COUNTY SUPERVISOR VOICES CONCERNS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROSECUTIONS

Placer County should await state rules for prosecution of medical
marijuana-related cases, Supervisor Rex Bloomfield said.

"Until there are guidelines out, I don't want to see us way off on one
extreme with a lot of expenses," Bloomfield said.

State voters in 1996 passed Proposition 215, the medical marijuana
initiative.

Speaking during an Aug. 8 workshop to discuss the county budget allotment
for the District Attorney's Office, Bloomfield asked, "Are we going to
continue numerous expensive prosecutions that are costing us a lot of
money?"

"We've been high-profile," he added, "and haven't done too well on the
prosecutions."

A four-month trial of Steve Kubby, a medical marijuana activist and former
Libertarian Party candidate for governor, resulted in a hung jury with a
vote of 11-1, with most voting that Kubby's cultivation of the plant was for
medicinal use. Jurors found him guilty of possessing small amounts of
psilocybin and mescaline.

Kubby said the psilocybin in a single mushroom stem was for study for a book
he wrote on the religious significance of psychedelic mushrooms. A visitor
must have left the mescaline, Kubby asserted during the trial.

The trial followed a 1999 search of his home in Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe
in eastern Placer County.

In March of this year, a judge dismissed all pot counts against Kubby and
reduced the felony drug convictions to misdemeanors.

Dan Gong, assistant district attorney, said at the budget workshop that an
Aug. 29 meeting has been set with officials from Placer, Sacramento, El
Dorado, Yuba and Amador counties to try to establish regional guidelines on
medical marijuana-related prosecutions.

Bloomfield said a regional policy could pose problems. A statewide policy is
needed so that all counties follow the same guidelines, he said.

"We really need someone from the state to say this is the way you
prosecute," said Bloomfield.

Gong said he agreed with the need for a uniform policy.

Steve and Michelle Kubby appeared before the supervisors in March after the
judge's decision to dismiss all marijuana convictions.

Michelle Kubby, referring to the 1999 search of their home, said people who
use medical marijuana "live in terror in Placer County."

"Make the patients who live in Placer County feel safe so that they can use
their medicine," she said.