The story really begins in 1969, when Rick Simpson’s 22-year-old cousin is diagnosed with cancer. Doctors performed surgery on him, followed by chemotherapy. He went from 200 pounds to 120 pounds. Three years later, in 1972, he came home on leave. One day, while they were talking, he collapsed in front of Simpson. He suspected it might be cancer, but he hoped it wasn’t. As soon as he went to the doctors, they said, “You have three to six months to live.”
He died within three months, and Simpson watched him drop to about 55 pounds. His cousin is more like a brother to him. They grew up together in the countryside. They know each other well. This hit him really hard. One day, about three years later, he left work. He’d just gotten in his car, turned on the radio and CKDH’s local Amherst radio station, and they were reading a radio report about THC, the compound in marijuana that kills cancer cells. Of course, the announcer laughed like an idiot when he said it, and Simpson didn’t know whether to take it seriously. Time passed and he never heard that THC could kill cancer cells or anything, so he thought it was just some kind of joke.
In 1997, Simpson suffered a serious head injury on the job. He ended up suffering from what is known as post-concussion syndrome. He went through the medical system. He has been taking her medicine for five years. He took every chemical they threw at him. They did nothing but make him worse. In 1998, about a year after his injury, he watched an episode of “The Nature of Things” with the Doctor. David Suzuki calls it Reefer Madness 2. It shows all the people out there who use marijuana for health problems. You got help.
He was desperate so he went out and bought some weed from a friend nearby. He smoked it and it affected him more than anything the doctor gave him. He went to the doctor again. Every doctor he saw asked for a prescription for marijuana, but no doctor wrote him a prescription. In 1999, he was in a doctor’s office. Of course, whenever Simpson talks to him…he always asks for a prescription, but again he says no. Simpson asked the doctor there that day, and he said, “What would you think if instead of smoking the plant material, I extracted the essential oil of the plant and ingested it?” The doctor said it was a more medicinal way of using the substance , but he still won’t give him a prescription.
Directed by: Chris T. Harrigan
