BORDER-HOPPING TO BEAT THE RAP

Flight: A California woman claims refugee status in Canada, seeking to avoid
drug charges in the United States.

Renee Boje is a minor character in a major California marijuana case -- "a
very small fish," as she says.

Yet the 30-year-old free-lance artist has managed to create an international
stir in her battle to avoid trial on U.S. drug charges. In essence, Boje
claims she is among the thousands of refugees seeking protection in Canada
from rogue governments and dictatorships.

She is a political victim, she says, of the U.S. war on drugs.

"The punishment does not fit the crime," she says. "I am only guilty of
being too trusting and underestimating the power and determination of some
very dark forces in my government."

Boje (pronounced Bo-zhay) once lived in Bel Air, Calif., at a mansion known
as "the castle," where she sketched pictures of marijuana for a friend who
was writing a book about how to grow the plants. He was cultivating more
than 4,000 plants that he said were for medical purposes and research.

That leisurely life ended abruptly in July 1997, when federal drug agents
raided the mansion. Federal indictments charged nine people with growing and
then selling the plants to a cannabis buyer's club, which then dispensed the
narcotic.

Boje and the others say they were growing marijuana legally under a 1996
California law permitting the drug to be used for medical purposes. Seven
other states have passed similar "medical marijuana" measures. Supporters of
those laws say marijuana helps alleviate pain and nausea.

Boje's friend, Todd McCormick, 29, and his chief backer, Peter McWilliams,
50, accepted a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to conspiring to create
a commercial marijuana-cultivation operation. McCormick, who has cancer, has
agreed to a five-year prison term. McWilliams, who has AIDS, faces up to
five years in prison.

The indictment against Boje accuses her of conspiring to grow and
manufacture marijuana, charging that she was observed watering the plants
and smoking marijuana. If convicted on all charges, she would face a minimum
of 10 years in prison.

But before she could be indicted, Boje fled in late 1997 to British
Columbia. The province is known as a haven for marijuana growers and users.
One recent poll showed that 63 percent of its residents thought possession
of marijuana should not be a criminal offense.

There, Boje lives in a two-story home within walking distance of a beach and
forest. "It's got a balcony with a view of forest and lots of windows and a
skylight for viewing the stars at night," she says.

For a time she drew pictures and grew cannabis, trying to relax after "the
intensity of the U.S." But her marijuana-growing activity was again
shattered by authorities -- Canadian police, this time. Last February she
was arrested, and U.S. officials were alerted to her whereabouts. (Marijuana
charges arising from her Canadian arrest were dropped yesterday, Boje says.)

Boje hired an attorney and began fighting extradition to the United States.
She claims to be a refugee from political persecution, and says she is a
victim of the conflict between California's voters, who passed the
referendum approving the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and U.S.
officials who continue to enforce federal prohibitions on the drug. She also
says she will face inhumane conditions, including sexual molestation, in
U.S. prisons.

So far, Boje has lost most of her court battles.

First, she was denied a chance to appear before a refugee review board
because of the U.S. criminal charges pending against her.

Of the 62 Americans who were allowed to apply in Canada for refugee status
in 1998, none was accepted. Overall, about 44 percent of the 30,000
applicants were granted the protection. Most of these came from countries
that are either non-democratic or undergoing civil conflict, or both.

A Canadian judge is expected to rule soon on the U.S. request for Boje's
extradition. If she loses that fight, she can appeal to the justice minister
and then appeal through the court system to Canada's Supreme Court. The
process could take almost two years.

John Conroy, her attorney, says that Boje has a good shot at winning because
many Canadians believe that U.S. drug policy is unfair. If she had been
charged in Canada with a similar offense and officials determined that the
marijuana was intended for use as medicine, he says, she would likely get a
fine.

"The American penalty is clearly disproportionate to what we think is
proportionate up here," Conroy says.

Other legal experts doubt that she will win her court fight.

"She has some chance, but probably not a very good chance," says Julius
Grey, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal.

A ruling in Boje's favor could harm U.S.-Canadian relations, legal scholars
say, and Canadian judges might not want to risk upsetting their country's
closest and largest neighbor.

A Canadian judge would be more likely to block an American extradition
order, the scholars say, when an accused person faced a potential death
sentence. Canadian law forbids capital punishment.

"I have a hard time believing that Canada would use its political clout to
protect somebody like this," says John Yoo, an international and
constitutional law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Though Boje has garnered some attention in international publications,
including a December profile in Glamour magazine, Canada's local press has
played down the story.

"It doesn't have a high profile," says John Drabble, city editor for the
Vancouver Sun. "This is not front-page news."

He says that most Canadians understand the reason Americans take the drug
fight so seriously -- gun violence. He has even received a few faxes from
readers who advocate sending Boje back home to face charges.

Boje's fight has also highlighted policy differences between state and
federal officials about allowing marijuana for medical uses.

"The most grievous concern is that 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids will want to
rationalize their behavior," says Thomas Constantine, former head of the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

"They will say these are not drugs and they are not dangerous. They'll say
it's medicine."

But Boje, an artist who creates stained glass, paints, makes cartoons and
takes photographs, says that new studies show that marijuana is a valuable
medicine and pain reliever.

She says she smokes marijuana because she suffers from migraine headaches
and because "I also suffer from stress."

She has established a legal-defense fund, and her Web site
(http://www.thecompassionclub.org/renee) proclaims that she is in dire
straits: "Emergency funds needed."

She says she worries about bounty hunters coming her for in the middle of
the night to "put her in the back of a van and drive her across the border."

If she avoids prison, she plans to stay in Canada.

"I actually want to open a holistic, environmentally conscious healing
community," she says. "Offer lots of different Things. Acupuncture, anything
to do with alternative healing."