Health issues

‘I use cannabis’: Olivia Newton-John talks cancer treatment

Sep 03, 2017

Grease star Olivia Newton-John is battling cancer her own way.

Olivia Newton-John is using medicinal cannabis to help treat and relieve the pain caused by the cancer in her lower back.

The Australian singer told The Daily Telegraph she is using a mix of radiation therapy and natural remedies to treat the cancer, which doctors discovered in her sacrum at the base of her spine earlier this year.

The cancer is the same breast cancer she was diagnosed with in 1992, only this time it has metastasized to the sacrum.

Newton-John said the mix of treatments is working well and that she is slowly getting her mobility back.

“I use medicinal cannabis, which is really important for pain and healing,” she told The Daily Telegraph. “It’s a plant that has been maligned for so long, and has so many abilities to heal.”

Newton-John resides in California, where medicinal cannabis is easily obtainable and her daughter Chloe Lattanzi owns a cannabis farm in Oregon.

“I am getting my mobility back to normal all the time, but I have done tests of course to see that things are better, have had my blood work tested, and these things lead me to believe that I am on top of it,” she said.

While medicinal cannabis is easy to access in many American states now, Newton-John said she plans on championing it as a healing product in her birth country of Australia where it is still difficult to obtain.

The Australian Federal Government made medical cannabis legal earlier this year, but it is still difficult for patients to secure permission and get their hands of the product itself.

Studies have shown that cannabis can help ease symptoms from chemotherapy, such as nausea and vomiting, as well as help ease pain caused by cancer.

In recent years, cancer societies and organisations around the world have acknowledged the benefits of the plant and thrown their support behind it as a support therapy to accompany chemotherapy and radiation.