MARIJUANA ACTIVIST'S CONVICTIONS SLASHED

Felony Counts Against Cancer Patient Steve Kubby Are Cut To Misdemeanors;
Other Convictions Dismissed.

Applause erupted in a Placer County courtroom Friday when a judge reduced
to misdemeanors the felony drug convictions of medical marijuana activist
Steve Kubby and dismissed all the remaining marijuana counts against him.

Kubby, 54, who now lives in Lake County but plans to move to British
Columbia as soon as he fulfills the conditions of his probation, was fined
$2,700 and ordered to serve 120 days of alternative sentencing.

"The jail would not be an appropriate place for Mr. Kubby," said Judge John
L. Cosgrove, acknowledging Kubby's claim that he needs marijuana to keep a
rare form of cancer from taking his life.

Loudly expressing their appreciation for the judge's rulings were a couple
of dozen proponents of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, the law that
permits seriously ill Californians to cultivate and use marijuana for
medical purposes.

They had filled Cosgrove's courtroom in support of their standard-bearer,
Kubby, the Libertarian Party's candidate for governor in 1998.

And it turned out to be a banner day for the movement locally.

In addition to asking the judge to drop the marijuana case against Kubby
and his wife, Michele, Placer County District Attorney Bradford Fenocchio
also filed a motion to halt the pending retrial of Roseville dentist
Michael A. Baldwin and his wife, Georgia, on similar charges.

Both couples were arrested after raids on their homes turned up marijuana
gardens in various stages of cultivation.

And both claimed medical exemptions, citing doctors' recommendations that
they use marijuana to treat physical ailments that had disrupted their
lives for years.

The Baldwins' trial ended in May 1999 with the jury deadlocked, leaning
slightly toward acquittal.

And the four-month Kubby trial concluded in December with the jury hung at
11-1, the majority voting that the Kubbys' 265 plants were for medicinal
use only. But that same panel returned guilty verdicts against Steve Kubby
for possessing minute quantities of psilocybin and mescaline found during
the Jan. 19, 1999, search of his home.

The psilocybin was contained in a single mushroom stem that Kubby said he
had obtained and studied years ago for a book he wrote on the religious
significance of psychedelic mushrooms.

And the mescaline was in the form of a peyote button that Kubby claimed he
had never seen and must have been left in the house by a visitor.

The probation officer's report noted that the amount of illegal narcotics
recovered was "extremely small" and that Kubby's explanation for their
presence was "believable."

And Judge Cosgrove said those factors, along with Kubby's "impeccably
clean" prior record, persuaded him to treat both offenses as misdemeanors.

But Kubby didn't escape unscathed.

He will be subject to search and seizure for the three years he is on
formal probation and will have to serve 120 days in a yet-to-be-determined
alternative sentencing program.

In the motion to dismiss the remaining counts against Kubby, Deputy
District Attorney Christopher M. Cattran said the prosecutorial decision
was "not a comment on guilt or innocence, but rather an indictment of the
vagueness, whether intentional or unintentional," of the new law relating
to medical marijuana.

Cattran said the request to dismiss in no way reflected a lack of
confidence in the investigative efforts of the North Tahoe Narcotics Task
Force or the Placer County Sheriff's Department.

But "because of the vagueness (of the law), inconsistent court rulings
interpreting the section and the remaining conflict with Federal law, a
second trial on the remaining counts is not prudent," Cattran wrote.

On behalf of Fenocchio, Cattran asked the California Legislature "to
establish specific guidelines with respect to the amount of marijuana
appropriate for medical use."

And he pledged that, "Until the Legislature speaks," the Placer County
prosecutors' office "will work with law enforcement, citizens and health
care providers of this county and neighboring counties to establish
guidelines that provide guidance for law enforcement and a basis for
evaluation of each case."