Treating Her Kid’s Cancer With CBD Oil Instead Of Chemotherapy And Surgery Landed A Mom In Jail
In February 2024 a woman nervously awaited a decision in an Oregon City court. Earlier in the day, the 30-something, blonde-haired mom had initially appeared relaxed and unruffled. But as the case had continued, she began to lose her cool, her emotions bubbling to the surface. And then, when the judge handed down her sentence, the dam burst: the defendant lost all composure and collapsed into floods of tears.
Lenient sentencing?
The woman whose fate had hung on the verdict of the Oregon City court that day was a local named Christina Dixon. A 39-year-old mother of one, she was judged to have committed a very serious crime.
Even so, the sentence that she was handed by the circuit judge took many in the court by surprise. Yes, there were some — including the prosecutors and her ex-husband — who felt that it was far too lenient for the offense.
Support for Dixon
Yet whether Dixon was guilty of any wrongdoing has been the source of some debate. Indeed, ever since her case became public knowledge, there has been widespread support for Dixon. This came from a section of Oregonians, various politicians, and also people from across the United States.
That might seem strange to you when you learn the details. But Dixon’s daughter Kylee also offered support to her beleaguered mother. This support proved crucial, given she had been the allegedly wronged party in this complicated case: one that involved cancer and CBD oil.
Many questions
So, what exactly was Dixon in court for? What was the serious crime that she was deemed to have committed? And what sentence did she receive from the judge, and why was it considered too lenient by many?
For the answer to all these questions no doubt swirling in your mind, read on. We’ll relay to you the full shocking story of the Oregon mom put on trial for an unusual offense involving CBD oil, vitamins, cancer, and her own daughter.
Kylee is diagnosed
Let’s rewind then to 2018 when this strange tale effectively began. Back in March of that year, Wilsonville mom Dixon received some really awful news, a bombshell that would send a shiver down any loving parent’s spine.
Yes, Dixon’s daughter Kylee — the result of a relationship with her ex-husband Jim — had developed cancer. The afflicted organ was the liver; it was a rare form of the disease officially named undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma.
Undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma
Undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma is a cancer that mostly develops in children, and in the right lobe of the liver. The National Cancer Institute states that it accounts for around 2 to 15 percent of all cancers found in the liver.
Common symptoms include belly pain, fever, nausea and vomiting, a swollen stomach, and diarrhea. It often leads to a substantial decrease in appetite too. All the same, there is a 92 percent survival rate for those treated early and successfully.
Rushed into hospital
Kylee was just 12 years old when she was informed that she had this rare form of cancer. KGW 8 reported that she had been taken into Providence Portland Medical Center a month before her diagnosis after complaining of “extreme pain.”
During that first hospital visit, the doctors had found that a mass on Kylee’s liver had ruptured, leading to internal bleeding. It must have been a harrowing time for the young girl.
Doctors and consultants recommend chemotherapy and surgery
Of course, after Kylee’s shocking diagnosis, doctors soon drew up plans to treat her rare form of liver cancer. In the period after, she and her mother saw almost two dozen consulting physicians and numerous cancer specialists at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
Those experts were unanimous in their assessment of what Kylee required going forward. The young girl — not quite a teenager at this point — would need to undergo a course of chemotherapy as well as surgery on her cancer-ridden liver.
Three rounds of chemotherapy
Initially, at least, Dixon would listen to the advice of the doctors and cancer specialists. Her daughter had chemotherapy at Oregon Health and Science University. Indeed, according to the website Oregon Live, Kylee would undergo three rounds of chemo.
Dixon admitted that she had found it hard to witness her child going through it. She told KGW 8, “The best way I can describe it is like my kid was on death row. Every single time — you literally feel your kid’s life getting taken away.”
Mom blocks the chemo
Evidently, watching her daughter go through chemotherapy became too much for Dixon. So much so, in fact, that in 2019 she made a decision that would startle medical experts and onlookers alike.
Yes, after those initial three rounds of chemo, Dixon decided to stop allowing Kylee to go to the hospital to undertake those treatments and the related surgery. The mother took matters into her own hands, going completely against the advice of the doctors and cancer specialists with whom she had consulted.
State care
This refusal to take Kylee for her prescribed courses of chemotherapy would soon land Dixon in hot water. Indeed, as The Oregonian reported, it led to the Department of Human Services (DHS) in her home state to get involved.
As a result of Dixon’s actions in preventing her daughter getting the treatment doctors were adamant she needed — including surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on her liver — the Oregon state DHS claimed custody of Kylee. Yes, the then-13-year-old was placed in state care.
Alternative treatments
Although the state of Oregon had seemingly assumed control of medical decisions for Kylee, she was ultimately allowed to live with her mother. Crucially, this meant that Dixon would be able to start providing her own treatments for her daughter.
The treatments that Dixon began to give Kylee for her liver cancer were not — and indeed still aren’t — recommended or prescribed by doctors and experts. Many would argue that they were simply off the wall.
An alternative approach
So, what exactly did Dixon give her daughter in an attempt to stop her cancer in its tracks? Well, believe it or not, Dixon decided to give Kylee CBD oil and vitamins to treat the potentially fatal tumor on her liver.
That’s right: Kylee’s mom thought that a course of CBD oil along with a few vitamin supplements could help to cure her cancer. This was in spite of the absence of any verified scientific evidence to suggest that this would work.
What is CBD oil?
If you don’t know what CBD oil is, then let us enlighten you. CBD oil — or Cannabidiol oil — is an emollient derived from the cannabis sativa plant. Yes, that is the same one that is often smoked by pot-heads.
All the same, CBD is not psychoactive like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the cannabinoid element that gets you high if you smoke or ingest it in significant amounts. But whilst it won’t make you laugh uncontrollably and crave pizza, it is all the same an increasingly popular natural remedy that is utilized for numerous ailments.
Uses and benefits
CBD oil is widely known for its relaxation properties, and as such it is used in bath soaks and dietary supplements, as well as drinks and food products. It is extracted from cannabis sativa and usually diluted into a carrier solution such as coconut or hemp seed oil.
CBD oil usage is thought to have potential for relieving pain, with several scientific studies suggesting its efficacy. But whilst CBD oil might be able to reduce inflammation or inhibit pain receptors, and to help with sleep disorders or depression and anxiety, there are no studies suggesting it can cure liver cancer.
Startling decision
Despite that lack of evidence, Dixon went ahead with treating her daughter’s cancer with the oil. She would later claim that Kylee’s health was improving more from the CBD treatment she was providing than the chemotherapy the doctors prescribed, suggesting that it reduced her tumor by 90 percent.
Soon after refusing further chemotherapy for her daughter after the third round of her treatment, Dixon made a startling decision, one that would very soon put the worried mother in major trouble with the law.
Fleeing to Las Vegas
In early June 2019 — shortly after receiving a court order telling her to return her child to chemotherapy treatment and undertake an important scheduled surgery — Dixon would flee from her Clackamas County home with Kylee. The mom-of-one would hide from the long arm of the law in Las Vegas.
When they realized that Kylee would not be having the planned surgery on June 6, the state of Oregon quickly intervened. The following day, the Clackamas County Circuit Court issued a pickup order for Kylee, and ordered that the cancer-stricken 13-year-old be immediately placed in the custody of the Department of Human Services.
A real gamble
In Vegas, Dixon was taking a major gamble: not a risky financial wager in one of Sin City’s many casinos, though. No, the fugitive mother was putting all her chips in on CBD oil and vitamins healing her daughter’s liver cancer.
The ineffectiveness of CBD oil and other alternative treatments for cancer was illustrated by a 2017 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It reported that cancer sufferers who were treated only with alternative medicines such as CBD oil were 250 percent more likely to die than patients who undertook standard treatments.
“Not a medically recognized treatment”
The authorities were clearly aware of Dixon’s decision to use CBD oil as the primary treatment method for Kylee’s liver cancer. In court documents seen by KGW 8, Clackamas County senior deputy district attorney Christine Landers noted, “The mother has elected to treat child’s cancer exclusively with CBD oil, which is not a medically recognized treatment for the disease with which [the] child has been diagnosed.”
Landers was clear in her condemnation of this alternative course of treatment. She continued, “[It] will have no efficacy in treating child’s cancer, and [the] child’s medical team and specialists in pediatric oncology have stated that without further treatment [the] child will die of the disease.”
Not alone
But Dixon is not alone in the world with her belief in alternative treatments like CBD oil. Indeed, a 2018 survey by the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that, in the U.S. alone, four in ten Americans believe alternative therapies alone can treat and cure cancer.
Yes, a worrying 40 percent of Americans believe this, regardless of there being a dearth of scientific evidence to support the claim. Indeed, at the moment, the American Cancer Society suggests that alternative treatments should only be used as to complement traditional treatments, namely chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery.
Oregon’s history
Interestingly, Oregon as a state has a history of similar cases to Dixon’s, in which parents have prevented their seriously ill children from getting the medical care their doctors have insisted they need. Many of these have been associated with a religious sect known as the Followers of Christ.
This small, devout organization based in Oregon City takes the Bible and its holy texts on a literal level. The Followers of Christ essentially believe that if a child — or anyone for that matter — has an illness and death comes as a result of it, then it was “God’s will.”
Similar case
Indeed, as The Daily Mail reported, earlier in 2023 a set of parents in Oregon both pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment of their 13-year-old son. They had refused to undertake the treatments prescribed by the doctors for the boy, who had been suffering from renal failure.
That Oregon couple were put on probation, whilst their son got the required treatment and eventually recovered. All the same, despite her objections to the prescribed medical treatment for her daughter and being a Clackamas County native, Dixon is not — and has never been — a member of the Followers of Christ.
Fugitives caught
Still, despite not being affiliated with Followers of Christ, Dixon received a lot of support from people from within the state and across the country. Anyway, after the mother had fled Oregon with her daughter, the Wilsonville Police Department in her hometown issued an advisory seeking any assistance possible in finding Kylee.
But Dixon’s Las Vegas jaunt wouldn’t last very long. Just a few days later, she and Kylee were spotted at the Longhorn Casino and Hotel. The fugitives were then brought back to Oregon.
Protective custody
Immediately after this, the state of Oregon placed Kylee in protective custody. Dixon, meanwhile, avoided arrest at this juncture, as the authorities found that there were ’no probable cause charges.’
The fascinating story of the fugitive mom refusing chemotherapy and surgery for her cancer-stricken daughter before escaping to Las Vegas and being caught three days later obviously made local and national news. Although many people no doubt condemned her actions, numerous others showed vociferous support.
Public and political support
Ordinary people and politicians alike soon waded into the debate. Some staunch parents’-rights advocates and supporters of Dixon lambasted what they saw as a “medical kidnapping” of Kylee by the state of Oregon.
And Oregon State Senator Kim Thatcher made a clear comment in favor of Dixon. The Republican said at the time, “Oregonians have rallied behind Kylee and her mother because we believe in medical freedom and the right to a second opinion.”
Complicating matters
Matters were complicated somewhat by the fact that Kylee did not see herself as being taken against her will to Las Vegas. Despite all the advice of the doctors and experts, she took her mother’s side and opposed having the surgery that they were adamant she needed.
Indeed, Kylee made it known that she did not want to have the surgery deemed necessary by the medical establishment and the state. They had made the then young teen stop taking the CBD oil with which her mother was treating her, but Kylee wanted to resume taking it.
State vs. the parent
The case raised interesting questions about the rights of parents to choose the medical care for their children, versus the directives of the state. As alluded to, it caused something of a split between those who believed Dixon had the right to choose the medical care for Kylee and those who believed she was irresponsible and even criminal.
It should be noted here that Kylee’s other parent — her father Jim Dixon — vehemently opposed his ex-wife’s actions and was firmly on the side of enforcing the law and the traditional treatment for his daughter. All the same, the already-controversial parents-versus-state rights debate that had been further fueled by this case has shown little sign of abating.
Kylee has the surgery
Anyway, after a period on the run while Kylee was placed with a foster family, Dixon finally gave up the ghost and turned herself in to the authorities back in August 2019. She would now have to face a trial.
After an initial postponement in September 2019 by a district judge, Kylee would finally have the surgery that the medical authorities and the state of Oregon were adamant she needed. That surgery — which was completed in early 2020 — was successful; the teenager was given the all-clear cancer-wise a few months later.
November 2023 trial
In the years before the four-day trial began, Dixon employed the services of several different legal representatives. Finally in November 2023 the 39-year-old mother was tried over her attempt to prevent her daughter from getting her life-saving surgery back in 2019.
Dixon represented herself and testified with a long defense speech, before calling her daughter Kylee as a supportive witness. The state, meanwhile, called upon various witnesses, including child welfare employees who worked on Kylee’s case, several Oregon Health & Science University oncologists, and a Clackamas County sheriff’s detective.
Dixon found guilty
Ultimately, the jury in the Clackamas County court would find Dixon guilty of the felony charge of first-degree custodial interference, along with two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment. A potential 19-month sentence awaited her.
Prosecutor Bryan Censoni praised the jury for recognizing the obligation of parents to make sure their children accept potentially life-saving medical care. He said, “From my point of view, I was happy that the jury accepted the universal medical consensus in the case.” Dixon refrained to comment, but sought a delay in the sentencing in order to hire a lawyer for that process.
Three months with probation
We now fast-forward to February 2024 when the final hearing took place. On this occasion, Dixon would have that 19-month sentence reduced to 90 days, or roughly three months in jail. Even so, she burst into tears upon hearing the verdict.
Dixon also received a supervised probation period at the hearing. Her defence attorney Greg Oliveros had argued that she should receive only probation and no prison time due to her previously clean criminal record. All the same, the prosecution team were disappointed that the sentence was cut down by 16 months.
Kylee’s support cuts sentence
The key figure in Dixon getting her sentence cut by a considerable amount was her daughter Kylee. She was not present at the court on that February day, but her views were cited by Circuit Judge Michael Wetzel as the chief reason that he opted to dish out a more lenient 90-day sentence.
The now 17-year-old Kylee had steadfastly supported her mother throughout the whole ordeal, and Wetzel took this into account when deciding on the punishment. Dixon’s daughter had come to her rescue in a sense, even if many would argue that her own mother had arguably done the opposite for her.
Kylee’s father has his say
Among those disappointed by the significantly cut sentence for Dixon were her ex-husband — and Kylee’s father — Jim. He appeared in court on that day and told local Oregon station WLBT, I’m glad there’s closure, finally. I was a little sad to see how easy she got off on all this considering all the damage she’s done.”
Jim derided his ex-wife for pursuing her alternative treatment. He added, “The truth is that Kylee had a tumor that CBD wasn’t doing a thing to help. The only thing that was helping was the treatment that she was getting and she had the surgery and she’s cancer-free now because of it.”
Estranged father?
Still, Jim appears to be estranged from his daughter, admitting he has not seen her since 2020. He doesn’t even know exactly where she is living. It seems Kylee is firmly in her mother’s camp, despite her father’s professed love for her.
Still, his opinion on the whole saga was echoed by deputy district attorney Brian Powell, who said, “The reason that [Kylee] is alive today is because she got the chemotherapy, because she got surgery, because of tumors removed.”
Dixon speaks in court
For her part, when she spoke in court Dixon was adamant she had not been completely against traditional chemotherapy and surgery for her daughter. In fact, she suggested that the apparent hostility she had with her daughter undertaking such treatment was more to do with mistrust or dislike of a certain doctor.
According to WLBT Dixon said, “I never wanted to stop her treatment. It was just with this particular doctor. I would’ve never put [Kylee] in harm’s way. I did everything to fight for her life, and I put my own life on the line for her.”
Clouded judgment
Whether this was true, of course, is highly questionable. Remember, Dixon had previously talked up the CBD oil treatment over the traditional methods, claiming it had shrunk Kylee’s tumor by up to 90 percent.
Meanwhile, according to The Oregonian, her lawyer Greg Oliveros argued in court that Dixon had “made some mistakes,” but suggested that the mother’s “love for her child clouded her common sense or judgment” rather than anything more sinister.
Ethical considerations
Did, as Oliveros said, the stress of her young daughter suffering from cancer — coupled with an initial lack of faith in the chemotherapy treatment working — cause Dixon to “make some mistakes” and pursue her CBD oil treatment? Or was she a highly irresponsible mother who steadfastly and arrogantly went against all available evidence and expert opinion with her faith in CBD oil as a cancer treatment?
Did, as Oliveros said, the stress of her young daughter suffering from cancer — coupled with an initial lack of faith in the chemotherapy treatment working — cause Dixon to “make some mistakes” and pursue her CBD oil treatment? Or was she a highly irresponsible mother who steadfastly and arrogantly went against all available evidence and expert opinion with her faith in CBD oil as a cancer treatment?
Legal landscape
As well as there being no evidence that CBD oil can treat cancer effectively and shrink tumors, as Dixon had once claimed, there are also legal issues with its usage in the U.S. and beyond. In the United States, CBD oil has only conditional use in almost every state. It is, effectively, a controlled substance.
Some of the states in America put clear restrictions on the product, requiring that it is 100 percent THC-free — that is, without the particular compound that can get you high. Nebraska law states that only hemp-derived oil can be used legally.
CBD oil in Israel
Meanwhile in Israel, CBD oil is legal, having been taken off the country’s banned substances list in August 2020. Yet its popularity has not exploded like in the U.S. or U.K., for example. In Israel, to start with CBD oil wasn’t widely available: you had to go to a pharmacy to get it.
CBD oil was treated like a medicine rather than a supplement in Israel. But changes are imminent: now CBD oil is no longer a scheduled or controlled substance, legislation is in the pipeline to make it more readily available. Whether this change in status results in an explosion of CBD oil use remains to be seen.
Fit for purpose
With cannabis laws changing or evolving in many countries, CBD oil is becoming more readily available. This can only be a good thing, because as we have noted, the product can reportedly help with a wide range of ailments, affording pain relief, and helping to tackle insomnia, anxiety, and depression. And it will be interesting to see whether continued research on CBD oil brings to light any more benefits in the future.
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As useful as CBD oil can be though, few would recommend you utilizing it exclusively for treating cancer, should you or a loved one be unlucky enough to be diagnosed with the disease. The complete lack of verified medical evidence should be enough to put you off, let alone the Dixon case described above.