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Medicinal marijuana advocate loses battle with cancer

Marijuana activist Michelle Rainey passed away in Maple Ridge Wednesday night.

Contributed

Medical marijuana advocate Michelle Rainey died Wednesday night from cancer, which she had been battling for more than a year.

The 39-year-old passed away at her home in Maple Ridge with her husband, Jeff Tek, and her mother Emilie at her side.

“The drug and peace movement has lost a warrior,” said her friend and fellow activist David Malmo-Levine.

Rainey was receiving high doses of an experimental tumour-fighting cannabis treatment to fight melanoma and lymphatic cancer when she died.

"While the treatment didn't save her," Malmo-Levine said. "There is important information that needs to be looked at."

Diagnosed with an inflammatory bowel disease at 17, Rainey was in the middle of a successful 10-year banking career when she had to undergo two surgeries to remove damaged parts of her bowel.

For years, a cocktail of prescription drugs failed to curb the disease’s symptoms, so she tried marijuana to relieve her nausea.

It worked and she was able to wean herself off every prescribed medication.

Rainey joined the marijuana movement in the late 1990s after meeting self-proclaimed Prince of Pot Marc Emery while working at a bank in Gibsons.

Together, they started the B.C. Marijuana Party and she helped Emery run his multi-million dollar cannabis seed business.

In a statement posted on cannabisculture.com earlier this month by Emery, he wrote: “Considering the considerable pain her health has given her, she was heroic in so many ways and represented the movement with class and clout.”

Rainey was his “teammate”, the person who made sure his employees were paid, “marijuana seeds were shipped on time, the producers paid and happy, the media fully informed, Pot-TV running smoothly.”

Rainey and Emery’s relationship soured after they and Greg Williams were indicted in the U.S. on charges of growing marijuana, conspiracy, seed sales and money laundering.

In July 2009, Rainey and Williams were sentenced to two years probation in Canada. Emery decided to sign a plea deal for a five-year sentence, which he is currently serving in a U.S. federal prison.

In Maple Ridge, Rainey was an articulate and vocal advocate for the medicinal marijuana movement, speaking out recently in support of marijuana dispensary and against a bylaw to prevent medical grow operations in Pitt Meadows.

She was at the helm of an alternative medicine journal, Treating Yourself Magazine, and helped many navigate the maze to get a medical marijuana exemptions from Health Canada.

Emery wrote: “She was an engine for great change in the world, committing money, her health, and her whole soul into this great movement that is forever in debt to her.”

A memorial for Rainey is being planned.