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KUBBY NO LONGER SEEKING TO USE MARIJUANA IN JAIL
the website linked to below has a photo of Michele speaking at a press conference
KUBBY NO LONGER SEEKING TO USE MARIJUANA IN JAIL
Former Squaw Valley Resident in Auburn
Medical marijuana activist and former Squaw Valley resident Steve
Kubby is no longer seeking to use cannabis for his cancer while in
jail, his lawyer told a Placer County judge Friday.
Kubby's attorney, Bill McPike, said his client's blood pressure had
stabilized and he was in better health. Michele Kubby noted that her
husband has been taking two pills three times a day of Marinol, a
synthetic drug that contains THC, the main substance in marijuana.
On Tuesday, McPike asked the judge if Kubby could take an edible form
of marijuana while in jail. He removed that motion Friday.
"I talked to the [jail] doctor and health program director and his
blood pressure has stabilized and gone down," McPike told a crowd of
supporters and media after the hearing Friday morning in Auburn.
"It's pretty miraculous. He was smiling and happy. Hopefully we did
the right thing."
Kubby is charged with violation of probation after fleeing to Canada
in 2001. The Placer County district attorney's office and McPike are
working out a plea agreement that may allow Kubby to serve his
120-day sentence at home in Marin County. McPike said he was
expecting to see an offer from the district attorney's office Friday
afternoon and that it may involve a longer sentence for Kubby.
Kubby, 59, was convicted in 2000 with felony drug possession of
psilocybin and mescaline, but was acquitted of possession of
marijuana for sale charges. Placer County deputies found 265
marijuana plants, peyote buttons and a hallucinogenic mushroom in the
Kubby's Squaw Valley home during a 1999 raid. He sentence was 120
days of house arrest and three years of formal probation.
In 2001, Kubby and his family fled to Canada to seek asylum. For five
years they have sought protection from that country, but was denied
it in December and ordered back to the U.S. Kubby was taken into
custody from San Francisco International Airport Jan. 26 and
transported to Placer County Jail in Auburn the next day, where he
started his sentence.
Kubby and his supporters say he needs marijuana to keep adrenal
cancer in remission and that he will die without it. He was diagnosed
with the disease 30 years ago and has been smoking marijuana for it
ever since, according to Kubby's ex-wife, Rebecca Maidman, of Truckee.
Clark Sullivan, Web master for the Hemp Evolution Web site who
traveled from San Francisco to support Kubby, said supporters are
putting in 60 calls a day to the jail nurse and the sheriff's office
to make sure Kubby is getting the proper medical treatment.
"He said that if I didn't have Marinol waiting for him, he would have
died," Michele Kubby said to a crowd of supporters and media gathered
after the hearing. "It is cruel and unusual punishment for the family
to have their father die. The punishment does not fit the crime. The
drug war punishes women and children. Me and my children are suffering."
Michele Kubby, who attended the hearing with their nine-year-old
daughter Brooke, said she has documentation to prove that a judge
allowed them to go to Canada five years ago.
"We are lawmakers, not lawbreakers," she said. "We never tried to
break the law unless it is political, and this is political. We have
the truth on our side. I have been very frustrated with Placer
County. I haven't heard a thing about Placer County's intentions with
my husband."
However, Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran said Kubby was not to
leave the state of California.
"He mentioned [five years ago] he wanted to go to Canada to visit
friends and he had a turn-in date," Cattran said. "He failed to turn
himself in."
Medical marijuana patients and advocates from the California
Marijuana Party, Libertarian Party, California National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Axis of Love San Francisco and the
El Dorado County chapter of American Alliance for Medical Cannabis
formed a prayer circle before Friday's hearing and held up quilts and
signs in support of Kubby.
Steven Tuck, 39, was deported from Canada on a medical marijuana case
in October and traveled from Oregon to support Kubby.
"I have to show Steve I support him," Tuck said. "Out of all the
people here, I know what he is going through."
Kubby ran for governor in 1998 as a member of the Libertarian Party
and co-authored Prop. 215, the initiative approved by California
voters in 1996 for the legalization of medical marijuana.
A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 1 p.m. in Auburn.
Former Squaw Valley Resident in Auburn
Medical marijuana activist and former Squaw Valley resident Steve
Kubby is no longer seeking to use cannabis for his cancer while in
jail, his lawyer told a Placer County judge Friday.
Kubby's attorney, Bill McPike, said his client's blood pressure had
stabilized and he was in better health. Michele Kubby noted that her
husband has been taking two pills three times a day of Marinol, a
synthetic drug that contains THC, the main substance in marijuana.
On Tuesday, McPike asked the judge if Kubby could take an edible form
of marijuana while in jail. He removed that motion Friday.
"I talked to the [jail] doctor and health program director and his
blood pressure has stabilized and gone down," McPike told a crowd of
supporters and media after the hearing Friday morning in Auburn.
"It's pretty miraculous. He was smiling and happy. Hopefully we did
the right thing."
Kubby is charged with violation of probation after fleeing to Canada
in 2001. The Placer County district attorney's office and McPike are
working out a plea agreement that may allow Kubby to serve his
120-day sentence at home in Marin County. McPike said he was
expecting to see an offer from the district attorney's office Friday
afternoon and that it may involve a longer sentence for Kubby.
Kubby, 59, was convicted in 2000 with felony drug possession of
psilocybin and mescaline, but was acquitted of possession of
marijuana for sale charges. Placer County deputies found 265
marijuana plants, peyote buttons and a hallucinogenic mushroom in the
Kubby's Squaw Valley home during a 1999 raid. He sentence was 120
days of house arrest and three years of formal probation.
In 2001, Kubby and his family fled to Canada to seek asylum. For five
years they have sought protection from that country, but was denied
it in December and ordered back to the U.S. Kubby was taken into
custody from San Francisco International Airport Jan. 26 and
transported to Placer County Jail in Auburn the next day, where he
started his sentence.
Kubby and his supporters say he needs marijuana to keep adrenal
cancer in remission and that he will die without it. He was diagnosed
with the disease 30 years ago and has been smoking marijuana for it
ever since, according to Kubby's ex-wife, Rebecca Maidman, of Truckee.
Clark Sullivan, Web master for the Hemp Evolution Web site who
traveled from San Francisco to support Kubby, said supporters are
putting in 60 calls a day to the jail nurse and the sheriff's office
to make sure Kubby is getting the proper medical treatment.
"He said that if I didn't have Marinol waiting for him, he would have
died," Michele Kubby said to a crowd of supporters and media gathered
after the hearing. "It is cruel and unusual punishment for the family
to have their father die. The punishment does not fit the crime. The
drug war punishes women and children. Me and my children are suffering."
Michele Kubby, who attended the hearing with their nine-year-old
daughter Brooke, said she has documentation to prove that a judge
allowed them to go to Canada five years ago.
"We are lawmakers, not lawbreakers," she said. "We never tried to
break the law unless it is political, and this is political. We have
the truth on our side. I have been very frustrated with Placer
County. I haven't heard a thing about Placer County's intentions with
my husband."
However, Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran said Kubby was not to
leave the state of California.
"He mentioned [five years ago] he wanted to go to Canada to visit
friends and he had a turn-in date," Cattran said. "He failed to turn
himself in."
Medical marijuana patients and advocates from the California
Marijuana Party, Libertarian Party, California National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Axis of Love San Francisco and the
El Dorado County chapter of American Alliance for Medical Cannabis
formed a prayer circle before Friday's hearing and held up quilts and
signs in support of Kubby.
Steven Tuck, 39, was deported from Canada on a medical marijuana case
in October and traveled from Oregon to support Kubby.
"I have to show Steve I support him," Tuck said. "Out of all the
people here, I know what he is going through."
Kubby ran for governor in 1998 as a member of the Libertarian Party
and co-authored Prop. 215, the initiative approved by California
voters in 1996 for the legalization of medical marijuana.
A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 1 p.m. in Auburn.
For more information:
http://www.tahoe-world.com/article/2006020...
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IMC Network
Steve Kubby Said He Needed Marijuana for His Cancer, but THC Pills
Are Doing the Trick.
A medical marijuana activist who long argued that he needed the drug
to cope with his cancer surprised a judge and supporters Friday
morning by announcing that a synthetic substitute provided to him in
jail has proved an effective replacement.
Thanks to Marinol, a pill form of THC, the primary psychoactive
ingredient in pot, Steve Kubby is "smiling and happy," lawyer Bill
McPike said. "In fact, he said it's the best he's felt in years."
Kubby had asked that he be allowed to consume cannabis while in jail,
and a judge in the Placer County town of Auburn had been set to
consider that request Friday. Instead, McPike withdrew the request.
Kubby, 59, returned to California last month after spending the last
five years in Canada dodging a 120-day prison sentence. On Tuesday,
McPike asked that his client be allowed to continue using cannabis.
Kubby and his physicians had said that without pot to regulate the
adrenal cancer's symptoms, which may lead to heart attack or stroke,
his health would be jeopardized.
Since his diagnosis a quarter-century ago, the activist has smoked up
to a dozen marijuana cigarettes a day.
So no one was more surprised than Kubby by his reaction to Marinol,
McPike said in a telephone interview.
Kubby's positive response to the drug wasn't immediate. Upon arriving
in Auburn on Jan. 27, shortly after a Canadian court denied his
request for refugee status, the drug caused vomiting and nausea,
McPike said. But since then, Kubby's condition stabilized, spurring
his decision to stick with the synthetic.
A physician will continue examining Kubby daily to ensure the drug's
effects persist, he said.
Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a cannabis advocacy
group, said Kubby's decision to forgo pot will not affect the fight
for medical marijuana.
"Some [medical] conditions respond to THC and some don't," he said,
"so what's right for Steve won't necessary work for everyone."
Kubby, who helped draft California's medical marijuana law, is
awaiting trial for a March 2001 conviction for possession of a peyote
button and a hallucinogenic mushroom. A Placer County jury acquitted
him of the more serious charge of selling pot grown in his basement garden.
Fear of jail time without access to marijuana propelled Kubby to flee
the country two months later with his wife, Michele, and two young
daughters. The family has resided in British Columbia ever since.
Around the same time, Placer judges bumped up his original
convictions from misdemeanors to felonies. Kubby appealed the
rulings, declaring them a miscarriage of justice.
Kubby now faces up to three years in prison -- nine times his
original sentence. But McPike said he hopes to resolve matters before trial.
A hearing to discuss Kubby's case is set for Feb. 15.
"I must say, following Steve is like being on a ship that rocks back
and forth all the time," Gieringer said. "You never know what's going
to happen."
Is he getting a Vegan diet now?