It's a different war, but it's having the same old consequences. In the 1960s, Americans fled to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. Four decades later, American medical marijuana patients are crossing the border again, claiming they're political refugees from the U.S. government's war on drugs. "I'm a member of a class of society they're trying to oppress-or wipe out completely," says Renee Boje, from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. Boje, 32, is probably the most famous American fugitive in Canada: the U.S. is currently trying to extradite her to face charges for conspiracy to cultivate hundreds of cannabis plants at the Los Angeles home of Todd McCormick, a cancer patient and medical marijuana activist. If convicted, Boje faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years-a penalty so severe that she's become the poster child for the increasing numbers of U.S. citizens heading north to take advantage of Canada's liberal pot laws. "There are hundreds of Americans here," she says, "because they're being persecuted by their own government." Many of the refugees are quietly growing and using their own weed-the Vancouver-based B.C. Compassion Club, one of a dozen operating across British Columbia, alone estimates that over 100 of its 2,000 clients are Americans. But others, like Boje, haven't kept such a low profile. Over the past couple of months, several prominent U.S. activists have fled to British Columbia as well-including Steve Kubby, 56, the Libertarian Party's 1998 candidate for governor of California, and Ken Hayes, 34, who operated the 6th Street Harm Reduction Center in San Francisco. Kubby, who has adrenal cancer, faces a 120-day jail term for drug possession in California, which he says would kill him; in February, even though he was already in Canada, Hayes was charged with conspiracy to grow more than 1,000 plants and could be sentenced to at least 10 years. Both have formally claimed refugee status under United Nations conventions, arguing that they have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in the United States. Canadian immigration officials have decided there's enough substance to the claims that Kubby, Hayes, and their families may remain in the country until a final hearing a year from now. "U.S. officials have violated the law and intentionally targeted the leaders of the medical marijuana movement by using conspiracy charges," says Kubby, from his home on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast-just before he's due to read the daily news on pot-tv.net, an internet TV channel. "I'm being threatened with a death sentence. How can anyone justify that and say it's not an attempt to persecute me?" Understandably, comments like this have already won the refugees plenty of attention from Canadian news media -- and American officials as well. "Providing sanctuary to some of these people who see Canada as an easy place to escape the long leash of U.S. law enforcement is dangerous," said Robert Maginnis, a White House drug policy advisor, in a recent interview on Canada's Global TV network. "I would hope that the Canadian government would see fit to send them back to the U.S. so they can face charges, because we have, just like you do, a sovereign right over our citizens to enforce the laws of our land." The vast difference between how medical marijuana laws are applied in Canada and the U.S., however, partly explains the exodus. Although California voters passed Proposition 215, creating a Compassionate Use Act, in 1996, over the past two years the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has used federal law to raid and prosecute medical marijuana clubs across the state. In May last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the DEA's actions, ruling that "marijuana has no medical benefits", and this June the U.S. government obtained an injunction shutting down the few remaining California clubs for good. The Canadian federal government, on the other hand, has granted permits to possess or grow marijuana to more than 800 Canadians who suffer from AIDS, cancer or multiple sclerosis. And Canadian courts, which aren't bound by mandatory minimums, are generally lenient on those who don't have permits: last month the B.C. Supreme Court stayed cultivation charges against a Vancouver man caught with 96 plants because he has AIDS and hepatitis; a few days later the same court gave an "absolute discharge" (i.e. no jail, fine, or criminal record) to the director of a compassion club who pleaded guilty to possession of five pounds of marijuana. Alex Stojicevic, the Vancouver lawyer representing Hayes, Kubby and several other American refugee claimants, says it's "nothing new" for U.S. citizens to flee to Canada to avoid drug charges-what's new is the U.S. crackdown on medical marijuana that accelerated after the Bush administration took office. His clients' argument, he says, is that they're being persecuted for holding a political opinion shared by a majority of California voters, but not by the feds. "Since Mr. Ashcroft became attorney-general and Mr. Bush the president, the view is that things are going to get worse," says Stojicevic. That's what's fueling this." Stojicevic admits it's unlikely many of his clients will ultimately win refugee status, because Canadian courts have consistently held that "the United States is still a country where the rule of law applies, and the real forum for complaining about these things is there, not here." However, a few Americans might be allowed to stay for compassionate reasons--earlier this year, Renee Boje married a Canadian, and they now have a four-month-old son. Stojicevic also notes that Boje's case is unique: while the other Americans will simply be ordered to leave Canada if their claims of persecution fail, the final decision to extradite Boje is up to Canada's minister of justice, who may consider (according to Canadian law) how "unjust and oppressive" it would be to send a young mother to 10 years in prison for watering some plants. Unfortunately, the U.S. activists have made a difficult situation even harder for themselves: in April, after one of them showed reporters a grow operation he'd started, neighbors complained and the Mounties arrested Kubby, Hayes and several others. (Hayes also says he was visited by a DEA agent based in Vancouver, who tried to intimidate him into returning "voluntarily" to the U.S.) They were released only after Marc Emery, the leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party and the owner of pot-tv.net and a giant marijuana seed bank, put up $5,000 bail. If convicted of cultivation and possession charges, each of the Americans could be ordered to leave Canada before the final hearings of their refugee claims. The refugees are unrepentant. "I don't want to go back to the United States," says Ken Hayes. "The people who are still there fighting are doing a noble thing ... but it's inevitable that wherever there's liberty, that's where people will seek to be." Author: Ross Crockford, AlterNet Published: July 11, 2002 Copyright: 2002 Independent Media Institute Contact: info@alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/ DL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13578
NuBBin, I remember the 1960's and how men were fleeing across the border to escape a mandatory draft that would send them to serve their country in Viet Nam. If my name had been called, I too would have considered this drastic move. But Mr. Nixon ended the draft in 1973, and I thank him for that. But before VietNam, Canada had been a land of refuge for runaway slaves. I don't know if their life was any better, but at least they were free. Maybe this different kind of war is happening because it needs to happen. And it needs to happen now because the world is too much with us. America is building up securities and protections unheard of since the days of "the Red Scare!" (which I remember too). The very fact that they had a commercial on the Super Bowl to equate marijuana with hard drugs with supporting terrorists means that this giant build up will also seek out marijuana users, as well as terrorists. "any one who is not with us, is with the terrorists," President Bush was heard to say. And once they arrest us, what do they do? kill us? use us for medical experiments? throw us in jail 10 years stamp 10 years stamp 10 years ... ? You say they want to discard Boje for ten years in a cell, and extradite those people from Canada back to the United States in order to be punished for growing something to smoke to relax. If shove comes to punch, will the US go to war over it? In a way it seems we're like the earliest Christians who were persecuted just for doing something different.