Medical Pot Activist Steve Kubby: Sick and Imprisoned
Posted on Sat Jan 28, 2006 at 05:36:16 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby, afflicted with a rare form of adrenal cancer, was deported from Canada Thursday to begin serving a four month sentence in the U.S., and it could be his death sentence. He was taken into custody when his plane landed in San Francisco. The jail is refusing to provide him with marinol, a lawful prescription drug that is a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, that relieves the debilitating pain and other symptoms of his disease.
Steve Kubby, a cancer patient, began coming ill two hours after his 8:10 p.m. arrest following police refusal to provide Marinol, NORML spokesman D. Gieringer reported...."I'm really sick already," Kubby told Gieringer by telephone said from jail. "I'm gonna start puking my brains out."
"He says his guards laughed at him when he requested Marinol. Kubby says he hasn't had marijuana for half a day and has begun to experience all of the symptoms of his life-threatening disease -- nausea, headaches, swollen kidneys. He has chills and has not been able to get a blanket from the guards," Gieringer stated.
A little background from yesterday's news. Kubby had a prescription in Canada that allowed him to smoke up to one ounce of marijuana a day. The only charge against him right now--and the one he was arrested on--is a probation violation for which he would serve 120 days.
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.
Kubby received probation for the offense, but left for Canada. The only charge pending against him is a petition to revoke his probation, for which the penalty is a maximum of six months, and which he would max out in 120 days.
There are significant political overtones to his case.
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.
For lots more background, see TalkLeft's 2003 post about Kubby. And read the Kubby Chronicles.
| < Poll: 76% Say Bush Should Disclose Abramoff Contacts | Complaints About Blogger Partisanship > |
