AMERICAN REFUGEES AGAIN FIND A HAVEN IN CANADA

Medical Marijuana Users Forcing Ottawa To Stand Up To U.S. Or Evict The Yanks

Vancouver, British Columbia -- Four decades ago, a wave of American draft
dodgers fled to Canada rather than fight in Vietnam. Some turned to
planting marijuana seeds to make a living and spurred an underground
industry that is now booming across British Columbia.

Over the last year or so, a new generation of Americans has flocked into
western Canada, fleeing the Bush administration's crackdown on the clubs
that say they provide marijuana to sick people, particularly in California.

A handful who face drug charges and convictions in the United States have
applied for political asylum. Hundreds more American marijuana smokers live
underground existences here, local marijuana advocates say.

Canada is in the awkward position in which it either must stand up to the
United States -- and encourage more refugees and asylum applications -- or
evict people who say they suffer from cancer and other deadly diseases.

While general use of marijuana is illegal in both countries, Canada has
been far more tolerant of its use for medical purposes. "Compassion clubs"
thrive in several Canadian communities to serve what they say are the
medical needs of severe pain sufferers.

"It's an exodus," said Renee Boje, 32, a Southern California fugitive from
drug charges who has applied for refugee status. "Canada has a history of
protecting the American people from its own government like during the
Vietnam War and the Underground Railroad that protected American runaway
slaves."

Most of the Americans here do not face charges at home, marijuana advocates
say, but came because they can get the drug more cheaply and easily here
now since the U.S. clubs were shut down.

"In the last year, the number of Americans coming and intending to stay has
skyrocketed," said Marc Emery, president of the British Columbia Marijuana
Party, who provides legal aid to the Americans. He estimated that the
number of recent arrivals was "in the hundreds."

Some of them work on farms, living a counterculture life not very different
from that of the previous generation of American refugees. Others are
living on the street, or moving from couch to couch in homes of Canadian
marijuana users. Some have gone into businesses such as herbal medicine
stores or work in marijuana cultivation.

To Bush administration officials, the fugitives are simply lawbreakers.

"It's regrettable that people who are charged with criminal offenses in the
United States don't face justice here and put a burden on another country,"
said John Walters, President Bush's drug policy chief.

He said that there was no evidence that smoking marijuana was an effective
medicine and that the agenda of many who argue for medicinal marijuana is
to legalize drugs.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration head Asa
Hutchinson have stiffened enforcement against marijuana clubs that had
grown around California after Proposition 215 passed in 1996 and made
marijuana a legal treatment for some sick people. Asserting the superiority
of federal anti-drug laws, federal agencies have raided some clubs,
including a Santa Cruz collective last week. Other clubs have closed or
gone underground.

Steven W. Tuck, a 35-year-old disabled veteran of the Army, fled to Canada
pretending he was going fishing after his club was repeatedly raided and he
faced drug charges. He was arrested for overstaying his visa and, fearing
deportation, applied for refugee status.

Sitting recently in Vancouver's Amsterdam Cafe, where smoking marijuana is
allowed, he was sweating and shaking while awaiting a friend who had gone
to buy some. "I have to have marijuana to stay alive," said Tuck, who said
his torment began in 1987 with an Army parachuting accident that caused
spinal and brain injuries.

If he is sent home and denied marijuana, Tuck says, he fears he will die
"choking on my vomit in jail."

The Canadian Justice Ministry will not discuss refugee cases. To grant
asylum, Canada would have to determine that the Americans would face
unwarranted persecution at home.

The cases come at a time when the Cabinet and Parliament are discussing
whether to decriminalize marijuana, with many Canadians arguing that U.S.
attitudes are overly restrictive. On Sept. 4, a Canadian Senate committee
recommended that the country legalize marijuana use for people over 16.

There is also a Cabinet debate over whether the government should provide
marijuana to chronically ill Canadians or conduct clinical trials first.

"We can't base our policy on social issues like this on American standards,
especially in an area where they're very conservative," said Industry
Minister Allan Rock, a former health minister who believes that chronically
ill patients should have access to quality- controlled marijuana.

The most prominent American fugitive here is Steve Kubby, 55, the
Libertarian Party candidate for governor of California in 1998. He and his
wife, Michele, have an Internet news program on marijuana issues.

The Squaw Valley family fled California last year for the rural British
Columbia town of Sechelt after the police found 265 marijuana plants, a
mushroom stem and some peyote buttons in their house. Kubby had been
sentenced to four months of house arrest and three months of probation,
which he feared might eventually lead to a prison term in which he would be
denied the marijuana that he says he needs to treat his adrenal cancer.

"If I don't smoke pot," he said, "my blood pressure goes through the roof
and would either burst a blood vessel or cause a heart attack."

He appealed his sentence, then brought his family to Canada. He was
arrested in Canada, and he could be deported.

Meanwhile, he applied for permission to cultivate and possess marijuana for
his own medical use. He provided Canadian authorities with a letter from a
University of British Columbia doctor who substantiated his need "to
continue to use cannabis to control the symptoms caused by his disease."

The government recently granted him the right to grow and possess a limited
amount for a year, which advocates viewed as a major victory.

"It's threatening to the whole ideology of prohibition," Kubby said, "which
says any marijuana use is criminal."