U.S. DRUG FUGITIVE GETS CANADIAN POT LICENCE

Steve Kubby Fled California Over a Jail Sentence Handed Down On Pot Charges

VANCOUVER -- A high-profile American fugitive also facing drug charges in
B.C. has been granted the right to smoke and grow huge quantities of
marijuana for medical purposes.

Steve Kubby, who fled with his family to Sechelt on B.C.'s southern coast
to avoid a jail term in California, said he is "cleaning out our garage to
start growing.

"The Americans would do well to come up to Canada and see how the Canadians
are doing this," said Kubby, 56, after receiving his exemption.

His lawyer, John Conroy, who has represented many high-profile pot
activists in court, says he believes Kubby is the first U.S. citizen to be
granted one of the approximately 800 exemptions that have been issued by
Health Canada since "He's certainly the first one of the high-profile pot
refugees," said Conroy.

Kubby's permit allows him to grow 59 marijuana plants at a time for medical
use, to store up to 2,655 grams of the drug and to travel within Canada
carrying up to 360 grams.

Kubby says he smokes up to 12 grams of marijuana a day to control the
symptoms of a rare form of adrenal gland cancer.

He and his wife, Michelle, are well known in North America as advocates for
legalizing medicinal marijuana. Kubby was flagrant about his pot use and
eventually was charged with 11 counts of possession and trafficking in
California.

He was acquitted on all but two possession charges, for which he was
sentenced to four months.

Kubby fled with his family to Sechelt last year after the sentence was
handed down.

He was arrested on an immigration warrant last April after coming to the
attention of Sechelt RCMP in media reports about medicinal marijuana.

Since then, he has applied for political refugee status, a move similar to
one made by fellow U.S. pot refugee Renee Boje, who also lives in the
Sunshine Coast area.

The U.S. has asked Immigration Canada to deport both Kubby and Boje.

Kubby and his wife also face criminal charges of production of a controlled
substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking in connection with
160 plants police seized from their home in Sechelt in April.

Kubby said one of his biggest problems in B.C. has been that police just
don't believe he needs to smoke as much pot as he says he does to control
his condition.

He said the documents from Health Canada now bear out his claims.

Kubby won support for his marijuana use from Joseph Connor, a clinical
professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver
and medical oncologist at the B.C. Cancer Agency.

Connor said Kubby's heavy pot smoking controls the blood-pressure spikes,
rapid heartbeats, severe headaches and chest pains that can result when his
adrenal cancer cells produce too much adrenalin or other hormones.

Marijuana appears to be unique in that it controls Kubby's symptoms "better
than any currently available combination of standard medicines," wrote
Connor in a letter to Health Canada.