POT USER IN U.S. TO FACE SENTENCE

Client Could Die Without Marijuana, Lawyer Says

SAN FRANCISCO - Medical marijuana crusader Steve Kubby was arrested
Thursday night at San Francisco Airport after spending years as a
fugitive in British Columbia.

Kubby was arrested on a no-bail warrant and booked into San Mateo
county jail, San Francisco police said.

There was an emotional farewell earlier Thursday at Vancouver
International Airport as Kubby reluctantly returned to the United
States to face a jail sentence.

Kubby's supporters and family were on hand as he boarded a flight to
California escorted by his American lawyer, who worried he could die
without access to pot in jail.

"The officials in Canada might be sending him back to a death
sentence," Bill McPike said.

Kubby, who made a failed bid for governor of California in 1998 under
the Libertarian party banner, said U.S. officials don't understand his
medicinal need for pot.

"The thought of people having an open animosity towards me, people
that want to harm me, that want to bury their mistakes, that's very
distressing," he said.

Kubby, 58, and his wife Michele had been fighting to stay in Canada
almost since they arrived from the United States in 2001.

Kubby attempted to claim Canadian refugee status on the basis of
persecution, both for his political opinion and his medicinal use of
pot.

He said he smokes the drug to alleviate symptoms of a rare cancer
called pheochromocytoma, which causes the adrenal glands to produce
massive amounts of adrenaline.

Kubby was diagnosed 20 years ago and is believed to be longest-lived
survivor of the disease. He credits the use of marijuana for
controlling his adrenaline levels and claims the drug is the only
thing keeping death at bay.

Kubby was supposed to serve a 120-day sentence for a drug conviction
handed down by a court in Placer County, near Sacramento, Calif.

He faced marijuana charges but they were dropped after he successfully
argued medical necessity.

Kubby is scheduled to appear at the Placer County courthouse next
Tuesday.

It's not clear whether he will face additional charges for fleeing the
country, the lawyer added.

In the final hours before Kubby was due to get on a plane, his
Canadian lawyer, Kirk Tousaw, was petitioning a B.C. Supreme Court
judge for an injunction to prevent the minister of immigration from
removing the Kubby family from Canada.