LAWYER - MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENT TAKEN FROM HOSPITAL BED IN CANADA
TO FACE CHARGE IN U.S.

SEATTLE - An Army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for
growing marijuana to treat his chronic pain was yanked from a hospital
by Canadian authorities, driven to the border with a catheter still
attached, and turned over to U.S. officials, his lawyer says.

He then went five days with no medical treatment and only ibuprofen
for the pain, attorney Douglas Hiatt said.

Steven W. Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when
he shuffled into federal court for a detention hearing Wednesday,
Hiatt said. ``This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days
for no reason,'' Hiatt said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. Donohue ordered Tuck temporarily
released so he could be taken to a hospital for treatment.

However, Tuck's release hit a snag later Wednesday when King County
Jail officials received a detainment request from authorities in
Humboldt County, Calif., Hiatt said.

Hiatt negotiated into the night with jail officials. Tuck suffered
debilitating injuries in the 1980s when his parachute failed to open
during a jump, and those injuries were exacerbated by a car crash in
1990, Hiatt said. He said Tuck was using marijuana to treat his
chronic pain. In 2001, while he was living in McKinleyville, Calif.,
his marijuana operation was raided for the second time. He fled to
British Columbia to avoid prosecution but asylum was denied.

Last Friday, he checked himself into a Vancouver hospital for
prostate problems, and it was there that he was arrested.

Richard Cowan, a friend who runs the Web site marijuananews.com, said
in a telephone interview from Canada that he was with Tuck at the
hospital when Canadian authorities arrested him.

``I would not believe it unless I had seen it,'' Cowan said. ``They
sent people in to arrest him while he was on a gurney. They took him
out of the hospital in handcuffs, put him in an SUV, and drove him to
the border.'' He was turned over to Whatcom County Jail officials,
who called federal marshals. The marshals took him to the King County
Jail in Seattle. Though Tuck has taken morphine - as prescribed by
doctors - for about 16 years to help with his pain, he was given no
painkiller or treatment at the jail other than ibuprofen, Hiatt said.
Tuck appeared emaciated in court, and Hiatt said he had been sick
from morphine withdrawal.

A message left with representatives of the King County Jail was not
immediately returned Wednesday. A spokesman with the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police in Vancouver said he could not immediately comment on
the case. Tuck is charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid
prosecution. Donohue agreed to release him on the condition that he
face the charge in the Northern District of California upon his release
from the hospital. The Supreme Court ruled in June that people who
smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it to ease pain can be
prosecuted for violating federal drug laws, even in states like
California that have laws permitting medical marijuana use.