In 1968, when Steve was just 23 years old, he began experiencing symptoms of hypertension and palpitations that would turn into a disease with a prognosis that no young person should have to face — a rare, fatal form of adrenal cancer, phenochromocytoma.
Steve had a surgery to remove a tumor, and then two more in 1975 and 1976. This last time, his medical records show that the cancer had metastasized to his liver and beyond. Fortunately, Steve survived. His physician, Dr. Vincent DeQuattro, a specialist from the USC School of Medicine, monitored his condition and treated him with conventional therapies, including chemotherapy, until referring him to the Mayo Clinic in 1981 for yet another surgery and radiation.
After that, Dr. DeQuattro lost contact with Steve and assumed he had died soon thereafter, since all other patients had a 100% mortality rate with his diagnosis (most within five years). But then, 17 years later, he received his 1998 California voter pamphlet in the mail and was surprised to learn that Steve was alive and well and running as the Libertarian candidate for governor. He made contact with Steve and soon learned that he had controlled the symptoms of his disease solely by smoking medical marijuana and by maintaining a healthy diet. Dr. DeQuattro says,"In some amazing fashion, this medication has not only controlled the symptoms of the pheochromocytoma, but in my view, has arrested its growth."
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