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A Mormon mother's video urging legalization of medical marijuana in Utah attracted lots of attention on the Internet Wednesday.
In the video, Tenille Farr tells how she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma last summer when she was pregnant with her fifth son, Gabe.
The video was posted by the Illegally Healed website and on its Facebook page, and was shared several hundred times within hours Wednesday.
Illegally Healed is the biggest repository for personal stories of people who have used medical marijuana, said Angela Bacca, media and public relations director of the Drug Policy Project of Utah. The Utah group is working with Illegally Healed to post stories about Utahns who want to be able to use medical cannabis. Farr's was the first such video.
The Spanish Fork mother also was one of the Utahns who shared stories with lawmakers debating SB259 during the recent legislative session. The bill, proposed by Saratoga Springs Republican Sen. Mark Madsen, would have legalized medical cannabis, but the Senate rejected it by a 14-to-15 vote.
A new poll of Utah voters finds strong support for letting people with qualifying illnesses use medical marijuana. The Utah Voter Poll, conducted online March 18-26 by Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, found 38 percent strongly back legalization and 26 percent somewhat support legalization.
Only 11 percent said they strongly oppose it.
An Idaho native, Farr tells viewers how she attended BYU, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Tempe, Ariz., and then married and started a family that would grow to five boys.
In the video, 38-year-old Farr tells how she and her husband prayed before she moved, temporarily, to Colorado to use cannabis, which she turned into a juice.
"We got on our knees and we just pleaded to Heavenly Father that we would know that this answer would be very clear to us if this was right," she said on the video. The next day, the family went to church. "I felt like I'd gotten my answer loud and clear: 'Yes, Tenille, you should use this for your cancer.' "
When she returned home to Utah after six weeks of using cannabis, her tumors had not grown, she said. Her son was born Jan. 4 in Utah.
It was hard to leave her family, especially for the right to "just juice a leaf that doesn't have any (psychotropic) effect on me," she said.
"I don't want to leave my kids again. I don't want to use chemo if I don't have to. I feel like cannabis can be a huge blessing."
kmoulton@sltrib.com Twitter: @KristenMoulton