DRUG WAR REFUGEE

One Woman's Flight From Injustice

One spring afternoon in 1998, Renee Boje arrived at a Canadian
checkpoint just over the border from Bellingham, Washington. She had
only $50 cash and a backpack filled with her belongings. The canadian
border guard asked her name, then typed it into a computer, which
promptly produced an official record. It indicated that Boje had been
accused of a crime in the U.S. but that the charges had been dropped.
The computer didn't provide specifics, so the guard asked Boje what
the crime had been. Murder? Armed robbery? Kidnapping?

Marijuana, Boje replied. The guard waved her through. Boje walked for
a few minutes until she could no longer see the checkpoint, then
turned cartwheels.

Boje had good reason to feel relieved, though her celebration would
prove premature. As a fringe player in one of the most closely watched
drug prosecutions in America, Boje would be fighting deportation
within a year. As you read this, she may well be back in a U.S. jail.

Her saga began in July 1997, one year after California passed
Proposition 215, a referendum allowing the use of marijuana for the
treatment of pain or long-term illness. Federal agents raided the Bel
Air home of cancer patient Todd McCormick, where they arrested
McCormick, Boje and six others on the charge of conspiring to grow and
sell marijuana. Writer Peter McWilliams was later arrested.

The DEA agents claim they saw Boje watering and moving some of the
4000 plants on the premises. Boje, an artist, says she had been hired
to provide illustrations for a book McCormick and McWilliams were
preparing on medicinal marijuana.

Boje spent 72 hours in a Los Angeles jail before charges were dropped.
She then went to work raising money for McCormick's defense. When
Boje's lawyer learned the government was planning to reinstate the
charges against her, he advised her to leave the country - or face a
possible sentence of ten years to life.

On learning of Boje's whereabouts, U.S. officials asked Canada to
extradite her to face justice. Boje, in turn, asked Canada to consider
her a political refugee, just as it might consider a refugee from Cuba
or Iraq. Boje's support of medicinal marijuana places her in the
middle of a war raging between federal prosecutors who reject such use
and the states that have legalized the cultivation, possession and
consumption of cannabis for sick people.

Within the borders of the U.S., the case is viewed as an interesting
collision between states rights (seven states have legalized medicinal
marijuana) and federal will (General Barry McCaffrey and Attorney
General Janet Reno defend "congressional determination" - i.e., the
lawmakers' right to draft draconian measures).

On November 5, 1999 federal judge George King ruled that the Bel Air
defendants could not refer to Proposition 215, nor could they claim
their actions were legal under state law. They couldn't mention the
medical benefits of marijuana nor claim that McCormick's illness
constitutes a "medical necessity." The accused had manufactured
marijuana, pure and simple, and that was against federal law. Stripped
of their only defense, McCormick and McWilliams agreed to a plea bargain.

In fighting extradition, Boje had planned to argue that U.S. prisons
have become so brutal that placing her in one, even to await trial,
constitutes punishment that is too harsh by Canadian standards. Boje
told members of the press that she had been repeatedly strip-searched
during her 72-hour incarceration. Her experience is certainly not
unique. Amnesty International has documented the widespread abuse of
women in U.S. prisons, "including male staff touching inmates' breasts
and genitals when conducting searches, male staff watching inmates
while they are naked, and instances of rape." Norway recently refused
to extradite an American charged with smuggling hashish, citing
"inhumane" conditions in U.S. prisons.

Boje also hoped Canadian authorities would respond to the patent
injustice of the proposed sentence. Had she been charged in Canada
solely with watering a marijuana plant, Boje's sentence likely would
have been probation. However, had she been licensed by Canada to grow
and use medicinal marijuana, or had she worked in the illegal but
officially tolerated Compassion Club in Vancouver, she might simply
have received a stern warning to be more discreet. U.S. agents,
however, produced a charge of conspiracy to manufacture and sell.
Under Canadian law, courts must deny refugee status if a similar
charge in Canada carries a possible sentence of more than ten years in
prison (which it does). Lawmakers to the north view conspiracy as an
offense deserving of a maximum life sentence.

As of late December, a Canadian judge had yet to render a final ruling
on the extradition request. For an update on Boje's case, visit
thecompassionclub.org/renee.