Jenny Kush Drunk Driver Rebecca Maes Sentenced to Less Jail Time Than Many Face for Cannabis

Earlier this week, Rebecca Maes was sentenced to ten years for the death of Jenny Kush, a cannabis activist and radio host in Denver, Colorado. Last September, Maes was heading the wrong way down the HOV of Denver’s I-25 when she collided head-on with Jenny Kush and her boyfriend Jeremy DePinto.

The story of the drunk driver collision, Jenny Kush’s life and the subsequent fallout were profiled in a great piece by Denver’s Westword last year. This week saw Maes sentenced to ten years in prison, far less than the maximum of 36 years for vehicular manslaughter in Colorado and even less still than the 18 years that the DA was seeking.

While reports point out Maes’ expression of grief and guilt about the situation, and officially pleading guilty to the charge, she did have a previous drunk driving infraction on her record. So alcohol is clearly a big factor in the death of someone who stood for an alternative that has been demonized for too long.

While it’s hard to assign any life a number, it’s difficult not to take this sentence and compare it to the jail sentences that many marijuana proponents are facing around this country. The death of anyone because of a drunk driver would be tragic and upsetting, but it’s especially ironic that such a major advocate for cannabis would be affected in the center of the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

Compare Rebecca Maes’ prison sentence of a decade to the current plight of Texas teen Jacob Lovato, who is facing a life sentence for making and selling pot brownies. Because of the law as it currently exists in Texas, the entire weight of the brownies found were counted against him, making the insanely long sentence a very real possibility.

So if you quite literally kill someone while drunk on excessive amounts of liquor in Colorado, you get 10 years…

But if you have a Tupperware container of marijuana-infused brownies in Texas, it’s potentially life. Or if you legally grow medical marijuana in parts of Washington, you’ll still be on the hook for breaking federal laws. You’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in any of these states.

How much longer are we all going to be OK with that? How did it get to the point where murder will actually get you less jail time then simply possessing a plant?