hung him on that tree you know,” Gersh says, waving his hand and sending a cascade of ashes across my desk. “What do you think was in that oil he was healing people with? It was cannabis.”

Three years ago, I wouldn’t have believed the so called, “healing properties of cannabis,” but not today. Not with 51 year old McShane sitting across from me, grinning through the smoke and nodding his head. He’s a rapt audience of one, sitting in the front pew in the church of healing.

25 years ago, McShane was diagnosed with HIV. This was the late 80’s, when nothing was known about the disease. Doctors gave you an immediate death sentence.

“The opportunistic diseases that kill you with HIV are cancer and pneumonia,” he says. “I went in with breathing problems and asking what time I was leaving. They said, ‘you’ll be lucky if you get out of here in two weeks alive.’”

“I felt a wheelchair bump me in the back of the legs, and heard, ‘sit down sir,’ then they wheeled me into an ICU isolated unit. Everybody had space suits on. Anyone who came into that room was dressed up like they were landing on the moon or ready to fight chemical warfare. They looked like Robby the Robot coming at me.”

“There they were, my caregivers, all suited up and I’m thinking, ‘man I must be super messed up.”

The doctor came in and told McShane, “I’ll give you six months to live. Do you have any questions?”

“He was really sarcastic,” McShane says, adding that at that time, HIV was “The Gay” disease. “I was shaking and thinking what the hell? It was unbelievable.”

McShane’s first bout with cancer occurred a few years later. His doctors cut a wedge out of his lip. Soon after, he noticed a lump in his neck. He underwent radical neck surgery that removed part of his jugular vein. He also underwent radiation treatment.

“By the time they were done I couldn’t talk, plus they cut the nerve in my neck. I had to learn how to talk again. The radiation they used on me was so strong it burned my throat.”

A few years after the neck dissection, McShane experienced colon cancer, which resulted in surgery and chemotherapy. “The colon cancer was a pain in the ass,” he laughs, “but it wasn’t anything like the neck surgery.”

After the colon issue McShane had a major outbreak of cancer in four areas on his face. They performed surgery on his forehead, both lips and cheek in a surgical suite, using local anesthetic while McShane was awake. He says he could feel everything and asked for more anesthesia.

The doctor would first removed tissue, then send it to a nearby lab for testing while McShane waited in the chair. He repeated this process until all the cancer was gone. By then, he had removed a substantial amount of Michael McShane’s face.

He was rushed out through the back of the clinic. “I walked in looking normal and now it looked like a pipe bomb went off in my face,” he says, “From a marketing perspective, they had me go out the back door.”

After eight hours of reconstructive surgery, and another six procedures for scar revisions and lip clefts, McShane’s oncology procedure was deemed successful.

In June of 2011, the cancer on his face returned, growing back in the same places where it had been surgically removed. By then he was growing marijuana, acting as a caregiver under the Medical Marihuana Act. McShane recalls a powerful, dawning moment of learning that marijuana cured cancer.

“There I was in the basement, with the plants growing, and the lights and fans humming. I couldn’t believe it. The thought of curing my cancer with this oil was almost too much.”

Avery lights another cigarette and laughs, as if not believing this oil cures cancer is just plain silly. He’s co-founder of the Michigan Cannabis Cancer Project, an educational program that promotes and provides Simpson oil to anyone who needs it, at no cost. “It works,” he says simply.

“I found out about this stuff through the medical marijuana community,” McShane says. “ I’ve made about 1,000 new friends since 2008. Without knowing you guys I would have never known about this oil and I would have died. That’s no bullshit.”

“I got Simpson oil and started putting it on and after ten days, ten days I saw it. The cancer started to break up before my eyes. It looked like a big white callous, and it started to fragment and break up.”

“I was crying. It was unbelievable.” He called his Dermotologist, told him the cancer was back and that he was treating it with marijuana.

McShane leaps from his chair in my office and starts dancing around, laughing. “Here I am, in my basement, with a 9th grade education and I’m healing my cancer, and I’m saying, ‘I‘m not going to spend 40 grand with you!’”

He went to his doctors office. “You’ve got cancer on your face,” he told McShane. “I know,” he responded. “That’s the reason I’m here. I want you to put it in my chart and note it because when I come back I don’t think it’ll be here. It’s going to be gone because I’m using this marijuana oil.” His doctor told him, “well ok, but get to Dermatology immediately. That’s cancer.”

McShane didn’t go to Dermatology. He continued using the oil and the cancer started to lose the battle very quickly. It took about three months to reach the underneath layer of live skin. During that time he went to see his doctor about four times who said he could see things were getting better.

After three months of Simpson oil treatment, the cancer had broken down and exposed a layer of live skin. During that time McShane saw his doctor about four times, who confirmed his condition was improving.

In late August, McShane appeared on WWJ AM Radio, and also on Fox News Let It Rip where he squared off with Dr. Steven Newman, President of Michigan State Medical Society. A few weeks earlier Newman had stood next to Attorney General Bill Schuette at a press conference, decrying the medical marijuana bill as, “hijacked by pot profiteers who threaten public safety…”

McShane’s dermatologist also interviewed with WWJ. He denied McShane was completely cured but said the cancer was 60 percent gone and that the results so far, “definitely warrant further scientific study for the use of cannabis for treating skin cancer.” But after this interview, when other reporters called, his office issued the following statement. “We’re not going to cooperate anymore.”

When McShane went to see his doctor for his last visit, he expected him to proclaim a miracle.

“He took a look at my face and was amazed, but made no comments whatsoever, as if he really didn’t know what to do. I think he got a phone call from Newman and had been ‘talked to’ because when he came into to look at me it was more of a political thing than a doctors exam.”

“I said to him, ‘Normally at this point you’d pull a knife on me. Is there any cause for concern?’ and he said, ‘No. You look great.’ He asked to follow up at 16 weeks.”

“He wasn’t being a doctor. He was protecting the medical industry.”

“It was the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. I thought we’d be on Fox news and we’d have a parade down Woodward.”

“With cancer it’s a real fear-based system, a war based mentality, fueled by the fear of cancer and dying and the trilogy of the whole thing is your insurance; that’s what makes it all work. I’ve been diagnosed and cut on within hours. It’s all about coming at you with nuclear weapons and knives.”

“They’re sincere in their actions, they’re just misinformed.”
“They have known that this cures cancer since 1974, and all these things that have happen to me have been since 1974, which means I wouldn’t have had to do any of the things I’ve had to do with western medicine, or the costs that are associated with it, if they had allowed research on cannabis.”

“I cured myself in 90 days in my basement in Ferndale as a patient, come on we can get there in 10 years with labs. We did this! The potheads did it with a rice cooker.” He and Avery are both laughing now. “Come on,” he says, “that’s crazy.”

When I last saw Mike McShane, he was working on healing his HIV with an intense 90 days treatment of Simpson oil. He says he has stopped taking his HIV treatment, which cost about $2000 for one month. He said the only aspect of the treatment he was struggling with was sensitivity to light.

His cancer has not returned.

For more information about Simpson oil, visit phoenixtears.ca/

Originally published in The Midwest Cultivator