Proud Independent Steve Cox Featured in the Orange County Register
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Martin Wisckol of the Orange County Register about my candidacy for congress in District 39. We spoke for 40 minutes or so, and while this is a brief summary of my candidacy, I'm sure much of the information he gleaned from me will be used in upcoming articles as well.
Since this wasn't a Q&A-style interview, the way our conversation started didn't make it into the article, but I thought it was kind of funny. It went like this:
Martin Wisckol: "It sounds like you're in your car. Can you talk now? Or would you like me to call back?"
Me: "I am in my car, but this is perfect; I just pulled into the parking lot at Petco to buy my bulldog some laxatives."
Me and my best friend, Gus, at the beach a few years ago.
And that's the truth. Actually, it's the primary reason why I've been a little less active on this page of my website over the past couple of weeks: My American Bulldog, Gus, was diagnosed with some really nasty lung (and possibly liver) cancer at the end of September. I was devastated and still fight back tears almost every day. But he's putting up a fight, and we (myself, my wife Erica, and my good friend Pietro) are doing what we can to help, using cannabis-based Rick Simpson Oil (RSO), which (believe it or not) I used previously, in small doses, to subdue Gus's hemangiosarcoma skin cancer over the last few years. The only other options I have available for Gus are chemo and radiation, which will likely destroy his quality of life, and I won't do that to him. The one other treatment that might help him - a stem-cell treatment pioneered recently up at UC Davis - has been shown to work for hemangiosarcoma (which is likely what this is, since he had that skin cancer three years ago), but nobody is actually doing the treatment in practice yet.
This leads right to one of the major reasons why I believe we need end our war on drugs: Our hypocritical federal government simultaneously classifies cannabis as "Schedule 1," which means that it has no medicinal benefit and is highly addictive (neither of which are true of cannabis), but the federal government also owns a patent on the use of cannabis oil as medicine. Add this to the list of reasons why many of us have come to lack trust in our government. While cannabis oil is legal in California nowadays, the federal government still considers it a crime. I know this might be considered by some to be a "risk" to reveal I'm using cannabis oil medicinally at the beginning of my congressional campaign, but I don't believe there's ever a risk in telling the voters the truth. I'm not in this race to garner power or influence, I'm in it to represent the people. If the people don't want someone in office who uses cannabis oil as medicine, they won't vote for me, and that's how it should be. The voters should get what they want.
These are a couple of Gus's X-Rays. The one on the bottom shows that his left lung is basically all cancer. But we are fighting it...
We caught the cancer pretty late, but he's doing a lot better already. In the coming weeks or months, we'll know if the oil can knock down such an advanced cancer in high doses (the dosage schedule for RSO requires the ingestion of 60 grams within 90 days). Regardless, he's been the best friend anybody could've ever asked for, and stuck by my side through a lot of fantastic and terrible events in my life over the past decade, without ever wavering.
I, for one, wish people were a lot more like dogs. Dogs are the best people.
Returning to this article by Mr. Wisckol, I have to say as a journalist myself (in the motorcycle industry), I am a bit skeptical of the press, because I've seen how biased they can be from CNN to Fox News, but Mr. Wisckol accurately (although briefly) summarized some of my positions, and I appreciate his work. It's nice to know a journalist who takes unbiased journalism seriously. I hope he and I can work together more in the coming months as we (me and you, the people) take on the establishment together.