Marijuana activist who spent years arguing it was safer than alcohol is killed in head on collision with 'drunk-driver traveling wrong way down interstate'

Jennifer Friede, 34, died in the head-on crash on Interstate 25 in Denver



Her boyfriend Jeremy DePinto said they had campaigned for years for better access to medical marijuana

Rebecca Maez, 27, arrested on suspicion of DUI and vehicular homicide







Tragic: Marijuana activist Jennifer Friede was killed in a head-on collision in Denver with a suspected drunk driver

A prominent medical marijuana activist who insisted that the drug was safer than alcohol has been killed by a suspected drunk driver.

Jennifer Friede, 34, died on Saturday when the car she was traveling in was involved in a head-on collision on a freeway in Denver.

Police arrested the driver of the other vehicle, which was allegedly being driven the wrong way down Interstate 25, on suspicion of DUI and vehicular homicide.

Speaking to The Denver Post , Jeremy DePinto, Ms Friede's boyfriend, said for years the couple had rallied at the Capitol for the expansion of access to marijuana, '...trying to tell people that cannabis was safer than alcohol'.

'It's ironic that it was an uninsured drunk driver that killer her,' he told the news service.

The crash happened at around 1am Saturday when the couple were on their way home from a concert.

DePinto was driving north in the high-occupancy lane of Interstate 25, near the city's Park Avenue.

Quoted in the Denver Post, he told friends at a gathering to celebrate his girlfriend's life, he saw the other car coming towards him: '...you get a little blur, for a second, of disbelief'.

When he realised it was a vehicle headed straight for him on the wrong side of the road, he said he looked left and right, realised he was trapped, then veered to the left. He said the other car veered into him.

DePinot was seriously injured in the crash; his girlfriend Ms Friede, mother of four children, was killed.

Ms Friede was a passenger in a car being driven by her boyfriend on Interstate 25, in Denver (pictured), when the fatal collision happened

The driver of the other vehicle, Rebecca Maez, 27, has previously been arrested by Edgeware Police for DUI, speeding in a construction zone and driving while her licence was under restraint in 2009, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

She remains at the Downtown Denbver Detention Center on $80,000 bond, according to the news service.

DePinto described his girlfriend, also known as Jenny Kush, as a talented artist and dessert chef.

MARIJUANA IS LEGAL WITH A PRESCRIPTION IN CALIFORNIA Less control: Ms Friede and her boyfriend Mr DePinto have campaigned for easier access to cannabis for years Marijuana has been decriminalized since 1975, when the state legislature passed a bill making the possession of the drug a $100 civil fine - not an arrestable offense. In 1996, California voters passed a bill that legalized marijuana possession for medical purposes. Doctors are allowed to prescribe the drug to anyone with certain chronic medical conditions.

Californians with a prescription can obtain an ID card that allowed the poses, grown and consume the drug.

Fifty-five percent of voters approved the measure at the time.

However, voters remain opposed to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

A 2010 ballot proposition that would have legalized all possession of one ounce of marijuana or less for adults age 21 and over. It would also have allowed for the establishment of marijuana cafes and other businesses.

The measure failed 54percent to 46percent.

Federal law still prohibits the possession and use of marijuana - despite state laws allowing it.

Federal agents have raided marijuana dispensaries and growing operations that are legal under California state law.



