MEDICAL POT DEFENDANT ASKS LOCKYER TO STEP IN

Medical marijuana advocate Steve Kubby has gone on the offensive in his
battle with Placer County law enforcement, alleging that his "basic right"
to use "the only medicine that keeps me alive" has been violated. In a
formal complaint dated Tuesday, the 1998 Libertarian gubernatorial
candidate asked state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to intervene in the
pending prosecution of Kubby and his wife, Michele, claiming the
possession-for-sale charges filed against them are bogus.

"My wife and I are victims of those who seek to gut Prop. 215 and punish
those behind it," said Kubby, whose physician has submitted a letter to the
court declaring that marijuana "not only controlled the symptoms of
(Kubby's cancer) but, in my view, has arrested its growth."

Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act passed by voters in 1996,
legalized the cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical use in
California. Kubby was one of its chief proponents.

The prosecution contends that the Kubbys' in-home cultivation of 265
plants, 110 of them fully grown and budded females, exceeded the number
necessary to meet his medical needs.

But Kubby disagrees.

"We are but two of dozens of patients and caregivers who acted in good
faith following passage of 215 and have been cynically arrested by
narcotics agents who seek to invalidate the voters' will and the present
state law," Kubby charged.

Kubby named Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner, District Attorney Brad
Fenocchio, Undersheriff Steve D'Arcy, Deputy District Attorneys Christopher
Cattran and Eugene Gini and sheriff's investigator Michael Lyke as those
"who bear direct responsibility for what was done to me and my family."

Because Kubby is the subject of an ongoing prosecution, none of the law
enforcement officials contacted would comment on his complaint.

Sheriff Bonner said he hadn't seen the allegations. "(Kubby's) got a court
date coming up. We'll address it then," he stated.

Fenocchio reacted with a simple, "No comment."

Kubby's complaint went to the Department of Justice public inquiry unit,
which will assign staff to examine the matter and address the issues as
needed, said Nathan Barankin, the attorney general's communications director.

In his complaint, Kubby, 53, described himself as a "legally disabled
terminal cancer patient" whose condition requires that he consume about
seven pounds of marijuana a year.

He said the raid last Jan. 19 at his Squaw Valley home and subsequent
incarceration almost killed him, destroyed his primary source of income and
forced him out of his home and into bankruptcy.

"I never chose to be a medical marijuana patient, but I've exhausted every
other therapy, including radiation, surgery, chemotherapy and exotic
drugs," Kubby wrote. "Only medical marijuana worked for me."

Kubby pointed out that he played a key role in passing a law "to help
people like me. . . . My wife and I were in careful compliance with the
Compassionate Use Act and should not have been arrested.

"After a year and a half of investigation, not one instance of sales has
been uncovered. Both my wife and I passed a test to prove we use no illegal
drugs," he declared.

The Kubbys are scheduled to go to trial on charges of possession,
possession for sale, conspiracy and cultivation in mid-February.