5 years cancer-free without Big Pharma

By Kathryn Reed

Five years is a milestone most cancer patients celebrate. It doesn’t mean the disease won’t come back, but it is a positive indicator.

Chemo, radiation, surgery or some combination is usually the medical cure. Not so for Steve Kubby. He attributes reaching the five-year mark to cannabis cryogenic extract.

This month the 70-year-old South Lake Tahoe resident celebrates being cancer free for five years.

At 21 he was first diagnosed with cancer. At 28 he was told he had terminal malignant pheochromocytoma. According to the Mayo Clinic, pheochromocytoma  “is a rare, usually noncancerous tumor that develops in cells in the center of an adrenal gland.”

The rare disease is often fatal. He was give six months to two years to live, and told to get his affairs in order.

Steve Kubby and Nobia Monsaurt with the marijuana plants they use for medicine. Photo/Lisa Gresham-Gordon

“I went to the Mayo Clinic. They threw everything they had at it. Nothing worked,” Kubby told Lake Tahoe News. He defied doctors’ predictions, but the cancer was always there.

It was five years ago that he started using the cannabinoid.

Raphael Mechoulam, who discovered tetrahydrocannabinol is the most active ingredient in cannabis, had figured out cannabinoids are lost whenever cannabis is dried. That is what led Kubby to the cryogenic or freezing process. Kubby developed the process by using a plant from South America he had been breeding.

It’s non-psycho active, which means using it won’t make the person high. Kubby ingests the medicine, as opposed to smoking it.

“It can trigger adult stem cells. No one is using this method that we know of,” Nobia Monsaurt said. Monsausrt is an integral part of Kubby’s continued research into medical marijuana. They plan to be married this April.

They have a research team helping them refine the product, which one day the couple would like to bring to market.

Kubby had gone off the drug for a while, believing he was cured of cancer and not in need of it anymore.

In April 2016, he suffered a minor stroke. Kubby returned to using his special medicinal marijuana formula. He said it alleviated the lingering stroke issues, brought down his blood pressure and even decreased his prostate numbers.

The plan going forward — stay on the medicine indefinitely and continue to study the benefits with the hope one day the strain is available commercially.