WHITE WADES INTO IMMIGRATION WATERS

Abbotsford MP Randy White vows he'll stop a U.S. medical marijuana user
from gaining refugee status here in Canada, a precedent he says could open
the floodgates to thousands of drug users from south of the border.

"I'm going to expose this for what it is," he says. "It's about a
well-funded lobby to legalize drugs."

The Opposition MP also criticized Canadian immigration officials for
agreeing to hear the refugee request by Steve Kubby, a California man who
recently obtained a licence from Health Canada to grow marijuana here for
medical reasons.

Mr. White says the eight-day hearing that starts next week in Vancouver is
an abuse of the system and will cause delays for legitimate refugee
claimants facing genuine risk in their homelands.

"I think it's totally inappropriate and unacceptable," he says about the
refugee hearing. "There is no such thing as a refugee from the United States."

"This is about political interference in the program as well," he adds.
"Part of it is politics, and there's no place for politics in a refugee
hearing that is about American drug laws."

He says Mr. Kubby is "a lobbyist for the legalization of drugs" and his
claim isn't about obtaining refugee status "it's about fighting the battle
over drugs in the U.S. here in Canada."

If refugee status is granted to Mr. Kubby, there are 30,000 medical
marijuana users in California alone who will be looking at crossing the
B.C. border, he warns, and if safe injection sites for addicts go ahead in
Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto as planned, "what's to stop heroin and
crack addicts from applying for refugee status as well."

But Mr. Kubby, 56, says he came into Canada legally, and deporting him back
to the U.S. where he faces two misdemeanor convictions for possessing an
"un-usable amount" of peyote and mushrooms, which wouldn't bring a jail
sentence in Canada, would be "tantamount" to a death sentence.

If deported and sent to a U.S. prison, he says without marijuana "it's just
a matter of days before I suffer a fatal heart attack or stroke."

He says the eight days of public hearings before the refugee board is "a
terrible waste of public resources and shows clearer than ever that people
like myself and my family are political targets."

But he denies being a lobbyist for marijuana legalization, and says those
who advocate that position don't like the medical-use issue because it
blurs their own message.

"They want full legalization," he says. "That's not our position."

Mr. Kubby says he and his wife Michele "have never accepted a penny of drug
legalization money" although a "minor" donation was made by B.C. pot
activist Marc Emery.

"This is being driven by people who are suffering, by common people who are
tired of being abused and treated as a murderer, or worse, just because
they choose to grow a plant not approved by the government," he says.

"I have been an upstanding, highly-respected businessman all my life," he
adds. "It's only when I went public that cannabis is the only thing keeping
me alive (that) everyone wants to write me off as some kind of criminal."

Mr. Kubby was instrumental in getting a California proposition passed to
allow medical use of marijuana in that state, however, federal U.S. drug
laws over-ride state statutes. He says if the board grants him refugee
status as a medical marijuana patient "that doesn't allow people with
heroin and cocaine addictions to come into Canada."

He agrees more U.S. medical marijuana users may seek refugee status as a
result, but he says it is "absurd" for immigration officials to go after
"sick" people like himself, who can still be productive citizens, when
there are already many illegal immigrants in the country.

He also says health care costs in Canada could be reduced by the use of
marijuana for medical treatments.

"As any of the operators of (medical marijuana) compassion clubs will tell
you, most of their patients come off expensive pharmaceutical drugs once
they start using and getting relief from cannabis," he says. "If Canada and
Canadians really want to do something to get their health care system in
shape, they can study the clubs and verify what I've just said."

A spokesperson for the refugee board, which is independent from the federal
Immigration Ministry, says the ministry could have refused Mr. Kubby's
refugee claim, but "if they do not make that exclusion, the case
automatically comes to us" and a hearing is held.

But the vast majority of claims are not held in public, and are normally
"non-adversarial" in nature, says spokesperson Melissa Anderson.

She says Mr. White applied for the public hearing, which will allow an
immigration ministry representative to "test the credibility" of Mr.
Kubby's claim for refugee status based on the alleged risk of "cruel and
unusual punishment" in the U.S.

She says it is "fairly unusual" for the ministry to take part in refugee
hearings "but not in high-profile cases" like the illegal immigrants from
China who landed on B.C.'s coast, and "where the department feels there are
issues that need to be addressed."

Most refugee hearings are completed in half a day, but some have gone on
for up to 45 days depending on the complexity of the claim, she says.

"We do get quite a few requests from the U.S., however, in time only one
American has been found to be a refugee," she says, but that finding was
later overturned by a federal court judge.

There were 84 U.S. "protection" requests accepted by the board last year,
but none were approved, she adds. The total number of U.S. refugee requests
jumped from 81 in 2001 to 213 last year.

The public hearings for Mr. Kubby's refugee claim start March 5 at the
Vancouver office of the Immigration and Refugee Board.