Six weeks after she was finally able to obtain medical marijuana in Maine to ease the pain of terminal lung cancer, labor activist Linda Horan has died.
Horan’s Facebook page quickly filled with heart-felt messages from devoted friends and family as word spread of her passing on Monday.
“We’ve lost a hero,” posted friend Linda Grossman Wooddell.
Horan, 64, of Alstead, sued the state in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord on Nov. 4, 2015, to obtain a medical marijuana ID card so she could purchase the medicine in Maine.
The state Attorney General’s Office argued she would have to wait until spring to obtain a card because the state’s dispensaries won’t open until then. Judge Richard McNamara ruled in Horan’s favor opening the door for other patients to get medical marijuana ID cards before dispensaries open here as well.
State Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, said Horan was someone who fought for other people during her 30 years as a union activist when she worked for Verizon.
“She went out the way she wanted to go out – fighting with dignity,” Cushing said.
In her last days, Horan was touched by the people who told her they were able to obtain medical marijuana before New Hampshire dispensaries open because of her fight.
“She was glad she was able to do it,” Cushing said. “If the state had succeeded, they would have run out the clock.”
Horan was known to always have a smile on her face even as her health was failing.
After a court hearing in November, Horan told reporters that she didn’t want to live in an opiate haze.
“I want the state to stop dragging their feet over technicalities when we are talking about sick people, terminally ill people,” Horan said.
Horan was active with the AFL-CIO and deeply involved in the union’s education committee. She was a big supporter, too, of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, having met him many times over the years walking picket lines, Cushing said.
A couple of days ago, Horan found out that one of the new marijuana dispensaries being licensed in New Hampshire wants to hang a painting of her in its reception area, he said.
“She spent 30 years standing next to people who needed to be stood next to, and when it came her turn, people rallied around her,” Cushing said.
Horan’s lawyer, Paul Twomey, said people wanted to stay close to her to the end.
“She was basically an inspiration to everybody who knew her,” said Twomey.
He was reminded of the Woody Guthrie song “Union Maid” as he spoke about Horan.
The song’s first lines: “There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.”
Twomey said: “Linda was never afraid. She was the bravest person I knew and she chose to use her death to help others.
“Not many of us have that ability.”