AUBURN IN LIMELIGHT WITH HIGH-PROFILE MEDI-POT CASES

Placer County's prosecution of medical marijuana advocate Steve Kubby
and his wife Michele is scheduled to resume a week from Tuesday, in
what promises to be a train wreck of a trial.

Headed for a collision are Placer County District Attorney Brad
Fenocchio and Steve Kubby, the Libertarian Party's 1998 candidate for
governor.

What is not in dispute is the fact that the multi-agency North Tahoe
Task Force raided the Kubbys' Olympic Valley home Jan. 19, 1999, and
seized 265 marijuana plants, computer equipment and a small amount of
cash.

County prosecutors cited the large number of plants, as well as the
presence of hallucinogenic mescaline, psychedelic mushrooms and drug
paraphernalia, in charging the couple with 19 criminal counts. To
prosecutors, the case is a simple matter of the Kubbys growing pot to
sell, and the facts speak to a criminal drug operation, said senior
Deputy District Attorney Gene Gini, who will co-prosecute the case
with Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran.

"The goal is that the truth comes forward and justice gets served,"
Gini said on Friday.

The raid came as no surprise to the Kubbys, who were tipped off after
the task force launched an investigation when it received an unsigned
letter claiming Kubby was selling pot to finance his campaign for
governor. Indeed, the Kubbys placed fliers in their household trash
for police to find, announcing that the Kubbys were growing marijuana
for medical purposes and possessed an amount consistent with federal
guidelines.

After their arrest, Steve Kubby underwent a battery of medical tests
at the University of Southern California under the supervision of Dr.
Vincent DeQuattro, the oncologist who diagnosed Kubby's rare adrenal
cancer 20 years earlier. The tests included a hair drug-residue test
that showed the Kubbys did not take any other illicit drug in at least
18 months.

Now the politically astute Kubbys will face their accusers in a Placer
County courtroom in a trial that pits prosecutors against the decision
by California voters in 1996 to approve Proposition 215, the
Compassionate Use Act that legalizes the use of marijuana for medical
purposes.

What is clear is that Steve Kubby acts like no other criminal
defendant I've ever seen. Listening to him, as I did in a phone
conversation Friday, you get the sense that authorities may be in
store for more than they bargained for.

"We didn't ask for this, but have had it thrust on us," Kubby said
about what he refers to as the "Scopes Monkey Trial" of medical
marijuana. "This issue is not about marijuana, but about my
indignation. All we're asking for is our elected officials and law
enforcement to uphold the law as it was passed by the voters. It's an
American tradition to uphold the rights of others even if we find
those rights repugnant."

With the aid of the Libertarian Party and other medical marijuana
activists, the Kubbys have raised more than $100,000 for their
defense. They have also conducted a nonstop lobbying campaign, seeking
intervention in their case by state and local officials. Most has gone
unanswered.

Over the past year, the Kubbys have filed a petition of grievance with
the Placer County Board of Supervisors, a civil rights complaint with
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, an internal affairs complaint with the
Placer County Sheriff's Office over their treatment in jail, an
85-page complaint with the Placer County grand jury and a complaint
with Secretary of State Bill Jones over what they say were misleading
ballot statements by law-enforcement officials opposing Prop. 215.

"We've charged election fraud in that [former Attorney General and
Placer County resident] Dan Lungren, with the full authority of his
office, said patients would have access to medical marijuana," Kubby
said about the 1996 ballot statement. "Either that's fraud, entrapment
or both."

The problem, as both sides recognize, is that state legislators were
unable to adopt guidelines for implementing the Compassionate Use Act.
Lockyer convened a task force to hammer out a set of rules, which were
translated into legislation, but Gov. Gray Davis announced that he
would not sign the bill and it died. Since then, the same clash over
medical marijuana has been repeated in one county after another, with
some counties throwing in the towel after prosecutors lost test cases.

Most recently, Calaveras County supervisors named a panel last week to
come up with rules to implement Prop. 215 after the acquittal of a
popular local artist who grew pot to smoke for medical reasons.

On Friday, Fenocchio said local guidelines do not make a lot of
sense.

"It would be helpful for every prosecutor in the state to have
statewide guidelines, rather than two, three, four or more counties
promulgating their own," Fenocchio told me during a visit to his
office. "One would not want to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
traveling through several counties, and not have the same standards
apply for arrest."

With the political will lacking in the Legislature to implement the
voter-approved medical marijuana bill, Placer County residents will be
witness to one of the highest-profile tests so far of the will of
California voters. Once the publisher of a popular online adventure
magazine, Steve Kubby now applies his computer and political skills
full-time on securing his right to the only medicine that has
controlled his usually fatal cancer.

"Just give me a computer, the Internet and a search engine, and a
regular citizen like me can navigate through a huge government beast
and find new checks and balances," Kubby said of his incessant
politicking. "All we're asking is for our elected officials and law
enforcement to uphold the law as it was passed by voters."

Fenocchio points out that his office has not contributed to the waves
of publicity the Kubby case has received.

"If there's any political whirlwind being created, we're not the ones
creating it," Fenocchio said on Friday.

If the Kubby case is not enough to capture the attention of Placer
residents, another high-profile medical pot case will follow on its
heels. Former Rocklin dentist Michael Baldwin and his wife Georgia
Baldwin in March will stand trial for a second time on charges of
cultivating marijuana to sell.

A jury deadlocked on charges of cultivation for sale against Michael
Baldwin, and voted 7-5 for acquittal of Georgia Baldwin after Superior
Court Judge James D. Garbolino cited Prop. 215 in tossing out simple
cultivation charges against the couple, who later separated.

So it looks like the medical marijuana controversy will dominate
headline in the county for the next few months.