Kubby headed back to Placer jail for 60 days

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Kubby headed back to Placer jail for 60 days
By Art Campos -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Story appeared in Metro section, Page B2
Nine days after being released early from the Placer County jail because of overcrowding, medical marijuana activist Steven Wynn Kubby is returning for another stay.

Kubby, 59, will report to jail today to serve a 60-day sentence imposed Tuesday by Superior Court Judge Robert McElhany, who determined that Kubby violated probation when he moved to Canada in 2001 to avoid a 120-day term for a drug conviction.

Kubby was arrested upon returning to the United States on Jan. 26 and served one-third of his 120-day sentence before being released March 6 because of good behavior credits and jail overcrowding. Kubby was one of 47 inmates released for the period Feb. 28 through March 6.

Kubby said Tuesday that he is again hoping for an early release from jail.

Prosecutor Christopher Cattran said a 60-day term for the probation violation was "a little light."

He noted that Kubby was placed on three years' probation before he left for Canada to avoid jail time.

"I believe there should be a just sentence for what he did - he was gone for five years," Cattran said.

Kubby has contended he left the United States because he feared he would die in jail if he could not use cannabis to treat his medical condition, which he has described as a rare form of adrenal cancer.

Kubby filed appeals to stay in Canada but was ultimately deported by officials there who said he had offered no medical proof that the marijuana he smoked was keeping him alive.

Kubby left Canada Jan. 26 and was arrested as soon as his plane landed at San Francisco International Airport.

He was then sent to Placer County to serve his 120-day sentence for a drug conviction involving an arrest in 1999 for felony possession of a peyote button and misdemeanor possession of a psychedelic mushroom.

While in the Placer County jail, Kubby was not allowed marijuana, but he took Marinol, a prescription drug with a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Kubby said the Marinol was helpful but didn't provide him the degree of relief he gets from cannabis.

"To have gone more than 40 days in jail with just Marinol would have been impossible for me. I was at the limit," he said.

Sheriff's Lt. George Malim said Kubby will again be permitted to use Marinol if it is prescribed by doctors.

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* The Bee's Art Campos can be reached at (916) 773-2825 or acampos [at] sacbee.com.