Police Raid Home of Medicinal Marijuana Multiple Sclerosis Patient, Throw Her Kids in Foster Care

Three prominent advocates for medical marijuana in Idaho had their children taken away last week after the police investigated them on charges relating to marijuana trafficking. Their sons were considered to be in “imminent danger” by law enforcement, and they were all taken away and put in foster case, local news outlet KTVB reports.

The activists are Lindsey and Josh Rinehart and Sarah Caldwell. All three of them are leaders in the group Compassionate Idaho, which advocates for the legalization of medical marijuana in Idaho. The activists were on a trip, but when they got back to the Rinehart residence, their sons were gone. While Caldwell’s two sons are back with her, the Rineharts’ sons remain in foster care. 

“They took my children. Due to cannabis being present in the house,” said Lindsey Rinehart, the executive director of Compassionate Idaho. “They say their goal is to return our children to our home once it is deemed safe. They say our children will be in foster care for 30 days.” 

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Crazy Making

The Supreme Court is wrong to let Idaho have no insanity defense.

Months of treatment was required before Jared Lee Loughner, who killed six people outside an Arizona grocery store, could understand the charges against him Courtesy Pima County Sheriff Forensic Unit.

Earlier this month, Jared Loughner was sentenced to life in prison at a sober proceeding in which survivors of his terrible shooting spree in Arizona, and their families, recognized the role his schizophrenia played in his crimes. They talked about their understandable hurt and anger, and they also recognized that Loughner didn’t get the mental health care he needed. (Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, whom Loughner shot in the head, usefully highlighted the expiration a decade ago of the federal law that banned the sale of the rapid-fire ammunition clips Loughner used.)

It took months of medication and treatment for Loughner to understand the charges against him. That comes as no surprise, given the disturbed-looking photos of him after the crime. And the country got a similar view of violence and untreated mental illness in James Holmes, the 24-year-old who shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in July. Both Loughner and Holmes spiraled out of control while enrolled at a university yet fell through the holes of the health care net that should have caught them. This is a story we’ve been hearing since at least the 2007 mass killing by a student at Virginia Tech.

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