CANCER KILLS POT ACTIVIST

Prince of Pot Marc Emery's ex-business partner and medical marijuana
advocate, Michelle Rainey, has died from cancer.

Rainey had lived with Crohn's disease since she was a teenager and in
the last years of her life struggled against melanoma and lymphatic cancer.

Her husband, Jef Tek, and mother, Emilie, were at her side, each
holding a hand, when she died Wednesday night at her home in Maple
Ridge in spite of last-ditch, high-dosage experimental cannabis treatment.

Rainey, 39, was the organizational force behind Emery's pot-based
business empire. However, their relationship deteriorated and they
split after being hit with a 2005 U.S. drug-and-money-laundering indictment.

Rainey produced her own show on YouTube titled Michelle's Medicinal
Marijuana, distributing cannabis education packages to those who were
in need. She was also a director for Treating Yourself magazine.

Rainey and Emery met in 1998 while he was living on the Sunshine
Coast and she was working in a Gibsons bank. She quit work to become
his partner. Together they established the B.C. Marijuana Party and
opened a bookstore-cum-pot headquarters.

In the 2001 provincial election, the party fielded candidates in
every riding - 79 in all. Rainey ran in Peace River South, operating
out of The Alaskan Hotel in Dawson Creek.

She managed to get U.S. President Ronald Reagan's old campaign tour
bus, nicknamed it the "Cannabus," and toured the province with
then-party leader Brian Taylor.

The party captured more than 50,000 votes - 3.2 per cent - all funded
by Emery's multi-million-dollar-a-year catalogue seed business.

Their economic success and celebrity, however, attracted attention of
the American drug warriors and they were busted.

She and a third co-accused, Greg Williams, pleaded guilty in April
and were sentenced to two years probation.

Last month, Emery began serving a five-year prison term in the U.S.
and he commented on Rainey's passing via an email from jail sent to
Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew: "Michelle needs to be recognized
as one of the greatest activists this movement has ever had...
Michelle may have literally given her life to the movement, and when
people think about what they can do for freedom in their lifetime,
Michelle's life is a shining example of how much is possible, even
under great duress."

In the early 1990s, Rainey began smoking marijuana in place of a
daily regimen of pharmaceutical drugs she was taking to relieve the
symptoms of Crohn's. She said cannabis did not trigger the same
debilitating side effects as the pills.

After meeting Emery, she went public about her use and in recent
years became Canada's most recognizable medical pot crusader.

Her advocacy brought her into contact with numerous high-profile
Canadians and she relished talking about rubbing shoulders with
celebrities such as Romeo Dallaire, Henry Morgentaler, and Wade Davis.

Media mogul Moses Znaimer flew to Vancouver to say goodbye. Her pal
Dan Aykroyd telephoned his last so-long earlier in the day Wednesday.

"I want people to keep working, keep working for change - too many
sick people are still having difficulty getting their medication,"
Rainey recently said. "That's what I want as my legacy - change."

Sadly, she did not live to see the historic marijuana legalization
vote that will occur in California on Nov. 2. She predicted, though:
"Change is going to come."