The unjust persecution of the Idaho Three has galvanized the cannabis community across the country and had illustrated just how far we still have to go for true equality for the cannabis community. The plight of the Idaho Three also demonstrates the true courage of cannabis law reform activists literally putting their lives on the line fighting to end a senseless war.
Lindsey Rinehart is the chief petitioner for Idaho’s medical marijuana initiative. She is a multiple sclerosis patient who’s experienced a remarkable recovery by using cannabis to treat her symptoms. She is the director Compassionate Idaho, a group working to pass medical marijuana legislation in the Gem State. In her role she has become one of the state’s most high-profile cannabis law reform supporters, along with her husband Josh Rinehart, who is the director of Idaho NORML, the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Her friend. Sarah Caldwell, is the financial director for Moms for Marijuana International, another activist group which was formed by Idaho medical cannabis patient activist Serra Frank.
If you can help the Idaho Three financially to offset legal expenses, please visit https://rad-r.us/IdahoFund - this is not just any other child custody case. This is law enforcement using targeted, selective prosecution to silence an effective political activist.
Over the next few months as Lindsey is forced to go without cannabis to save her family, her condition will deteriorate. She will be far less of a mother than she can be. The emotional and physical toll this will take is more than anyone should ever have to bear. Plus, multiple sclerosis is the type of condition that is exacerbated by stress. Let’s ease as much of the financial stress as we can for our brave freedom fighter – donate if you can to https://rad-r.us/IdahoFund (it is just a short link; I get no financial benefit from this, all the money goes straight to the Idaho Three.)
I am a third-generation Idahoan. This is not the way the people of Idaho want to see Lindsey and her family treated. The Idahoans I know are a compassionate, Christian people who are smart enough to tell the difference between a criminal drug trafficker and a seriously ill mother battling multiple sclerosis with the only medicine that works. They are sensible enough to distinguish between some stoner using a medical excuse and a bona fide disabled person who gets legitimate medical relief from the cannabis plant.
The polling backs me up. In 2011 the Boise State University Public Policy Survey found 74 percent support for allowing “terminally and seriously ill patients to use and purchase marijuana for medical purposes.” But whilethree out of four Idahoans think police should leave Lindsey alone, the Idaho Legislature voted 29-5 in the Senate and 63-7 in the House on a symbolic measure to “state its opposition to efforts to legalize marijuana for any purpose in the State of Idaho,” making sure to put scare quotes around “medical” marijuana. Rep. Luke Malek of Coeur d’Alene even said when Lindsey is advocating to use cannabis medicine and not have her family torn asunder and be locked in a cage and forced to suffer the degrading physical and emotional toll of slowly succumbing to multiple sclerosis, it is just a “farcical predatory scheme” to get weed in the hands of children.
This madness must end. I am perfectly OK with Idaho choosing to be a “dry” state if it wishes to be. If it wishes to retain laws that can imprison me there for merely having the presence of inert marijuana metabolites in my pee, fine. I made my choice to move and contribute to another economy. So many sick and disabled Idahoans I know have sought asylum in Oregon and Washington that I call it “the Under-green Railroad”. But to force seriously disabled people like Lindsey Rinehart to choose between their family and their health care, to treat her as a criminal or banish her from her home state, to subject her children to terror when none existed in the home prior, is unfair, unjust, and un-Christian. Idahoans, you should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing police to do this to Lindsey Rinehart in your name.
Source: National Cannabis Coalition – make a donation
