More Steve Kubby reports from jail.

Jan. 31, 2006 followed by
Feb. 1, 2006 followed by
Feb. 2, 2006.


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At 6:23 PM -0800 2/2/06, Richard Lake wrote:
Fwd: CMAP: Steve Kubby Doing Better

[The following was posted by Dale Gieringer to the DPFCA list. Thank
You, Dale. Please note that Steve asks that folks not continue to
contact the jail. - Richard]

Pat McCartney reports that Steve Kubby is doing better; his blood
pressure appears to be under control, and he is being well attended
by the medical staff. - DG

STEVE KUBBY THANKS SUPPORTERS FOR IMPROVED MEDICAL CARE

Release date: February 2, 2006

Pat's note: With Michele Kubby still in transit from British
Columbia, she has been unable to speak with her husband and share his
views with the public. Steve Kubby has phoned me daily during his
stay at the jail and asked me to relay his comments to the outside
world. His mood has varied during the calls, as the symptoms of his
rare medical condition flare and subside. Below are excerpts from the
three most recent conversations. Contact me or check DPFCA archives
for transcriptions of the first two phone calls. Incidentally, I am
the former city editor of the Auburn Journal, and have followed the
plight of the Kubbys since their Jan. 19,, 1999, arrest.

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Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006, 11 p.m.

On his medical care:

"Your calls have worked! The Placer County Jail and medical staff are
now taking my health seriously, and showing me respect. The police
and government are not our enemy. Our real enemy is ignorance. This
situation with me and Placer County is providing an opportunity to
educate people and defeat our real enemy - ignorance."

"Now I want to give you a medical report. Today they tested me and
confirmed that there was blood in my urine, but the blood appears to
be diminishing each day. My blood pressures are high, but not at the
dangerous level, not at a level that I feel that I'm in a
life-threatening situation. So I'm getting enough benefit from the
Marinol so that, despite my being very uncomfortable at times, I'm
not experiencing 250 over 220 attacks like I had on Friday prior to
me taking Marinol. Since then my b-p readings have been approximately
like 130 over 110. But you see, it goes all over the place; it could
mean anything. They take it for a couple of days and it's completely
meaningless. Unless they've got me on a 24-hour monitor, they're
never going to pick up the blood-pressure spikes I have throughout
the day. I have a good feeling about the jail staff that I see, and
the medical staff that I'm working at, but it's disturbing to have
them issue press releases saying that I'm just fine. How do they
expect to be credible with that?"

On the press coverage he's seen:

"I would appreciate it if the media would stop making fraudulent,
uninformed statements such as the following: 1) That I fled to
Canada. This is completely untrue; I had the court's permission to go
to Canada. 2) They said in the paper that I'm doing interviews with
the media, and that's baloney. I haven't talked to any media. I've
been too sick! And that's the other thing. I am sick! And I would
just hope they would acknowledge that and stop ignoring that. And 3)
I think it's reckless and irresponsible for someone who has never
examined me, and who is largely ignorant of the recent advances in
science regarding cannabis research, to make statements that are
unsupported and endanger me, and contribute to this lie that
marijuana has no medical benefit. Dr. Ethan Russo has provided this
doctor with substantial, medical, peer-reviewed research, and the
newspaper should go back and talk to him now that he's read the
research."

On the chance that Placer might pursue a felony sentence:

"People need to understand that the real problem is the Placer
District Attorney's office's failure to recognize my due process.
I've got a felony, yeah. When was my chance to appeal this? Ever? If
he wants to kill me, this is the best way to go about it. He wants to
convict me of felony conviction of the cactus, he wants to turn my
two misdemeanors into a misdemeanor and a felony, and send me to
state prison for four more for the felony - all this performed nicely
after deadlines, without legal support, and by [three recused
judges.] This is a huge threat to me."

On Friday's motion to obtain whole, edible cannabis in jail:

"What do I think the best answer is for all of this? It may be that
we will force the courts under a writ of mandamus to uphold the law
as it is written, that I am entitled to marijuana in jail. And if
they want to play games with me, fine. At least I'll have the
satisfaction of knowing that hundreds of thousands of prisoners, who
deserve their medical-marijuana rights to be upheld, will be upheld
once we establish this important precedent. So, they may succeed in
killing me, but they're going to have to deal with medical marijuana
statewide in all the jails before they're successful. "

"Irrespective of whether they're coming after me, and I'm sure they
are, I want you to explain that, if they're going to insist on
keeping me here in jail until February [15 trial], then we are going
to force them to uphold my legal right to cannabis in jail, not just
for me - well initially for me - but we intend to open it up for
every medical-marijuana patient who's behind bars. I think this is
the biggest fear that they have, and this is the one we have to plan.
Because according to McPike, we can get a writ of mandamus from the
court saying that's the law dudes; you gotta do it. And they can't
say no smoking because I'm not asking to smoke; I'm going to get
edibles."

The role that activists played:

"I want everyone to know that I'm alive today because of their calls.
Obviously, I was not being taken seriously at first. But I am now!
They used to make me sir them on everything. They told me, stop
calling us sir. Now they're calling me sir. Mr. Kubby. Sir, we have
this or that request for you. They're handling me with such kid
gloves. So, please, thank my supporters and tell them how grateful I
am that I'm still alive."

Phone call ends.

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Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006, 11 a.m.

McCartney note: Kubby was more agitated during this call, describing
several political strategies he was considering. After reflection and
after hearing about attorney Bill McPike's comments, he asked me the
next day to withhold portions of his comments.

On his medical care:

"First a medical report. Doctors are concerned about the blood that
I'm passing. I've received a number of urine and blood tests to find
out what's going on. But they're on it, they're on it big-time. The
doctor that's the head of the staff here, Dr. David Duncan, is a very
qualified, very concerned physician, and I'm definitely in good care
with him and the rest of the medical staff. [PM: When was the first
time you saw a physician?] That's the problem. They checked me in on
Friday, and I had just had one of the worst blood-pressure attacks of
my life, which is what probably started the bleeding in my urine from
the kidneys. I come in there. I'm one-seventy over one-twenty, I've
got chest pains for the first time in my life, scared silly to be
honest with you, and I'm pissing blood. And I don't get any medical
care until Monday, I don't see anyone until Monday. Well, that was
bad. But once they found out what was going on, they were all over
me, doing everything they could do to help me. These are actually
very dedicated, very qualified people. The jail people are really
treating me well."

Phone call ends.

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Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006, 2 p.m.

McCartney note: Steve sounds as well as he has at any time since
arriving in Placer County. He again takes the time to praise the
medical staff, and discusses Friday's hearing. Most of the
conversation involves Steve asking for information from the outside
world, as his isolation continues.

On having second thoughts about a discarded political strategy:

"I've had a bit of an epiphany. What I realized, and I said before,
police and government aren't the enemy. What I realized from that is
that, I'm in a position like Ghandi getting hit by the stick by the
police, as soon as I hit back in any way, as soon as I'm perceived as
striking back in any way, I lose the support and sympathy of people."

On the Placer jail medical staff:"The first thing I want to say is
that it's unfortunate I got off to a bad, that things went down the
way they did when I first arrived here. I did have every reason to
believe that I was being mistreated, but what I now know is that none
of that was intentional. It's just a matter of the medical staff
being saddled with an incredible number of rules and regulations. And
what I've learned is the medical staff here is world-class. The head
nurse is ten years out of Stanford hospital. I explained to the
medical director, Dr. David Duncan, that the University of California
at Irvine has showed conclusively that cannabis affects the
production of dopamine, and then he finished my sentence by saying,
quote, 'and dopamine is the precursor to catecholamines.' He said,
'That makes sense to me.' His willingness to understand the unique
effect that cannabis has on me has been a tremendous benefit in
dealing with my health issues."

On the need for more calls:

"I'm asking my supporters to stop calling to complain about my
treatment in jail, or with the medical staff, because now that they
understand my situation, they are doing everything within their power
to help me and protect me. I've actually met a number of guards here
who impressed me with their professionalism and genuine concern for
my welfare."

Expectations for Friday:

"I'm hoping that this rather unpleasant experience of mine will at
least provide an opportunity to gain recognition for the use of
nonsmoked, edible cannabis for bona-fide patients.

On the status of his health:

"The swelling and agonizing pain of my kidneys is finally, finally
letting up, and I'm not passing any more blood. So, that alone is
enough to make me feel a lot better. It's very disconcerting to see
blood coming out your urine. Pink on few occasions, red on a few
occasions."

On Tuesday's hearing:

"You're not allowed to communicate in any way, shape or form. And I
wanted people to understand that I'm not allowed to communicate with
the audience in the court, 'in any way, shape or form.'"

On inmate support:

"I'm constantly finding secret messages and things like, 'good luck,'
and 'we're for you.' The inmates know who I am. They're very, very
supportive. [He declines to describe how the messages are conveyed.]
I don't want to get anyone in trouble. They're letting me know, and
they're taking somewhat of a risk in letting me know."

How Marinol is helping:

"The Marinol does not provide the level of protection that I receive
from cannabis, but it provides enough protection so that I have not
had any more full-blown, hypertensive paroxysms."

Why the phone calls come at different hours:

"They start releasing guys [for their one hour a day out of their
cells] at one end or the other end, and they seem to alternate, and
it's completely dependant upon the scheduling. So, mine might be the
first thing in the morning, I might be in the middle of the day, it
might be the end of the day."

Why he didn't flee Canada for a third country:

"When it first became apparent to me that I would have to leave
[Canada] and go somewhere, we had invitations from all these
different places in the world and some of them were quite lovely, but
it came to me that the best path for me - I had a little slogan I
invented, 'the way in is the way out.' So, it became clear to me that
the best way for me to heal all of this, and to deal with all of
this, and most importantly to educate a lot of people about all of
this, is to go back, turn myself in and face whatever was waiting for
me."

Michele's view of Steve's decision:

"We saw this as a healing process. We saw the high-level media
attention and participation by supporters as additional protection,
not against just the police, but against ignorance and apathy. It
certainly has been addressed by all this wonderful support on my
behalf. So, when I briefly got to speak to Michele, I said everything
is going according to plan, and I believe she understood by that,
that what we had discussed about coming down here while we have the
media's attention, while we have the support of the people, while I
was strong from having skied all that time up in Sun Peaks. This
winter I skied over 60 days [and a million vertical feet the year
before]. Each day that I skied and released my adrenaline, was a day
that my body could heal without a load of adrenaline. That's why
skiing is so good for me. Exercise, ride the chair, exercise, ride
the chair. So, I got myself in the best shape I've been in since
Michele knew me, so we felt healthwise it was my best opportunity. We
also felt that, unlike before when I had no representation and they
wanted me to come back and turn myself in? This time, I have a lawyer
that I really have a lot of confidence in, Bill McPike."

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