“He just was giver. I called him an angel amongst us. … He was beyond. I couldn’t have asked for a better father on this planet,” J.P. said Friday of his dad, who was 67.
“He taught me so many good values. He had such a good heart.
“It was pretty gutwrenching. He never had a bad bone in his body. Even my friends were really affected. He was like a dad to them.”
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Paul Morrissey, an advocate of the benefits of marijuana oil to treat cancer, was the subject of a number of Telegram stories regarding his decision to forgo conventional cancer treatment such as chemotherapy and radiation for the marijuana oil.
There were times he could not obtain the oil, and that may have set him back then, J.P. Morrissey said.
But his son is convinced the oil bought his father years he wouldn’t have had otherwise — he was Stage 4 when diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“The oil definitely kept him alive for a lot longer,” J.P. said.
In 2013, ’14 and ’15, The Telegram told the story of how Morrissey credited marijuana oil treatment with improving his health as he battled the disease.
The Telegram spoke with Morrissey last week, and had planned to update his story.
“I’m having a tough time,” Morrissey had said last week, adding he would explain in person.
But before the interview could take place, he died.
J.P. Morrissey noted he had started to see a change in his father’s health during the last few months, but while Paul Morrissey’s cancer spread to his bones and he lost the use of a leg, he never lost his spirit and faith, and his sickness never filled his voice.
Paul Morrissey was a deeply religious man who grew up around St. Joseph’s on Quidi Vidi Road and spent some time living in Montreal and Vancouver before moving back to St. John’s in his 20s. During his life worked in various jobs, such as sales, but was also a creative entrepreneur who would devise ways to improve things — his latest project was an automated CPR mask he was working on with a researcher.
His son said that in the late 1990s, a businessman had offered Paul Morrissey $1 million for a concept he had for an improved liferaft that had an outer layer that spun with the waves.
J.P. said he saw the cheque and the contract, but his father turned it down because it would be manufactured in Ontario instead of Newfoundland.
“He probably had $1,000 to his name (at the time),” J.P. said, adding his father likely would have given it away in charitable endeavours anyway or to friends and family, as was his practice.
“He would give anyone the shirt off his back.”
In 2014, Morrissey’s family doctor confirmed to The Telegram that Morrissey’s prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood levels had improved dramatically and there was some regression in his lymph nodes and abdomen, but could not say definitively if the unorthodox marijauna oil treatment caused the improvement.
In 2013, Morrissey put his faith in the marijuana oil treatment, but said he also relied on his religious faith and prayers.
He was sold on the controversial marijuana oil treatment after watching a video by Rick Simpson of Maccan, N.S., called “Run from the Cure.”
In the video, Simpson claims marijuana oil is nature’s miracle and that he gave it away to about 5,000 people for free until he ran into legal barriers.
Morrissey had also advocated for a clinical trial on the marijuana oil to prove what he thought was its medicinal benefit for others.
J.P. said while Simpson started the movement, Paul Morrissey had pioneered the oil’s use in this province and had given people hope.
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