Dave Mustaine on How Marijuana Helped Him During Cancer Treatment

Dave Mustaine has been very open about his battle with throat cancer, and now he's opening up about how marijuana helped him with his treatment.

In an interview with Metal Hammer, Mustaine said of using weed during treatment, "If you’re gonna do it, get the good stuff. I think the world is just now finding out the beauty of cannabis and everything it can do for you. I hear people talk how it’s good for cancer patients. C’mon, it’s good for any f*cking patient! The radiation zapped my salivary glands so I couldn’t make spit, which made it really hard to swallow and get food down. They gave me this crazy mouthwash to use that had Benadryl and lidocaine in it, but I still couldn’t eat. So cannabis helped with that, except I got a terrible craving for kiddie cereal. I went to the store and got, like, 20 boxes."

So, which brands were his cereal of choice when he had "the munchies"? Frankly, some pretty good ones.

"Trix with marshmallows. Froot Loops with marshmallows. Frosted Flakes. The kind with little marshmallows. You get the idea," said Mustaine. "My cancer team told me to try and watch the sugar intake, but they said, ‘Dave, if you can eat – then eat.’ The doctor threatened to put a feeding tube in my gut if I lost too much weight. Well, they scared the sh*t out of me with that one, but it worked."

Mustaine went public with his diagnosis in June 2019. He wrapped treatments that October.