Martin Olive, the executive director of the Vapor Room, which is set to close July 31, can remember about eight years ago when he met a man who stood six feet two inches tall, but due to cancer weighed no more than 110 pounds. Over time, Olive said, he watched as the man grew stronger and started to grow physically because of regular treatment with medical cannabis.
Olive said the man began to eat again and smile more. Not only did the cannabis relieve the pain of cancer and suppress his nausea, but it allowed him to socialize with the small community at the Vapor Room. Medical cannabis helped him beat cancer then. When it came back again and again, in different parts of his body, the cannabis helped him beat it those times as well, Olive said.
That’s one reason why Olive wholeheartedly believes in the value of medical cannabis.
“If I prefer to take a couple tokes off a joint for my illness,” Olive said of people with cancer, HIV, or other illnesses, “then I should have that option.”
I covered San Francisco news and politics for the Bay Area Reporter from the end of 2011 to 2013. Read the full article here.
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