BID TO USE POT IN JAIL ENDS

Activist's Lawyer Says a Prescribed Drug Has Controlled His Blood Pressure.

In a court hearing that took less than two minutes, medical marijuana
activist Steven Wynn Kubby withdrew his request Friday to use
cannabis to treat his adrenal cancer while he serves a sentence in
the Placer County jail.

Kubby's attorney told a Placer Superior Court judge that Kubby had
stabilized his blood pressure while in jail by using the prescribed
drug Marinol, a synthetic form of marijuana's active ingredient, THC.

Kubby has contended that he will likely die if he is incarcerated
without being able to use medicinal marijuana.

Opinions are divided over whether a cancer patient should receive
Marinol or medicinal marijuana.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration implies in a fact sheet on
its Web site that cancer patients may not need marijuana because
Marinol can relieve the nausea and vomiting associated with
chemotherapy for cancer patients and that it assists with loss of
appetite among AIDS patients.

However, a physician who has treated Kubby, Dr. Joseph M. Connors of
the British Columbia Cancer Center, said he feels the withholding of
cannabis could ultimately harm Kubby.

On Friday, Kubby's attorney, William McPike of Fresno County, asked
Judge Robert McElhany to pull his motion seeking the use of edible
cannabis in jail off the court calendar but also said his client may
bring it back at a later time if any changes occur in his condition.

Kubby's wife, Michele, told reporters outside the Auburn courtroom
that her husband suffered with high blood pressure and other symptoms
during his first day of incarceration in Placer County on Jan. 27.

He was given Marinol, which helped him get through the night, Michele
Kubby said, and he has continued to receive three pills each day from
doctors in the jail.

"Steve believes the Marinol is helping," she said. "Had he not taken
it on that first day, he says he wouldn't have made it."

Kubby, 59, is serving a 120-day jail sentence for a drug conviction
in Placer County in 2000. He was supposed to serve the sentence in
2001, but he went to Canada and sought refuge.

He was deported from Canada on Jan. 26 after exhausting appeals to
remain, and he was arrested by police that night when his airplane
landed at San Francisco International Airport.

The Placer County Sheriff's Department has been adamant that he will
not be permitted to use cannabis in any form while he's in jail.

Another request in the motion that was withdrawn Friday was for
Kubby's probation to be terminated and for Kubby to be allowed to
serve the remainder of his 120-day sentence under house arrest while
wearing an electronic monitor.

Kubby will be back in court Feb. 15 to deal with another issue - an
allegation that he violated probation when he moved to Canada in 2001.

He faces a three-year prison sentence over the matter. He has denied
the allegation. A formal denial is similar to a plea of not guilty in
an arraignment.

Michele Kubby said she was pleased that Marinol has eased her
husband's pain in jail. But she said marijuana is still "his medicine
of choice."

Steve Kubby's form of cancer is known as pheochromocytoma, a rare
disease of the adrenal glands above the kidneys.

The University of Rochester Medical Center's Web site says that one
part of the glands, known as the medulla, produces adrenaline and
other hormones that affect blood pressure, heart rate and sweating.

Cancer develops in the medulla in the form of a tumor, usually
benign. It causes the secretion of excess hormones, giving a person
an "adrenaline rush," similar to the feeling one gets when
frightened, the site says.

Symptoms of the disease include sudden or sustained high blood
pressure that often resists treatment. Sweating, nausea, headaches,
rapid pulse or heart palpitations are other symptoms, the site says.

Conners, the physician who treated Kubby in Canada, said the high
blood pressure caused by the cancer could lead to a heart attack or a stroke.

The excess adrenaline being produced, he said, stimulates the heart
to "run faster and to pump harder, increasing the heart rate and
blood pressure."

"This puts extra strain on the heart," Connors said.

Connors said he also has treated Kubby with medicine known as alpha
and beta blocking agents.

"They specifically counterattack the effects of the adrenaline," he
said. "But over the years of treatment, Mr. Kubby simply observed
that smoke from the marijuana did a better job than the alpha and
beta blockers."

McPike, Kubby's attorney, said earlier this week after a court
session that marijuana also seemed to be more effective in treating
symptoms than Marinol.

Connors said it is unknown why marijuana quells the adrenal glands in
Kubby's case. He added that chemotherapy is useless on Kubby's form
of the cancer.

"Chemotherapy may work for many different cancers, but it has no
effect on pheochromocytoma," he said.