Freedom Fighter of the Month
June 2011 – Serra Frank
Idaho Moms4Marijuana
By Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator
It’s tough enough being a young single mother with two small children. It’s tougher still when you’re battling a debilitating illness.
Like many others, Serra Frank learned that medicinal use of cannabis was superior to any of the legal medications she’d been prescribed. Unfortunately, the laws of her home state, Idaho, criminalize not just possession of marijuana, but merely being under its influence. Medical marijuana is certainly out of the question, as out-of-state patients from neighboring Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Montana have learned in Idaho’s courts.
But that situation is changing, thanks to Freedom Fighters like Serra. She formed Moms for Marijuana (momsformarijuana.com) five years ago to reach out to mothers who seek cannabis re-legalization not just for medical use, but also as a safer form of recreational substance.
Moms for Marijuana worked with the recently-formed Idaho NORML chapter to present educational information on recreational and medical cannabis use at last summer’s Slightly Stoopid concert. The groups made headlines in the capital city of Boise for holding a successful march and smoke-in for cannabis re-legalization. Together, along with Liberty Lobby of Idaho (a libertarian group that sponsored successful marijuana initiatives in the resort town of Hailey, near Sun Valley), they’ve put together a citizen’s initiative, the Idaho Medical Choice Act, to legalize medical use in the Gem State. Even lawmaker Republican Tom Trail has introduced medical marijuana legislation in the Idaho House.
Mostly, Serra and Moms for Marijuana want to protect their children from the effects of prohibition. “I knew a sixteen-year-old who could get me better stuff and better prices than my thirty-year-old dealer,” Serra tells WomenMakeNews.com. “He could source shrooms and acid but had to get adults to buy him cigarettes. We can regulate more effectively to keep [cannabis] out of our kids’ hands.”
