KUBBY TAKES THE STAND

AUBURN - Steve Kubby testified Tuesday in Auburn that he sought legal
advice before deciding not to grow marijuana for San Francisco or Oakland
cannabis buyers' clubs.

Kubby, a medical marijuana advocate and 1998 Libertarian Party
gubernatorial candidate, said he was given a grower's contract by San
Francisco club principal Dennis Peron and took it to Truckee attorney Dale
Wood in the summer of 1998 for guidance.

"He said you don't want to touch it. You don't want to have anything to do
with it," Kubby said during his second day of testimony. "I dropped it like
a hot potato."

Asked by his defense attorney J. Tony Serra if he had ever grown or
provided marijuana for the San Francisco and Oakland clubs, Kubby replied,
"Never."

Kubby asked to explain himself.

"My wife and I were concerned that it would invalidate anything we'd ever
done or stood for," he said.

Serra's examination was followed by a sometimes stormy cross-examination by
Placer County Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran. Cattran's questioning
focused on the veracity of Steve and Michele Kubby's contention that the
265 marijuana plants confiscated in a January 1999 raid of their Olympic
Valley home were for personal medicinal use. Both Kubbys had doctor's
recommendations to grow and smoke marijuana - Michele Kubby for irritable
bowel syndrome, Steve Kubby for a rare form of adrenal cancer.

Cattran produced several documents to counter Kubby's contention that the
265 plants were for he and his wife's personal use and covered by Prop.
215: a medicinal marijuana initiative passed by voters in 1996 that he
helped put on the ballot.

Cattran showed Kubby a 1992 state Department of Motor Vehicles form the
defendant had signed stating that his cancer had been in remission since 1986.

"That is correct," Kubby answered when asked whether he had signed it.

Another letter produced by Cattran - to a doctor and written in 1991 -
showed Kubby saying his blood pressure had improved with a traditional
blood pressure medication.

"I don't dispute it but I don't recall it," Kubby said. Kubby said he
started smoking marijuana exclusively sometime in 1994.

Cattran showed Kubby a page of listings broken into rectangles found on
Kubby's computer. Cattran initially asked whether they were labels for
supplying marijuana to the San Francisco and Oakland buyer clubs. Defense
attorneys Serra and J. David Nick's objection to the question was sustained
by Superior Court Judge John Cosgrove.

Instead, Kubby was asked whether the rectangles looked like labels. Kubby
said he "cut and pasted" all the information he could find on the Internet
about marijuana growing.

"I don't even know if they fit the label size," Kubby said. "They were
never intended to be used as labels. This was complete fiction."

Kubby was shown an application for life insurance he signed in July 1996.
Kubby stated on the application that in the previous two years he had not
been diagnosed with or treated for cancer.

Kubby said the statement was true. He hadn't been diagnosed with cancer in
that time nor seen a doctor for treatment.

"Were you taking medical marijuana in 1996?" Cattran asked.

"Yes," Kubby answered.

Kubby was also asked about his claim to be "Patient N" in Dr. Linus
Pauling's book about Vitamin C as medicine. Kubby had testified last week
that he took massive amounts of Vitamin C and it helped curb his cancer.
But he stopped because of diminishing results and side-effects, he said.

Kubby examined the reference in Pauling's book and remarked that it was
"inaccurate."

"It starts out saying I was a ski instructor," Kubby said. "I was never a
ski instructor."

The cross-examination also focussed on a Jan. 12, 1999 letter from the
Kubbys to the owner of their rented, $2,500-a-month home. Cattran's queries
centered around whether the Kubbys were negotiating to buy the house for
$580,000.

Kubby testified he received $1,000 a month for a disability pension and
that his online outdoor sports magazine was a money-loser. Michele Kubby
had owned a cleaning service but it had been sold in 1998. Kubby said he
didn't know how much it had been sold for. Kubby said his main sources of
income were donations for his marijuana activism. Money from that source
was actually increasing at the time of the raid, he said.

Kubby said the negotiations on the home were more an attempt to deal with
owners who were "hounding" them for an agreement.

The Jan. 12 letter mentioned a $580,000 purchase price with a down payment
of $50,000 at closing. Kubby said that he wanted to see if the cost of
purchasing the house would be less expensive than renting and had enlisted
Michele Kubby's father, a mathematician, to make the calculations.

Cattran asked Kubby if it was his understanding that the negotiations also
included a planned second balloon payment of $50,000 in December 2000.
Kubby replied that he didn't remember.