{"id":7191,"date":"2017-02-02T06:22:42","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T06:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2397122"},"modified":"2017-02-02T06:22:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T06:22:42","slug":"marijuana-activist-laura-kriho-dies-at-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/marijuana-activist-laura-kriho-dies-at-52\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana activist Laura Kriho dies at 52"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/marijuana-activist-laura-kriho-dies-at-52\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\" id=\"sticky-outer\">\n<div class=\"large-11 small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Feb 2, 2017, 6:38 am \u2022 Updated: Feb 2, 2017, 6:52 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/02\/marijuana-activist-laura-kriho-dies\/72860\/#disqus_thread\" class=\"commentsNameLink\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <strong>Mitchell Byars<\/strong>, <em> Daily Camera<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Laura Kriho, a staunch marijuana activist whose actions as a juror resulted in a high-profile mistrial during a drug case, died Monday at the age of 52, according to friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose of you who knew her know that she was a beautiful person,\u201d her brother, Nicholas, posted on Facebook. \u201cLook up Laura Kriho and see what an impact she has had on this world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kriho, who lived in Nederland and more recently in Boulder and started the Cannabis Therapy Institute, was one of the key figures in moving the state toward Amendment 20 \u2014 which allowed for medical marijuana \u2014 and later Amendment 64, which allowed recreational marijuana use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMs. Kriho was at the forefront of the original movement that laid the foundation for Amendment 20,\u201d said Rico Garcia, a marijuana advocate who runs Cannabis Alliance for Regulation and Education. \u201cAnd without Amendment 20, there is not Amendment 64.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Kriho helped lay the foundation for it, she was actually critical of Amendment 64. She felt that Amendment 64 was not true legalization, but more regulation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was either freedom or nothing,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n<p>Garcia said that her style sometimes put her at odds with those in the industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was a little ball of fire, and she didn\u2019t care about telling anyone exactly how it was,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cShe was activism with no filters, and she was quick to let people know what was unfair and unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aside from her activism, Kriho was known as a symbol of the jury nullification movement after she was a lone holdout, forcing a mistrial in a drug case. The jury nullification movement held that jurors could find a suspect not guilty if they disagreed with the laws, regardless of whether prosecutors were able to present a case.<\/p>\n<p>Kriho was hit with a contempt of court charge after a fellow juror reported to First Judicial District Court Judge Kenneth Barnhill that Kriho discussed sentencing and jury nullification. Kriho also was charged with perjury for not explicitly revealing a 1984 felony drug conviction during the jury selection process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI tried to do my job as a juror well,\u201d Kriho said at the time. \u201cNow I feel I am being unfairly singled out and punished for coming up with the wrong verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kriho was later found guilty, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Clint Talbott was an editor with the Colorado Daily at the time of the case, so he was familiar with Kriho\u2019s story. In 2014, Talbott \u2014 now the director of communications with the University of Colorado\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences \u2014 saw Kriho\u2019s name come up as a candidate for a job opening.<\/p>\n<p>But Talbott said after they discussed the case, he hired her on at CU as a publications coordinator anyway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people might have thought, \u2018I don\u2019t know, this is a person who has trouble with authority,\u2019 but I think people are too willing to write off people who don\u2019t fit into neat categories,\u201d Talbott said. \u201cShe was a great employee, extremely smart, ethical and a good person. Exactly the kind of employee you would want to have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Talbott said Kriho didn\u2019t talk much about her activism or the jury nullification case at work. But he said the qualities that made her a staunch activist made her good at her job as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat became clear in working with her is that she had a very strong conviction about certain things, and the legalization of marijuana was one of them,\u201d Talbott said. \u201cThat kind of conviction showed up in things like commitment to doing things at the university.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Talbott said Kriho had been ill in recent months and was working from home before she died.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was her boss, but I also feel like I lost a friend,\u201d Talbott said. \u201cI really respected her as a person of conviction and courage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garcia said that conviction and courage served Kriho well in an industry without a lot of outspoken women.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone who was anyone at the foundation of this now world-famous industry that started in Colorado knew who Ms. Kriho was,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWhether they liked her or not, nobody could say she wasn\u2019t intelligent.\u201d<br \/><em><br \/>Mitchell Byars: 303-473-1329, <a href=\"mailto:byarsm@dailycamera.com\" target=\"_blank\">byarsm@dailycamera.com<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mitchellbyars\" target=\"_blank\">@mitchellbyars<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycamera.com\/boulder-county-news\/ci_30767102\/marijuana-activist-laura-kriho-nederland-dies-at-52\" rel=\"nofollow\">This story was first published on DailyCamera.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laura Kriho, a staunch marijuana activist whose actions as a juror resulted in a high-profile mistrial during a drug case, died Monday at the age of 52, according to friends and family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6813,77,6815,9,5019,6949,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[6818,2655,6820,5022,6950],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}