by Angela Bacca, Media Director of Green Aid
Lindsey Rinehart’s children, who spent three weeks in foster care, likely due to her vocal marijuana activism. Left: Elijah, 6 Right: Laustin, 11
Laustin is celebrating his 11th birthday, it is almost 80 degrees outside and sunny at his house in Boise, Idaho and his friends are over for a pool party. They run in and out of the house carrying squirt guns and sodas.
“Can we play basketball at the park across the street?†he asks his mom, Lindsey Rinehart. “No, you have a hoop in the front yard, stay in the front yard,†she says. As he goes to run outside, water from the pool trails on the carpet behind him, she stops him in his tracks. His fair skin is turning as red as his hair.
“Laustin honey, you need more sun block, you are burning up out there. Don’t go back out there until you put on more sun block.†He begrudgingly stops and goes to the bathroom to reapply the sun block.
As he runs back out the door to play with his friends Lindsey waits to hear it close behind him before turning back to me. “I am really scared, but I can’t show them how scared I am.†She is fighting back tears of betrayal, fear and physical pain trying to get the words out.
She can barely get off the sofa without wincing in pain. “I haven’t used marijuana since they were taken from me.†She is rapidly degenerating since stopping her medical marijuana therapy and reverting back to pharmaceutical drugs. Lindsey suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and lives in a constant state of pain– that was until she started using medical marijuana.
On April 23rd, while Lindsey and her husband Josh were away in Northern Idaho hiking and boating with Lindsey’s best friend Sarah Caldwell and another trusted friend, police came into their home without a valid warrant, searched their home and remanded theirs and Caldwell’s children into protective custody due to “imminent danger,†deemed by the police. […Read More]
