American Medical Marijuana Refugee Ordered To Return To United States

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

Calif. -- Steve Kubby, a fugitive from Placer County and internationally known medical-marijuana activist, is fighting to stay in Canada despite a court order to leave the country by Thursday. "Monday we're going to request a stay based on legal motions that we filed in court," Kubby said in a telephone interview from his home Thursday. "We remain hopeful that it will be granted."

Kubby fled to Canada with his family in an effort to avoid incarceration after a 2000 conviction in Placer County on charges of possession of mescaline and psilocybin. Placer County deputies reportedly found a small amount of peyote button and magic mushroom during a 1999 raid of Kubby's Olympic Valley home.
Two hundred sixty-five marijuana plants in various stages of growth were reportedly seized, officials said.
Kubby contends that he must smoke marijuana daily in order to live. He reportedly has a rare form of adrenal cancer and believes if he is returned to the United States he will be sent to jail and will die.
"I must confess that I really fear for my husband's life," Michelle Kubby said. "He must have cannabis constantly to survive the deadly threat posed by his adrenaline-secreting tumors."
The Canadian Border Services rejected the Kubby family's bid for protection Dec. 9. Kubby returns to a Canadian court Monday to argue that a stay of the departure order must be granted, his wife said.
Chris Cattran, deputy district attorney for Placer County, is prosecuting the case.
"He has a warrant out from Placer County for his arrest on charges of probation violations from the underlying case," Cattran said. "I imagine he'd be detained at the border pending his return to Placer County."
Kubby would have to serve his custody time of 120 days and address his probation violation, which could give him additional time behind bars, Cattran said.
If Kubby's request to stay in Canada is denied, the Kubby family must leave the country by Jan. 12 or face arrest Jan. 13, he said.
"I'll probably be talking to you through a cell in Placer County jail if I'm able to speak," Kubby said. "We're not very encouraged by the outcome."
Kubby ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor on the 1997/1998 ballot. He was also one of the authors of Prop. 215, the compassionate use act passed by the voters of the state of California in 1996.
Kubby was allowed to leave the Placer County and the country in 2000 with the stipulation that he returns for his surrender date. He opted to stay in Canada.

Note: Ordered expulsion from Canada could lead to jail.
Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, January 6, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21451.shtml

 

By Shannon Kari
Source: Globe and Mail

Vancouver -- Medical marijuana "refugee" Steve Kubby, his wife, Michele, and their two daughters are scheduled to be deported to the United States this week unless they can delay a removal order at a Federal Court of Canada hearing this morning. The family is asking for an emergency stay of the order by Immigration Canada, arguing that Mr. Kubby's health will suffer if he is deported and has to serve a 120-day jail sentence in California without marijuana to deal with his adrenal cancer.

They have been in Canada since 2001 when Mr. Kubby was convicted of possession of a minute amount of mescaline and psilocin. Immigration Canada rejects Mr. Kubby's claim for refugee status and says there is no risk to the health of the Kamloops resident if he is deported to the United States.
The deportation would be another legal defeat for medical-marijuana advocates and supporters of legalizing the possession of cannabis.
Court rulings in recent years have upheld the criminal prohibitions against possession of marijuana as well as the system that is in place for people to use the drug for medical reasons. However, some people say this system is flawed and makes it difficult to acquire their medicine.
Michele Kubby, who represents the family in court, remains optimistic about the last-ditch appeal. "If you never give up, you will never lose hope," said Ms. Kubby, who said her husband should not be deported for a misdemeanour. "You have to be convicted of a serious offence" to be deported, Ms. Kubby said.
She said her husband has been targeted by U.S. authorities, because of his pro-marijuana profile and his run for governor of California in 1998 as leader of the Libertarian Party. "They have been keeping their eye on him for a long time," Ms. Kubby said.
As part of their legal battle, Ms. Kubby challenged the validity of the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR), the scheme that governs how people can possess marijuana for medical reasons.
She contends it is constitutionally unsound.
The British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled against Ms. Kubby last month and said she failed to present evidence "her own Charter rights regarding marijuana usage were likely to be infringed." The court also found support for the MMAR in an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in 2003 that upheld the overall legislation, but struck down some of the sections as being unconstitutional.
The Ontario court was critical of a section that permitted registered producers to grow marijuana for only one person. It described the MMAR rules as constituting "significant state interference with the human dignity of those who need marijuana for medical purposes." It ordered Health Canada to allow registered growers to distribute the drug to more than one person, so users did not have to rely on the black market.
Health Canada repealed the section, but a few months later, it quietly re-enacted the exact same restriction on producers. An "analysis statement" issued with the new regulations referred to the court's ruling as "untenable" and said it would result in Canada violating its international treaty obligations to restrict the distribution of marijuana.
The medical regulations also permit designated users to grow their own marijuana or purchase it from the federal government's supply, produced by Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba.
About 75 kilograms of marijuana was sold to medical users in 2005. "We can easily meet current demands," said Health Canada spokesman Christopher Williams.
But Michelle Rainey, vice-president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, contests the belief that there is a sufficient supply for the 1,118 people in Canada who are currently authorized to possess marijuana for medical use.
"There is not enough, not at all," said Ms. Rainey who along with Marc Emery and Greg Williams is facing extradition to the U.S. for selling cannabis seeds on-line.
Ms. Rainey, who suffers from Crohn's disease, said there are other problems with the government supply, including the quality of its marijuana. "It is like prescription drugs, not every strain works," said Ms. Rainey. She noted that the government marijuana is about $200 for 30 grams, which is "just under street prices."
It took Ms. Rainey seven years to be granted an exemption for medical use.
Ms. Rainey said another obstacle for those interested in using marijuana for medical purposes is the Canadian Medical Association. She said it discourages doctors from giving the necessary approval so their patients can acquire marijuana.
Ruth Collins-Nakai, president of the association, said "we are not taking a pro or con position. What the CMA is opposed to, is the current MMAR because we don't have the scientific evidence about the risks or benefits [of marijuana use]," Dr. Collins-Nakai said.
She said doctors who approve the use of marijuana may be at legal risk if a patient suffers complications.
In addition to complaints about the procedures in place for medical marijuana users, it seems unlikely that criminal sanctions for simple possession of marijuana will be eased in the near future.

Note: Kubby fighting deportation on grounds he needs marijuana for his cancer care.
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Author: Shannon Kari
Published: Monday, January 9, 2006 - Page S1
Copyright: 2006 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Website: http://www.globeandmail.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21463.shtml

 

By Shannon Kari
Source: Globe and Mail

Vancouver -- The federal government argued yesterday that Steve Kubby and his family should be deported to the United States because there is no evidence he will be denied marijuana to cope with his cancer, even if he is put in jail. "It is completely speculative to say Mr. Kubby will not receive appropriate medical care. He needs to leave Canada," said Justice Department lawyer Keith Reimer during a Federal Court of Canada hearing in Vancouver.

"If he is incarcerated, the obligation of U.S. officials is to protect people in custody with adequate health care," Mr. Reimer said.
Mr. Kubby, 59, his wife Michele and their two daughters are asking the court for an emergency stay of a removal order that is supposed to take effect on Jan. 12.
The resident of Sun Peaks, B.C. suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer, and his wife told Mr. Justice Yvon Pinard that her husband will die if he has to serve a 120-day jail sentence in California, imposed after his 2001 conviction of possessing a minute amount of mescaline and psilocin.
Ms. Kubby, who is representing the family in court, explained that marijuana helps control the level of adrenalin in her husband's body. "His heart is at the risk of stopping. There is the risk of an aneurysm. It is a very explosive situation health-wise," she said.
When Judge Pinard asked Ms. Kubby why her husband, who has been described as a medical pot 'refugee,' was not at the hearing, she replied that he was too ill to attend. "He trusts me to guard his life," she said.
Mr. Kubby was originally sentenced to 120 days of house arrest, which would include electronic monitoring. Ms. Kubby said outside court yesterday the family decided to flee to Canada in 2001 because prosecutors were appealing the sentence and wanted her husband in jail.
Mr. Kubby had also been charged with marijuana trafficking, following a 1999 raid of their home near Tahoe City, Calif.
The former Libertarian candidate for governor in California, skiing magazine publisher and medical marijuana activist was accused of selling cannabis to compassion clubs in the Bay Area.
A mistrial was eventually declared, following a lengthy and high-profile trial, when the jury voted 11-1 for acquittal.
"The system worked exactly as it was supposed to. He was allowed to raise medical marijuana as a defence," Mr. Reimer said yesterday. He noted that both an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator and a Federal Court judge found that Mr. Kubby was not at any special risk if returned to the U.S.
Ms. Kubby responded that much of the evidence relied upon by the immigration adjudicator, about the fairness of the criminal proceedings and the possession conviction, was based on testimony from Chris Cattran, the district attorney who prosecuted her husband.
The prosecutor was quoted last week in a local California newspaper about the deportation proceeding. Mr. Cattran told the Auburn Journal that Mr. Kubby will be detained at the border pending his return to Placer County and could spend more than 120 days in jail for violating his probation.
Mr. Cattran and jail officials in Placer County were unavailable for comment yesterday.
Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle lawyer who has represented a number of marijuana patients, said it was absurd for the Canadian government to suggest Mr. Kubby will be provided with cannabis in jail.
"My prediction is he is a dead man if he goes to the United States. They won't be able to get him out of jail fast enough," said Mr. Hiatt, who was at the hearing in Vancouver.
Judge Pinard reserved his decision and said it might not be issued before Thursday.
"Do we have to just sit and wait for a knock on the door," Ms. Kubby asked, with her nine-year-old daughter and about 15 supporters looking on in the courtroom.
The judge responded that he wanted an assurance from the federal government that it will not act on the removal order before his decision is released.

"If I deny the stay," he said, "then Canada is free to remove."

Note: Judge reserves decision in thorny case of cancer patient who is marijuana activist.
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Author: Shannon Kari
Published: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 Page S3
Copyright: 2006 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Website: http://www.globeandmail.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21466.shtml

 

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<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

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\t\t

Steve Kubby checks marijuana plants
in his two-car-garage-turned-greenhouse.
Kubby calls it his "victory garden."

In September, he won a medical marijuana
exemption from a Canadian agency
that allows him to grow 59 plants
and store six pounds of pot at his home.
Al Seib ~LAT​

\t\t

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The Drug War Refugees​

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
Published: February 2, 2003
Copyright: 2003 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Link to article: http://freedomtoexhale.com/smk.htm

Cancer patient Steve Kubby and other California medpot practitioners are begging Canada for asylum, claiming U.S. drug warriors are out of control. Maybe they're high, but maybe they're right.

Along the rugged coastline of British Columbia, more than a generation ago, the first American refugees trickled in. As the Vietnam War raged, draft dodgers who chose to flee America rather than fight an unacceptable war gravitated to Canada's west coast, to rain-washed Vancouver and northward in tiny villages astride deep fiords left by the glacial past.

A few of the new arrivals brought with them a taste for marijuana, and some began cultivating pot gardens. Isolated from the law by rugged terrain, separated from most of civilization by deep bays, a marijuana industry was born. As the tale goes, the coast north of Vancouver became a pot lover's paradise.

Now a new breed of American refugee has arrived, seeking asylum from a different kind of war--the fight over medical marijuana. By some counts, they number more than 100 expatriate U.S. citizens, many of them from California, the fiercest battleground in America's medpot fight. They are patients and activists who share an uneasy distrust of the U.S. government and dismay over its intolerance of their brand of medicine. And they often arrive scarred by schizophrenic drug policies that now pit the Golden State's lenient laws governing the use of medical marijuana against the federal government's zero-tolerance approach.

Vancouver has become a magnet for this underground railroad of the new millennium. Clean and cosmopolitan, the city is famous worldwide among cannabis aficionados for its high-potency "B.C. Bud" and a largely laissez-faire police response to pot. Though non medical marijuana is still illegal in Canada, activists say its recreational use rarely results in arrest. In Vancouver, pot is openly smoked in some Hastings Street cafes. The provincial marijuana party puts up a slate of candidates each election. North of the city, a 30-mile-long knob of bucolic mainland known as the Sunshine Coast rivals California's pot-growing north coast. Locals say marijuana cultivation runs right up there with tourism and retirement checks as a main economic engine. U.S. marijuana expatriates--much like their Vietnam-era brethren who flocked to Canada--are sinking roots into this cannabis-friendly land, launching businesses, raising kids.

But even in open-armed Canada, there are limits for newcomers dubbed criminals. Some of the Americans arrive with drug-war wounds: arrest warrants outstanding, prosecutions pending, jail terms unfulfilled. When immigration officials threatened to toss them out, four California medpot experts--Steve Kubby, Ken Hayes, Renee Boje and Steve Tuck--decided to test Canada's characteristic tolerance. Facing deportation or extradition, they requested something quite extraordinary for citizens of the First World: political refugee status.

That designation is normally reserved for the castoffs of troubled lands, but the four Americans say they are just that. Despite the passage of California's landmark 1996 medical marijuana initiative, U.S. law makes cannabis illegal for any use, putting die-hard activists squarely in the crosshairs of federal drug agents. If returned to the U.S., the California foursome say, they don't face just prosecution for their unyielding embrace of medical marijuana. They face political persecution.

The deportation tussle arrives at a remarkable juncture between these two sister nations. As the U.S. has worked to crush the movement in California and the other states that adopted medical marijuana laws, Canada has legalized medicinal use. Politicians say the Canadian Parliament could go even further this year. Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has endorsed decriminalization, though Prime Minister Jean Chretien is urging more debate. If lawmakers fail to act, the courts seem ready to step in. On Jan. 9, a Superior Court justice in Ontario gave the Canadian government six months to provide safe distribution of medical marijuana or risk opening the door to full legalization. The Canadian Supreme Court appears poised to fashion new law out of three pivotal criminal cases involving Canadians accused of growing, selling or possessing pot. Overnight, the country that has treated recreational marijuana with a wink and a nod might codify its casual stance.

Should it happen, that tectonic shift would rattle the ground under drug warriors in the U.S. The Bush administration has warned that if Canada gets softer on pot, North America could see a boost in drug dependency and gummed-up commerce between the world's two biggest trading partners.

Cannabis has a long and contentious history. It was described in a Chinese medical compendium dating to 2,737 BC. In America, marijuana has been outlawed since the Great Depression. In 1970, the Nixon administration assigned it to Schedule I, a spot reserved for heroin, LSD and other high-octane drugs thought to have no redeeming medical merit. It was Nixon's way, pot advocates say, of shelving the martini of the antiwar movement.

American marijuana activists say pot was "rediscovered" as medicine when ill patients tried the drug recreationally and found it reduced the nausea of chemotherapy and helped those suffering from glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other maladies. Patients joined the push to have pot rescheduled, a step that would allow physicians to prescribe it. The effort languished until 1988, when the chief administrative judge at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration made a startling ruling: Marijuana had a place in medicine. Judge Francis L. Young declared it unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the federal government to stand between "sufferers and the benefits of this substance."

DEA officials quickly rejected Young's ruling, and the courts backed them. The rescheduling effort, meanwhile, went nowhere in Congress; politicians on both sides of the aisle long ago concluded it's safer to talk tough on drugs than risk oblivion as a pot appeaser.

The AIDS epidemic brought a huge new pool of patients to marijuana's cause. Famous for producing the munchies, marijuana likewise seemed to stem the wasting effects of HIV. But here, too, U.S. officials balked. Out of frustration, a movement was born in California. An unlikely coalition of cannabis true believers and three ultra-rich businessmen eager to shift the nation's drug debate put the state's landmark medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215, on the 1996 ballot.

Proposition 215 won big, but it ushered in an era of confusion among cops and courts, patients and politicians. The federal government, whose laws supercede any conflicting state statutes, at first threatened doctors, saying that any who recommended the use of marijuana by patients would be prosecuted or have their authority to prescribe certain drugs withdrawn. After doctors fought back and generally won, the feds shifted tactics, using civil and criminal courts to go after medicinal-use activists who grow or distribute marijuana. But a trend began leapfrogging the nation. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington all passed medpot measures.

Amid the fog of this new war, what became clear was that Proposition 215 caused a fundamental shift in the way Americans talk about marijuana. The just-say-no simplicity of the Reagan era has been replaced by a more complicated debate about science and orthodoxy, privacy and morality, freedom and states' rights.

Recent U.S. polls show pot winning this cultural debate. But prohibitionists are prevailing in battlegrounds such as Nevada, where voters rejected a marijuana legalization measure in November. From the beginning, prohibitionists have labeled medical marijuana a smoke screen for legalization. California alone has an estimated 30,000 medical users, and for every cancer and AIDS patient there seems someone willing to claim that pot helped them cope with insomnia, anxiety, psoriasis or menstrual cramps. Not everyone buys the claims.

"Because somebody feels something makes them feel better, that's not science," says John Walters, President Bush's director of national drug-control policy. "That's snake oil."

Try telling that to Steve Kubby. The onetime California gubernatorial candidate and medical pot user fled California two years ago. In Canada, he has been granted a medpot exemption by the government health agency and has emerged as the lead agitator in an effort to draw attention to the conflicting state and federal drug laws in the U.S. If medical marijuana has a Thomas Paine, Kubby just might qualify.

Now 56, Kubby hardly seems the stereotypical stoner. Despite pot's reputation as a sinkhole for gumption, Kubby lives big, whether he's hustling on the campaign trail or running a Web-based ski magazine. After multiple joints, he speaks with the lucidity of an espresso addict at a coffee bar. Like others in the cannabis community, Kubby believes generations of right-wing prohibitionists--from Richard M. Nixon to George W. Bush--have waged a cultural war against pot-smoking hippies, ghetto dwellers and the powerless ill.

Cancer dug a hole in Kubby's world in the early 1970s. In a time of free love, Watergate and questions about authority, Kubby watched his brimming life begin to drain. Doctors diagnosed pheochromocytoma, cancer of the adrenal gland that in 90% of cases is not malignant. In Kubby's case, it was. Abdominal tumors flooded his system with adrenaline and norepinephrine, causing skyrocketing blood pressure, heart palpitations, nausea and shortness of breath. Kubby, running an alternative summer program for kids in the forests of Shasta County, says he struggled through each day.

In the span of a few years, he underwent four surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. Nothing seemed to stop his steady decline. Unchecked, doctors say adrenal cancer usually spreads through the vital organs. Kubby says he was told he shouldn't expect to live beyond five years, and likely would die of a heart attack or stroke.

Marijuana became his life preserver quite by accident, he says, with the help of a soon-famous friend. The son of a San Fernando Valley wrecking-yard owner and housewife, Kubby had roomed at Cal State Northridge with Richard "Cheech" Marin, then an unknown pre-law major but later to become half the iconic doper comedy duo of Cheech and Chong. As Kubby tells it (Marin did not respond to a request for comment), Cheech paid him a visit one summer day. Kubby was spiraling toward oblivion. His old buddy offered a suggestion: If you're going to die, Steve, why not die happy? Kubby hadn't smoked pot since his cancer diagnosis. For old time's sake, he lit up. A wave of euphoria hit. Kubby hadn't felt so good in months.

He continued smoking marijuana, and says he eventually felt so good that he gave up doctors and hospitals and prescription drugs, turning to a regimen of fresh foods, clean fluids, exercise and pot. Kubby's health turned around, for reasons that remain a mystery. While he credits his prodigious use of marijuana for his survival, doctors have been unable to definitively pinpoint the reason.

Years passed without a visit to an oncologist, Kubby says. Vincent DeQuattro, an expert on hypertension illness who years earlier had treated Kubby at County-USC Medical Center, examined him in 1998 and discovered that lethal levels of adrenal fluids--10 to 20 times normal--were still coursing through Kubby's system. But, DeQuattro concluded, pot seemed to be somehow blunting or masking its effects.

The conclusion reached by DeQuattro, who died in August 2001, was echoed this past year by Joseph Conners, a top oncologist at the B.C. Cancer Agency and a professor at the University of British Columbia who examined Kubby at the behest of Canadian immigration officials. He found a large tumor invading the upper abdomen, but concluded that pot's "most important achievement is normalization of his heart rate, blood pressure and blood volume markedly reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke." Conners believes that Kubby should be allowed to continue its use, saying, "It is controlling his symptoms at least as effectively as anything I can do."

Freedom and medical marijuana were the centerpieces of Kubby's 1998 California gubernatorial run, when he received less than 1% of the vote on the Libertarian ticket. But candor about his copious use of pot cost him. A few weeks after election day, a task force of Lake Tahoe drug agents battered down the couple's door, confiscated his 265-plant medpot garden and--as his wife held their screaming toddler--hauled Kubby off to jail on charges of cultivation and drug trafficking. During three days behind bars, Kubby's blood pressure spiked.

At his 1999 trial in Placer County Superior Court--which Kubby predicted would be "the Scopes monkey trial of medical marijuana"--prosecutors suggested he was faking it, calling a witness who said his prison-cell dry heaves didn't seem real. They raised questions about his cancer, suggesting it might be in remission and that Kubby used pot simply to get high. (The defense countered with DeQuattro vouching for Kubby's medicinal needs.) Prosecutors also argued that Kubby was selling his pot for profit, taking in more than $100,000 over 18 months. The prime evidence was cash Kubby got during his campaign (he says it was donations from medpot dispensaries) and a sheet of paper covered with numbers. Prosecutors said it listed street sales; Kubby says it tallied how many plants he could grow as a patient.

Placer County prosecutor Christopher Cattran still rolls his eyes over their courtroom encounters. "I don't dislike Mr. Kubby more than anybody else who breaks the law," Cattran says. "He's not a bad person, just an extremist who is impassioned about marijuana."

The jury declared Kubby not guilty of the marijuana charges but guilty of two other counts--possession of a peyote button and a hallucinogenic mushroom stem found in the raid. Kubby faced four months in county jail, where he believed he would suffer and possibly die without access to pot.

Even if he avoided jail, Kubby believed his high-profile pot use made him a DEA target, and he knew that pot activists sometimes don't fare well in federal court. For example, a few heady months after Proposition 215's win, drug agents busted Peter McWilliams, a best-selling self-help author, and Todd McCormick, a medical pot activist, for cultivating 4,000 plants at a Bel-Air mansion dubbed the "Cannabis Castle." A federal judge denied both men the right to put on a medical defense. McWilliams, an HIV patient, died in June 2000 before he set foot in jail. McCormick is now in federal prison, deprived of the pot he claims eases pain from a fused spine. He was sentenced to five years after a plea bargain with prosecutors.

Scrambling to avoid such an end, Kubby looked to Canada. Pot activists told him it was a different world north of the border, particularly on the Sunshine Coast. One put it this way: There may be some people on the coast who don't smoke pot, but I haven't met any of them.

Bankrupted by a $250,000 court defense, their ski magazine in ashes, the Kubbys felt they had little to lose. America seemed like enemy territory, not home. Kubby says he felt the trauma of "turning your back on your country, leaving loved ones, having friends question your sanity and striking out to an unknown future."

The Kubbys moved to Sechelt, B.C. The tiny seaside town sits midway up the Sunshine Coast, a scenic peninsula of conifers and granite divided from Vancouver by a glacial bay so wide and deep that no road from the big city was ever cut. The only way in is via floatplane or ferry, and Kubby likes that just fine. The isolation has turned it into a haven for tourists, marijuana growers and more than a dozen California pot expatriates. There's no Home Depot, but hydroponic gardening stores do a brisk business supplying indoor pot gardeners.

Across the border, everything went right. Kubby and family--wife Michele and two young daughters--rented a contemporary three-story house above the docks and breakfast inns that dot tranquil Porpoise Bay. Their monthly rent was only $700. They delighted in the ethereal sky show of the Northern Lights. The average Canadian seemed friendly and tolerant. Kubby, who had been smoking donated pot from other experts and Canadians, began to grow his own in secret.

Never one to shy from the righteous fight for cannabis freedom, Kubby didn't balk when Canadian reporters got wind of his story and came calling. Headlines hit the provincial papers. Then the Canadian Broadcasting Co. TV show "Disclosure" did a segment. Suddenly, Kubby and other American medical marijuana expatriates were news all across the northern tundra.

Canadian authorities couldn't ignore this. Three weeks after the TV show aired, officers knocked on Kubby's door. Compared to his U.S. bust, it was all very polite and cordial. They confiscated 160 marijuana plants and took Kubby to jail in Vancouver on charges of immigration and drug violations. His wife was frantic. "In our minds," she says, "incarceration means death for Steve." But when his heart began to race and sweat poured off his face, Kubby didn't face disbelief from his Canadian jailers. They didn't accuse him of faking the dry heaves. They called a doctor.

That humane approach to medical marijuana users is what brought Ken Hayes to a lonely pier on the Sunshine Coast, where at the moment he is casting a fishing line. Swells batter the oily pilings. He's after salmon. Nothing is biting.

Among the faithful, Hayes is considered a cannabis Samaritan, running a medpot dispensary. Two years ago, he beat a rap for growing 899 medicinal pot plants; San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan appeared as a star witness to vouch for Hayes' medicinal legitimacy. But the acquittal in state court only put Hayes in the sights of federal authorities. He got across the border in January 2002, right before the U.S. Attorney announced charges that carried a prison sentence of 10 years to life.

The 35-year-old Hayes sees no moral conflict in growing pot. He concludes that the U.S. has lost track of its founding freedoms. He'll only return, he says, "when they decide to restore the Bill of Rights."

Renee Boje's exodus to Canada came, she says, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was living at the Cannabis Castle in Bel-Air, hired to do illustrations for a book on medical marijuana. She watered the plants, did her art. Drug agents swept up Boje in the bust.

Charges looming, she fled Los Angeles for Canada in 1998. At the request of U.S. prosecutors, Canadian authorities launched extradition proceedings. The 33-year-old Boje married a Canadian pot activist, had a baby and started an herbal health shop. A willowy woman who favors peasant skirts, Boje has given up on America and thinks pot activists should come north. She calls the war on drugs in the U.S. "a war on Mother Nature and higher consciousness."

Steve Tuck can be found at the New Amsterdam Cafe, a Hastings Street gathering place for the free of spirit. Dark-wood booths harbor clusters of mellow young adults. Marijuana paraphernalia glistens in a glass case. The menu includes vegetarian items, with a few hemp seeds tossed in. In a back corner is a glass-walled room, as big as a VW van. Pot smokers go there to light up.

Tuck is taking hits off a joint. At 36, he is a wisp of a man with a big Kentucky accent. His story unfolds like a soliloquy. He was an Army paratrooper. A jumping accident during a 1987 military exercise seriously damaged his spine. He was hospitalized for months, undergoing 13 surgeries in a decade. With that, Tuck pulls out an X-ray, right there in the smoke-filled booth, and holds it up to the light. It shows his backbone in white-on-black silhouette, the vertebra strangled by a mess of surgical metal.

A doctor recommended that he try cannabis for the pain, Tuck says. He became a believer, moving to Arcata on California's north coast to cultivate pot for a medical dispensary, overseeing several indoor and outdoor "grow-ops." The Humboldt County Sheriff's drug enforcement unit concluded that Tuck was a for-profit marijuana grower. Tipped off one morning to drug agents bearing down, Tuck fled north. He bluffed his way across the border by saying he planned to do some fishing.

"They're on a witch hunt," he says, "and they're burning me at the stake."

The heat continues to rise back in the United States. During the past year, the Bush administration has stepped up its campaign against medical marijuana, which crescendoed in September with the bust of a Santa Cruz pot cooperative. Camouflage-clad federal drug agents stormed in, arresting Valerie and Michael Corral, founders of the cooperative. According to reports, agents pointed automatic weapons at Suzanne Pfeil. They ordered her to stand. Pfeil is disabled by post polio syndrome, so the agents handcuffed the 44-year-old medical pot patient to her wheelchair.

Canada is running the opposite way. The debate over pot flamed in September, when a parliamentary study committee of the Senate--the country's equivalent of Britain's House of Lords--issued a thick report suggesting cannabis be treated as a matter of personal responsibility, not police work. Pot should be declared legal, even sold by government stores, it suggested. Scientific evidence, the committee added, indicates alcohol is more harmful.

Police groups howled with outrage, as did the country's conservative minority. But many suspect Canadian lawmakers will vote this year to relax the laws. Randy White, a member of Parliament from the Vancouver area, dreads that prospect, which he fears is a done deal. But he intends to fight to deport the American marijuana refugees. "As far as I'm concerned, they're not going to get away with it," he says. "They're abusing our refugee laws to avoid prosecution in the U.S."

Walters, the U.S. drug czar, says he has talked with his Canadian counterparts about the pitfalls of pot legalization and harboring of American drug fugitives. "If Canada wants to become the locus for that kind of activity," he says, "they're likely to pay a heavy price." He calls it "reprehensible" for medpot expatriates to use Canada as a shield. He's all for individual liberty, Walters says, but within rational limits. Modern civilization, he concludes, is based on the notion that "we control the darker angels of our nature."

Steve Kubby never figured himself as a dark angel, just a man trying to stay alive. If he and his doctors are to believed, pot is helping. But returning Kubby to the United States could kill him, says Alex Stojicevic, a Canadian immigration lawyer who has advised the family. "Are we all so sure that marijuana is of no medical benefit that we risk his life against the advice of physicians who are experts in the field? It seems foolhardy."

In May, a conditional departure order was issued based on Kubby's 2000 drug conviction in California for possession of the hallucinogenic mushroom (possession of peyote is not a crime in Canada and thus not a prod for deportation). Kubby countered with his refugee claim, saying he faces a "well-founded fear of persecution" in America. At his March refugee hearing--a tribunal conducted before a single judge--Kubby will face an army of lawyers dispatched by the government, Stojicevic says. (Canadian immigration and refugee officials declined to discuss Kubby's case, citing confidentiality issues.) Despite the talk of relaxing Canadian marijuana laws, Stojicevic says, immigration officials are wary of the floodgates opening to Americans eager to avoid pot prosecutions. "It's the same situation as the draft dodgers, except it's not the Vietnam War, it's the war on drugs," he says. "The Bush administration's zealous prosecution of medical marijuana, that's what is on trial here."

In December, at Conners' suggestion, Kubby began an experimental radiation treatment that could shrink his cancer significantly. The Vancouver doctor says it might even take away the medical need for Kubby to smoke grass. Kubby says he'd remain a cannabis consumer anyway. Pot has been his personal savior for a quarter century. It has become more than medicine for him. More like a sacrament.

For now, Kubby has no idea what tomorrow will bring. Up in Sechelt, the comfortable home and laid-back life make it easy to forget his predicament. But the threat of deportation lingers. The Kubbys cherish Canada, but what if it is taken from them? What if they become people without a country?

"We would love to go back to the U.S.," Kubby says. But only, he adds, if America changes.

As it is now in the U.S., there is too much to lose. "We could have our kids taken, our car and assets most certainly would be seized," he says. Kubby is brooding, a face he hasn't shown before. "They could take all my medicine. Throw me in jail. Kill me."

Each year in America, about 750,000 people are arrested for pot crimes. According to a 2001 federal study, marijuana is one of America's biggest cash crops, legal or illegal, fetching $10.6 billion annually on the black market. Richard Cowan, a marijuana activist who moved to Vancouver out of contempt for the U.S. drug war, says America needs to be reminded what this fight is all about.

"It isn't about being drug free," Cowan argues. "It's about being free."


\t ​

​

<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

Kubby with wife Michele during a recent taping
of their regular news program for Pot-TV,
an internet streaming video site run out
of Vancouver's B.C. Marijuana Party headquarters.

(Al Seib / LAT)
​

​

<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

​

Kubby with wife Michele and
daughters Brooke, 6, and Crystal, 3.
Kubby with wife Michele and

(Mark Hanauer / For the Times)


​

<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

​

Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby
and the plant that he believes
has slowed his adrenal cancer


(Mark Hanauer / For the Times)

​

​

<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

Steve Tuck smokes pot to relieve chronic spinal pain
stemming from an accident that befell the former
Army paratrooper during a military exercise.
He fled to Canada from California after receiving
a tip that drug agents were bearing down
on him and his "grow-ops" in Humboldt County.

(Al Seib / LAT)


​

<center> <table border="1" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> ​

​

Ken Hayes is viewed by the faithful as a cannabis
Samaritan for running a medpot dispensary.
Shown here smoking marijuana in a Canadian cafe,
Hayes faces charges in the U.S. that carry
a prison sentence of 10 years to life
for growing marijuana plants in California.

(Al Seib / LAT)
​

Additional Feature Article:

Home Is Where The Hash Is ​

To see the Sechelt, B.C., home of expatriate California activist Steve Kubby is to understand the depth of the man's passion about medical marijuana.

Up on the top floor, the cumulus of medicinal cannabis smoke is often so thick that it has been declared off limits to 6-year-old Brooke and her sister, Crystal, 3. This level is also nerve center for Team Kubby. A trio of computers generates mass e-mail chatter to cannabis constituents. The Kubby Web page bristles with written commentary, news articles and family photos. A copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights resides beside an unabashed pitch for donations-all major credit cards accepted. The open hand works. A Libertarian in San Francisco gave the Kubbys $20,000 for their legal defense.

Family life plays out one floor down. Kubby, a big hugger around wife and kids, isn't above hitting the carpet on all fours to goof off with Crystal. An exception to suburban status quo is the breakfast nook, set up like a network news studio: anchor desk, TV camera on a tripod, klieg lights, blue-cloth backdrop.

From this hutch, the Kubbys tape a half-hour news program several times a week for Pot-TV, an Internet streaming video site run out of Vancouver's B.C. Marijuana Party headquarters. Each episode of Pot-TV News-positioned beside programs such as “Hollyweed” and “Marijuana Man Grow Show”-starts with reggae's cannabis anthem “Smoke Two Joints,” then shifts incongruously to the smiling, clean-scrubbed Kubbys. He favors a corporate blazer and tie of red, white and blue. Michele, a blond and stylish woman raised in coastal Orange County, used to work at a San Francisco securities firm before she married Steve in 1995, and her life changed forever. Now, hair coiffed, makeup expertly applied, she handles the news updates-often a litany of the latest busts back in the States.

Her husband dishes up scalding commentary. Consider the day a Canadian research team questioned pot's efficacy for the terminally ill. Kubby treats such doubt like a fastball under his chin. “Shame on these doctors for making these fraudulent, ignorant and biased statements,” Kubby growls, concluding that the researchers are “quacks.”

Pot-TV news not only qualifies the Kubbys for Canadian work visas, it earns them $25,000 a year. But what puts marijuana into Kubby's cigarettes is on the bottom floor, in the two-car-garage-turned-greenhouse. The couple's old Subaru sits on the driveway to make room for an indoor plantation of medicinal pot. Nursery lights blaze overhead. A blower pumps carbon dioxide to the fragrant crop. “They're all thoroughbreds,” Kubby says of his plants, pointing out the different varietals: Island Sweet Skunk, a narrow leaf of deep green; Williams Wonder, broad and fat. Years of experimentation have taught Kubby what works best to ease his symptoms and pain while avoiding psychoactive jags and the munchies. His personal favorite, Celestial Temple Sativa, is an Ecuadorian native Kubby regards as “the most extraordinary pot I've ever experienced. You can smoke all day and be cerebral.”

Kubby calls this garage full of high-grade weed his “victory garden.” In September, despite the deportation wrangling, he won a medical marijuana exemption from Health Canada, a government agency that has issued only a few hundred of the permits across the country. Kubby's laminated medpot card is his hall pass to travel anywhere in Canada with 360 grams, enough dried cannabis to nearly stuff a one-pound coffee can. He can also grow 59 plants and store nearly six pounds in his home.

It is truly a North American paradox: This man U.S. law officers called a drug trafficker is considered by Canadian health officials simply to be a very sick fellow.

 

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

California -- Steve Kubby, a fugitive from Placer County and internationally known medical-marijuana activist, will stay in Canada for the time being despite an order to leave the country last week. The Canadian Border Services rejected the Kubby family's bid for protection Dec. 9 and ordered the Kubby family out of the country by Jan. 12 or face arrest. Michele Kubby, Steve's wife, asked a Canadian court Monday for a stay based on legal motions. She said she had limited success.

"We have a stay technically," Michele Kubby said in a telephone interview from her home Thursday. "We will not be removed until a (final) decision has been made by the court."
Kubby fled to Canada with his family in an effort to avoid incarceration after a 2000 conviction in Placer County on charges of possession of mescaline and psilocybin. Placer County deputies reportedly found a small amount of peyote button and magic mushroom during a 1999 raid of Kubby's Olympic Valley home.
Two hundred sixty-five marijuana plants in various stages of growth were reportedly seized, officials said.
Kubby contends that he must smoke marijuana daily in order to live. He reportedly has a rare form of adrenal cancer and believes if he is returned to the United States he will be sent to jail and will die.
"He has a prescription for an ounce a day," Michele Kubby said.
Steve Kubby's doctor, Joseph Connors, a medical oncologist for British Columbia Cancer Agency, said in a telephone interview Thursday that Kubby's medical marijuana consumption appears to work.
"Having established all by himself that (cannabis) worked, when he came into my hands since it had been working for years it was most sensible to (continue) to use it," Connors said.
If the family's bid to stay in Canada fails, they will most likely be returned to Placer County, where Steve Kubby may have to serve his custody time of 120 days and address his probation violation, officials said.
"The next step, if we lose the stay with the judge, is that we can appeal his decision to the court of appeals," Michele Kubby said. "I always believe there is hope so long as we're in the courts."
Kubby said Thursday that he has an "exemption" from Health Canada at the federal level that allows him to possess and cultivate marijuana.
"I can smoke up to 28 grams a day (1 oz.) and I'm able to grow that myself," Kubby said. "I have to smoke a certain strain and am able to grow what I need for my particular problem."
Kubby ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor on the 1997/1998 ballot. He was also one of the authors of Prop. 215, the compassionate-use act passed by the voters of the state of California in 1996.
Kubby was allowed to leave Placer County and the country in 2000 with the stipulation that he return for his surrender date. He opted to stay in Canada and is now considered a fugitive.

Complete Title: Medipot Fugitive To Stay in Canada Despite Eviction Order

Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, January 13, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21481.shtml

 

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

California -- Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby contends if he is returned to the United States and not allowed to smoke marijuana daily he will die, but doctors differ on whether all the pot Kubby smokes is really good for his health. Kubby's Canadian doctor said the one-time California gubernatorial candidate smokes cannabis to alleviate symptoms of his adrenal cancer.

"(Kubby's) kind of cancer, metastatic pheochromocytoma, releases adrenaline into the blood and these drugs speed up your heart making your body run faster," said Dr. Joe Connors, a medical oncologist for British Columbia Cancer Agency in a telephone interview Thursday. "His tumors make excessive amounts of these substances."
Connors said that too much adrenaline keeps Kubby's body in a constant state of "flight or fight."
"He found that smoking marijuana (helps)," Connors said. "(Without it) the stress to his cardiovascular system could result in stroke, a heart attack or even death."
Dr. Fred Meyers, professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine for UC Davis Medical Center, said Thursday that metastatic pheochromocytoma is a "very rare" type of cancer.
He said that the cancer is usually associated with benign tumors and rarely becomes cancerous. Additionally, there are no effective anti-cancer drugs. Metastatic pheochromocytoma is in many situations considered incurable, he said.
Meyers said there is no medical proof that smoking marijuana cures or alleviates the symptoms of the adrenal cancer that Kubby is said to have.
"I haven't examined him, but I don't believe marijuana blocks the effects of the cancer," Meyers said. "People do die of cancer. (Kubby) could die if either the cancer spreads or the epinephrine (similar to adrenaline) will be made is such large amount that he'll die."
In an ironic twist, Kubby was once roommates with one of the 1970s pop culture marijuana icons, Cheech Marin.
Decades ago, Kubby said he was pretty straight and hanging out with Marin while the two attended Cal State Northridge.
"Cheech came to visit me when I learned I had as little as six months to live," Kubby said. "I smoked pot with him and to my complete astonishment my symptoms were gone for a day or two. It brought my blood pressure down. It was unbelievable to me."
Dr. Meyers disagrees with the medical marijuana miracle.
"Marijuana does not keep the blood pressure down," he said.
As the Kubby family fights to stay in Canada, Kubby said he will continue to grow and smoke the marijuana he contends he needs to stay alive.

Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, January 13, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21482.shtml

 

I saw that guy on the UrbanGrower show. He had a pretty awesome setup.

 

Wow, very interesting read here. I really beleive what they are doing is killing him if they make him serve the 120 days, they are not being very considerate to this man about this move.

Steve Kubby isn't hurting/affecting anyone in a negative way, he's doing it on his own - no black market. I say let him stay alive in peace without government being involved tearing him apart from his life and family. Very sad.

 

Im puzzled, so he can grow it and store it legally at his home,he doesnt sell it or anything, and raises his family normally whats the big deal? If they dont give him his meds in jail he will die. Isnt that illegal?

 

By Shannon Kari
Source: Globe and Mail

Vancouver -- Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby, his wife, Michele, and their two young daughters may be deported to the United States within days after a Federal Court of Canada judge turned down their request for an emergency stay of a removal order.
Mr. Justice Yvon Pinard ruled that the public interest was not served by "delaying further" in the federal government's statutory duty to enforce the removal order "as soon as reasonably practicable."

"Canadian law does not give a foreign national such as Steven Wynn Kubby a right to reside in Canada simply because he or she may be able to obtain some preferred medical treatment or other benefit in Canada," the judge said in a nine-page ruling.

Ms. Kubby, who represented the family at a Federal Court hearing in Vancouver earlier this month, said her husband could die if he is deported to the United States and put in jail for a minor drug conviction.

Mr. Kubby, 59, uses marijuana to control a rare form of adrenal cancer. He is facing a jail sentence of least 120 days after a 2001 conviction in California for possessing a minute amount of mescaline and psilocin. The family moved to B.C. after the drug possession conviction.

Judge Pinard, who was a federal cabinet minister under Pierre Trudeau, said it "remains speculative" that Mr. Kubby will be jailed in the United States, or that he will be denied adequate medical care.

Chris Cattran, the Placer County district attorney who prosecuted Mr. Kubby, did not return calls for comment yesterday.

He was quoted earlier this month in a California newspaper as stating that Mr. Kubby will be detained once he crosses the border and is likely to spend more than 120 days in jail.
A senior official at the Placer County jail said that Mr. Kubby could not have marijuana in custody. He could be prescribed Marinol, a synthetic form of THC, the official said.

"We don't see what the big rush is" to deportation, said Mr. Kubby, who lives in Sun Peaks, B.C.

"We are jumpy every time the door knocks."

He explained that Marinol is not effective in coping with his cancer, and stressed that, apart from his health concerns, "the problem is that no one wants to admit this is political."

Mr. Kubby ran for governor of California in 1998 as a Libertarian and received more than 70,000 votes. He was also involved in the successful campaign to pass California's Proposition 215 in 1995, which permits people to possess or cultivate marijuana for
medical use.

The drug possession conviction was imposed after a mistrial was declared in a lengthy trial in California, where Mr. Kubby was accused of selling marijuana to compassion clubs.
The jury voted 11-1 for acquittal in the case, which was prosecuted by Mr. Cattran.

"I am not a lawbreaker, I am a law maker," Mr. Kubby said.

"All we are asking for is more time to clear my name." Mr. Kubby said his conviction was improperly changed by the courts in California during the appeal process to be a felony, rather than misdemeanour, offence.

The original sentence for drug possession was to be served through house arrest. Mr. Kubby said his family decided to move to Canada because there was no guarantee that he would be allowed to continue to possess marijuana for medical use. "They could arrest me again at any time," he said.

Mr. Kubby is filing an appeal of Judge Pinard's ruling in the Federal Court of Appeal and is hopeful he will be allowed to remain in the country. "We continue to believe Canada is compassionate," he said.

The Canada Border Services Agency has the authority to execute the removal order immediately, as a result of the court ruling. "They will be contacted. Their case will be dealt with," said agency spokeswoman Janis Fergusson.

Privacy regulations restrict the government from disclosing how it will handle the removal of the Kubby family, Ms. Fergusson said.


"It is not going to be a year from now. We are expected to do it in a short period of time," she said.

Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Author: Shannon Kari
Published: Saturday, January 21, 2006 Page S3
Copyright: 2006 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Website: http://www.globeandmail.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21505.shtml

 

I hope the people who are trying to jai; this dude suddenly get metastatic pheochromocytoma.

 

By The Canadian Press
Source: Canadian Press

Vancouver -- After losing his last legal challenge to stay in Canada, medical marijuana advocate Steve Kubby has been told to leave the country by Thursday. A Federal Court judge rejected Kubby's last appeal to stay in the country.

His wife Michele told the judge her husband would die if he had to return to California to serve out a jail sentence.

Kubby has adrenal cancer and uses marijuana to ease the symptoms.

Before Kubby came to Canada he was convicted for having a small amount of drugs and sentenced to house arrest.

Kubby and his wife now say he would have to serve his sentence in jail, and that officials at any U.S. jail wouldn't allow him to smoke his marijuana.

Kubby, a former ski magazine publisher, lost his legal bid last week to stop his deportation by Immigration Canada.

The family moved to B.C. in 2001, settling in Sun Peaks Resort after living in Sechelt. Immigration Canada ordered them out by Jan. 12, but that deadline came and went while the Federal Court judge made his decision.

While he has been ordered to leave, Kubby said he is still fighting to stay in the country through the courts.

"The immigration ministry claims that its departure orders are not subject to appeal, but we're still trying to get a court to simply grant us our due process and allow us to appeal,'' he said in a news release on Monday.

Kubby's claim for refugee status in Canada was rejected a few years ago.

If Kubby is forced to return to the U.S., he said he will head back to San Francisco and try and stay out of Placer Country, where he was to serve his sentence.

Michele Kubby and the couple's two daughters will be driving back to California.

Source: Canadian Press (Wire)
Published: Monday, January 23, 2006
Copyright: 2006 The Canadian Press
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21509.shtml

 

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

California -- Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby, a fugitive from Placer County, was back in custody Friday at Placer County jail after being arrested at San Francisco International Airport.

Kubby, 58, was arrested on a no-bail warrant by San Francisco police officers and booked into San Mateo County Jail as he disembarked from a flight from Canada.

Bill McPike, Kubby's attorney, flew with his client from Vancouver to California, and said that at least seven officers were waiting for the plane when it arrived.

"They called out his name on the intercom," McPike said. "Kubby walked to the front of the plane and they took him into custody on behalf of the Placer County Sheriff's Department."

Dale Gieringer, co-author of Prop. 215 and currently director of the California National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, was at the airport Thursday night in the hopes of greeting Kubby. He said law enforcement officials don't understand Kubby's medical need for marijuana.

"The arms of the drug police state are awesomely long," Gieringer said. "To drag a man back to jail for six months for nothing? He's not a danger to society."

Michele Kubby said Friday in a telephone interview from Canada that the future of her family is uncertain.

"We don't know what's going to happen next," she said. "It's very frightening."

Michele Kubby said she plans to be in California early next week and has until midnight Monday to leave Canada.

She said her husband has a prescription, valid in Canada, to smoke up to an ounce a day of marijuana.

Whigam said Kubby appeared to be "fine" and will be have his medical needs attended while incarcerated.

The Kubby family had been seeking to stay in Canada, however, The Canadian Border Services rejected the family's bid for protection Dec. 9 and ordered them out of the country.

Kubby fled to Canada with his family in an effort to avoid incarceration after a 2000 conviction in Placer County on charges of possession of mescaline and psilocybin. Placer County deputies reportedly found a small mount of peyote button and magic mushroom during a 1999 raid of Kubby's Olympic Valley home.

Two-hundred-sixty-five marijuana plants in various stages of growth were reportedly seized, officials said.

He was transported to Placer County jail Friday afternoon and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. in Dept. 13 of Placer County Superior court Tuesday.

Sgt. Brian Whigam, of the Placer County Sheriff's Department, said Friday that Kubby's arrest was solely based on the violation of probation.

"At this time that's the only violation," he said.

Kubby will most likely have to serve his custody time of 120 days and address his probation violation, which could give him additional time behind bars.

Kubby ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor on the 1997/1998 ballot. He was also one of the authors of Prop. 215, the compassionate-use act passed by the voters of the state of California in 1996. He contends he requires marijuana daily to stay alive and stave off the affects of his life-threatening adrenal cancer.

Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, January 27, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21527.shtml

 

thats bullshit.... If I choose to intoxicate myself in the middle of nowhere with my family.

Then why not!!I own my future do i not..








BULLSHIT!

 

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

California -- The topic of jailed medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby is gaining popularity on the Internet as he reports failing health and poor medical attention in Placer County Jail.
Placer county law-enforcement officials say they are treating Kubby humanely as they do all inmates. Kubby, 59, has reportedly spoken with supporters since his Friday incarceration.

Fred Colburn, of Meadow Vista, has been friends with Kubby since the activist ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor on the 1997/1998 ballot. He said he spoke to Kubby early Monday morning.

"Steve's thinking they are deliberately punishing him (in jail)," Colburn said. "He's only had one blanket, is vomiting and can't keep food down."

Kubby, who fled Placer County to Canada to avoid incarceration in 2000 was arrested on a no-bail warrant Thursday and transferred to Placer County Jail Friday.

Kubby contends he must have marijuana daily in order to survive and stave off the affects of a rare form of adrenal cancer. He credits a Canadian doctor who agrees with him, but UC David cancer specialists said there is no scientific evidence to support Kubby's claim that marijuana is keeping him alive.

Dr. Fred Meyers, professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine for UC Davis Medical Center, has said there is no medical proof that smoking marijuana cures or alleviates the symptoms of the adrenal cancer that Kubby is said to have.
Kubby's Canadian doctor said cannabis alleviates the symptoms of Kubby's adrenal cancer.

"(Kubby's) kind of cancer, metastatic pheochromocytoma, releases adrenaline into the blood and these drugs speed up your heart making your body run faster," said Dr. Joe Connors, a medical oncologist for British Columbia Cancer Agency in a telephone interview Monday.

Connors said that too much adrenaline keeps Kubby's body in a constant state of "flight or fight."

"The marijuana he had been smoking helped," Connors said.
Despite reports posted on numerous Web sites and blogs about Kubby's physical condition, jail official's report that he appears to be doing well.

"He's been seen by the medical staff and he's being taken care of," Capt. John Fitzgerald, of the Placer County Sheriff's Department said Monday. "I can't elaborate because medical records are confidential."

Technorati.com, a Web site that reports it tracks 26.7 million sites and 1.9 billion links, lists Kubby as its most searched topic Monday above Ted Koppel and Ipod.

Many of the postings are duplicates of press releases posted on Kubby's own Website Kubby.com.

In one posting, Michele Kubby said she was able to get a prescription for the drug Marinol for her husband.

Marinol has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration to treat "nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy for patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional treatments," according to the Marinol.com Web site.

"When Steve first entered the jail, his blood pressure had risen to 170 over120. The jail medical staff were concerned and administered the Marinol," Michele Kubby wrote in an e-mail. "Steve says he feels his blood pressure lowering, but he can tell that Marinol is not going to be effective in the long run."

E-mails and blogs report that Kubby is in "solitary confinement," and allowed only one blanket. Jail personnel say Kubby is separated from other inmates for his own safety.

"He's in N-tank in a private cell, not in the general population," Fitzgerald said. "He classifies to be in a private cell for numerous reasons including his safety."

Michele Kubby, who remains in Canada with the couple's two children, said she plans to be in California soon but will not make today's court appearance.

"I will not be able to make the hearing time on Tuesday. I hope anyone who goes tells him I am thinking of him and love him very much," Michele Kubby wrote in an e-mail sent to the Journal.

The Kubby family had been seeking to stay in Canada, however, the Canadian Border Services rejected the family's bid for protection Dec. 9 and ordered them out of the country.

Kubby fled to Canada with his family in an effort to avoid incarceration after a 2000 conviction in Placer County on charges of possession of mescaline and psilocybin.

He was transported to Placer County jail Friday afternoon and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. in Dept. 13 of Placer County Superior court today.

Kubby will most likely have to serve his custody time of 120 days and address his probation violation, which could give him additional time behind bars.

He was also one of the authors of Prop. 215, the compassionate-use act passed by the voters of the state of California in 1996.

Note: Marijuana activist to appear in court today.

Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21539.shtml

 

By Anthony Gregory
Source: LewRockwell.com

USA -- Speak out too loudly against the drug war, and you might be targeted. Peter McWilliams had AIDS and cancer and was dependent on marijuana to stay alive. It turns out that the people who had been using the stuff medicinally for thousands of years were onto something. No one has ever been recorded as dying from the physiological effects of marijuana. But the federal government wouldn't let McWilliams, a vocal anti-prohibition activist, have his medicine. They threatened to take his mother's house away if he used the substance that was keeping him alive. He was found dead in his home in June 2000. The drug war killed him directly.

And now Steve Kubby is in jail, being deprived of the medical marijuana that has kept him alive. About a quarter-century ago, he was diagnosed with an exceedingly rare strain of adrenal cancer that no one else has been able to survive for more than five years. He was expected to die within the same timeframe. His physician, Dr.Vincent DeQuattro, an expert on this rare condition, has credited marijuana with saving his life. Several years ago, Kubby was forcefully deprived of his medicine for three days in jail, during which he suffered extreme vomiting and shivering and went temporarily blind in one eye. In U.S. custody again, after having taken refuge in Canada and being extradited back to the Land of the Free, he now has a good chance of dying, of being murdered by the state, all so it can make an example of this courageous anti-drug war activist.
For Kubby, as was the case for McWilliams, prohibition of life-saving medicine could prove a cruel and unusual execution, all for the non-crime of self-medication, the right to which all humans are born with. Apparently, he has been allowed to use some Marinol, but the synthetic THC simply isn't a replacement for the complex mixture of cannabinoids in marijuana. Smoking about twelve grams of pot a day has worked for him, allowing him to live a healthy life; the government's approved version does not quite do the trick, though it might barely be keeping death away. It is very uncertain at this point what will come of his health and legal situation.

The drug war is misdirected. It is foolish. It is stupid, unworkable, disastrous, tragic and sad. But beyond all that it is evil.

The drug war is grounded in an evil premise: that people do not own their bodies, that they have no right to control what they do with their own lives and their own property, that it is appropriate to lock them in cages if they produce, distribute or consume chemicals in defiance of the state.

This is a monstrosity. As long as America has the drug war, it is not a free country. Politicians who support it and expand it, knowing the evils it entails, have no business lecturing us on morality.

The ideology of the war on drugs is the ideology of totalitarianism, of communism, of fascism and of slavery. In practice, it has made an utter mockery of the rule of law and the often-spouted idea that America is the freest country on earth. The United States has one of the highest per capita prison populations in the world, second only to Rwanda, thanks largely to the drug war, all while its federal government imposes its drug policies on other countries by methods ranging from mere diplomatic bullying to spraying foreign crops with lethal poison, from bribing foreign heads of state to bankrolling and whitewashing acts of mass murder conducted by despots in the name of fighting drugs.

Like so many other wars, the drug war is constructed on a mountain of lies. Politicians have lied over and over about the dangers of specific drugs, the percentages of drug offenders in prison, the success of various anti-drug programs, and the motives they have for waging the war. But even if it weren't for these acts of brazen dishonesty, the drug war would still be evil.

The war on drugs is murderous. Militarized police forces frequently raid homes and assault or even slaughter innocent people – some of whom did not even break the unjust drug laws. And those laws are just that – unjust. Remember it always. The war on drugs is an unjust war of aggression. Its agents are in the wrong. Under the current system, if you defend yourself against this homegrown war of aggression, you might be killed instantly or put on death row like Cory Maye. The authorities will get away with it.

The war on drugs is not a program that should be reconsidered, reformed, or reinvented. It needs not a different set of priorities or a restructuring. It needs to be repealed completely. Its prisoners need to be released without an instant of hesitation. Its greatest victims should be compensated as much as possible out of the pockets of the aggressors. Those at the top of this war must be held responsible for their illegal and immoral acts.

I am sometimes told that libertarians are too obsessed with the war on drugs. I disagree. I think that people in general, including many libertarians, should be more concerned with it. We are talking about the longest war in American history, one that has hundreds of thousands of innocent people locked in cages, many of whom are raped and beaten by convicted brutes as the prison guards laugh, all at an exorbitant cost in tax dollars and liberty. We are talking about a program that has decimated every article in the Bill of Rights. We are talking about a modern-day witch-trial and inquisition, all wrapped up into one, and multiplied in its evil effects and destructiveness many times over. We are talking about the precedent for so many other evil policies, from prohibitions on so-called "money laundering" and the criminal enterprise known as civil asset forfeiture to the egregious civil liberties violations conducted today under the guise of combating terrorism.

They often say that all they want in the war on terror are the tools they've been using in the drug war for years. There is some truth to this. But they should have never had such sweeping powers to begin with, not for investigating crime, not for fighting terrorism, and especially not for a war on victimless activity.

The practical complaints against the drug war have been repeated ad nauseam: Black market violence escalates, more people die of drug impurities, and so on. These are compelling enough to end the whole crusade. But the most fundamental reason to end it is it's evil, very evil. It treats sick people like criminals. It wrecks millions of lives. It puts young people in jail, sometimes for a lifetime, only for engaging in activities that some of our presidents engaged in when they themselves were young. It criminalizes speech between doctors and patients, and producers and consumers. It starts wars in other countries. It's one of the greatest social evils in America. Unfortunately, a distinct political class profits immensely off the oppressive program, and has succeeded in bamboozling the public into thinking the program is a necessary evil or even a positive good.

Several years ago, drug warriors mistook some missionaries flying to Peru for a plane of drug dealers, and so shot them down. Lew Rockwell asked, "Isn't it time the Christian Right begin to rethink the drug war, which has now taken two of their own?"

Sadly, most of the Christian Right, as well as most of the rest of the right and all too much of the left, still believes in the evil drug war. They are afraid of what will happen if drugs are made legal. Will more people do drugs?

Maybe. I don't personally think the long-term increase would be so dramatic, if there were one at all. At various times, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, and amphetamine were legal. The problems associated with legal drugs many years ago still exist today, but at least we didn't also have a deeply immoral war on drugs tearing society apart.

Even if some problems did increase, the drug war simply cannot be justified. It is rotten and immoral to the core. To put someone in a cage, or to kill someone, for engaging in private behavior or mutually voluntary trade is purely evil. That is the first and most important argument against the war on drugs.

Anthony Gregory: is a writer and musician who lives in Berkeley, California. He is a research analyst at the Independent Institute. See his webpage for more articles and personal information.

Source: LewRockwell.com (U.S. Web)
Author: Anthony Gregory
Published: February 01, 2006
Copyright: 2006 LewRockwell.com
Contact: lew@lewrockwell.com
Website: http://www.lewrockwell.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21542.shtml

 

By Shannon Kari
Source: Globe and Mail

California -- Steve Kubby is asking prosecutors in Placer County, Calif., to show compassion and let him serve a 2001 sentence for drug possession under house arrest instead of in custody.
The medical marijuana advocate made a brief court appearance yesterday. He was arrested by police last week as soon as he arrived in San Francisco on a flight from Vancouver.

Mr. Kubby, 59, faces a maximum of three years in jail for alleged probation violations as well as the 120 days imposed by a California court in 2001 for possession of a minute amount of mescaline and psilocin.

He was joined by his lawyer, Bill McPike, in a courtroom in Auburn, Calif. More than 50 supporters were also there, Mr. McPike said in a phone interview after the hearing.

"The important thing is for everyone to turn the clock back," the lawyer said. "We are trying to get this resolved."

Mr. McPike is asking Placer County not to prosecute Mr. Kubby for the alleged probation violations.

Mr. Kubby, his wife, Michele, and their two daughters fled to British Columbia in the spring of 2001. Mr. Kubby, who suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer, said he feared being targeted by authorities in Placer County because of his high profile as an advocate for medical marijuana.

The family fought a much-publicized battle to stay in Canada during nearly five years in the country. In January, Mr. Justice Yvon Pinard of the Federal Court of Canada rejected a request for an emergency stay of a removal order. He dismissed suggestions that Mr. Kubby would be put in jail and unable to receive the marijuana he says he needs to control his cancer.

In the five days that Mr. Kubby has been in jail since flying back to the United States, he already appears to have lost a significant amount of weight, his lawyer said.

"He looked really bad," said Mr. McPike, although he added that his client's spirits were lifted during the hearing because of the number of supporters at the courthouse.

Friends of Mr. Kubby managed to obtain a short-term supply of the prescription drug

Marinol, a synthetic form of THC that is legal. It costs about $1,000 for a nine-day supply.

Michele Kubby said yesterday that her husband has been required to sign a waiver that absolves the Placer County jail of responsibility for any health problems, because he is using non-conventional medical treatment.

Mr. Kubby will be back in court on Friday and could hear from prosecutors in Placer County about whether they will proceed with the probation violation charges and seek to keep him in custody.

Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Author: Shannon Kari
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2006 Page S3
Copyright: 2006 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Website: http://www.globeandmail.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21546.shtml

 

By Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal

California -- Incarcerated medical-marijuana activist Steve Kubby slowly entered an Auburn courtroom Tuesday afternoon and took his seat next to other inmates as he smiled to a crowd of supporters in the audience.
Kubby, 59, was in court with his attorney Bill McPike for arraignment on a charge of violation of probation after his arrest Thursday in San Francisco. Kubby's attorney entered a plea of "not guilty" on behalf of his client. He said outside the courtroom that he will ask the court for alternative sentencing.

"Michele (Kubby) is relocating (from Canada) to Marin County and we're going to motion for house arrest," McPike said. "I have no idea (if it will be granted)."
Chris Cattran, deputy district attorney for Placer County, said outside the courtroom that house arrest was offered to Kubby after his 2000 conviction for possession of mescaline and psilocybin.

"He was given the option of house arrest, but chose to flee," Cattran said.
At this point it is not clear if additional charges will be brought against Kubby, who began serving his 120-day sentence Friday.

Although he appeared to weigh less than he did when his booking photo was taken, Kubby looked pleased that the courtroom was nearly filled to capacity with those wanting to wish him well, many who had never met the former gubernatorial candidate and co-author of Prop. 215, California's Compassionate Use Act.

Clark Sullivan, 45, of San Francisco and the Hemp Evolution Web site, said he came to Auburn, as did about 30 others, to champion Kubby's reported need for medical marijuana.

"I'm an advocate for a lot of medical marijuana users and don't always know who they are," Sullivan said. "I'm here to support Steve and to demand that the Placer County authorities allow him to use medical cannabis as his doctor has prescribed."

In light of the attention the case has received and the number of medical-marijuana activists expected, Placer County Sheriff's Department added deputies outside the jail facility, courtroom and inside during the brief proceeding.

Members of the Compassionate Coalition.org, Hemp Evolution and other medical marijuana advocates held signs in front of the jail Tuesday that read "Healing is not a crime, free Steve Kubby, Don't jail the Ill," and "Stop terrorizing patients."

Many voiced their concern that without his daily doses of marijuana, Kubby will not survive his jail time.

Kubby contends he must have marijuana daily in order to survive and stave off the effects of a rare form of adrenal cancer. He points out a Canadian doctor who agrees with him, but a UC Davis Cancer specialist has said there is no scientific evidence to support


Kubby's claim that marijuana is keeping him alive.

To the Kubby faithful, it's a life-or-death situation.

"They are going to let him die in there," said Kubby supporter Essie Mormen, of San Francisco.

Jail officials are forbidden to answer direct medical questions, but have said Kubby is receiving medical treatment as necessary and is being cared for as all inmates are.

Kubby is scheduled to appear at 8:30 a.m. Friday in Dept. 13 of Placer County Superior Court.

Michele Kubby was not in the courtroom for Tuesday's appearance.

The Kubby family had been seeking to stay in Canada, however, the Canadian Border Services rejected the family's bid for protection Dec. 9 and ordered them out of the country.

Note: Activist's attorney to ask for alternative sentencing.

Source: Auburn Journal (CA)
Author: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Auburn Journal
Contact: ajournal@foothill.net
Website: http://www.auburnjournal.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21547.shtml

 

Tahoe World Editorial
Source: Tahoe World

California -- Placer County and Tahoe have had a five year reprieve, but last week the Kubby circus rolled back into town.
After being deported from Canada, where Steve Kubby and his family were living after he was convicted on drug charges in 2000, the medical marijuana activist and former gubernatorial candidate is serving his 120-day sentence in the Placer County jail in Auburn.

He contends he will die if not given marijuana to keep his adrenal cancer at bay. So he and his wife and attorney are urging his supporters to call the Placer County Sheriff's Office and District Attorney's office so he can get the "proper medical treatment."

Kubby's lawyer has also asked that Kubby be allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest in Marin County.

We say enough is enough.

The court allowed Kubby to serve his sentence at home with electronic monitoring in 2001, but he opted instead to flee to Canada stating at the time he believed his sentence was a "direct threat to my life." He also acknowledged that he may face jail time as a result of his decision.

Kubby has been given ample opportunity to serve his sentence at home and we believe that he could have been done with this ordeal five years ago if he followed the court's orders.

Although we sympathize with Kubby's medical condition, it seems that his antics are more about self promotion than advocating for medical marijuana. It seems that he really believes he will die if not given cannabis while in jail, but one look at his Web site -- http://www.kubby.com/ -- and it is clear this is more about the Kubby crusade than an effort to advance medical marijuana.

On Friday, the spectacle that has become hopefully the last chapter in Kubby's case continues in Auburn at the Placer County Court House at 8:30 a.m. when the judge decides whether Kubby may serve his sentence under house arrest, again.

Already this past week protestors turned up outside the courtroom advocating that Kubby be allowed to use marijuana while in jail. However, deputies are treating Kubby like any other inmate in their custody - as they should. On Friday at least, the community has one more opportunity to watch the show.

We recommend bringing some popcorn along in case one gets the munchies.

Complete Title: Is Kubby's Fight About Medical Marijuana, or Self Promotion?

Source: Tahoe World (Tahoe City, CA)
Published: February 1, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Tahoe World
Contact: editor@tahoe-world.com
Website: http://www.tahoe-world.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21553.shtml