JUDGE ADJOURNS POT EXILES' 'LIFE AND DEATH' HEARING

U.S. pot exile Steve Kubby says he'll have to keep buying marijuana on
the black market to stay alive after B.C. Supreme Court adjourned his
request for a 'temporary exemption' to drug laws until next month.

Kubby had asked to appear before a judge in B.C. Supreme Court in
Chilliwack to seek an exemption from drug charges laid after police
found marijuana plants at his Sechelt home.

Kubby also wants to ask the judge to order police to hand back pot
seized by Sechelt RCMP on 'life and death' medical grounds.

"I'm hoping that a judge will say that under the Charter of Rights, we
have the right when there's clearly a medical need to do what we were
doing without being treated like criminals," Kubby told the Coast Reporter.

But federal prosecutors working on the case told the judge they
weren't ready to go ahead with arguments in court on July 15.

Kubby called adjournment of his case disappointing. "What part of
life and dearth do they not understand?" he said.

Kubby, who suffers from adrenal cancer, says smoking pot is the only
thing that protects him from heart attacks and strokes which result
when his cancer cells start producing extra adrenaline.

Steve and Michele Kubby, high-profile medicinal pot activists from
California, moved to the Sunshine Coast last year with their children
ages six and two.

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

U.S. officials want Steve Kubby to serve a four-month jail sentence
for a California conviction for possessing a trace amount of
hallucinogenic mushroom.

The Kubby's say that isn't possible because Kubby wouldn't be allowed
access to the marijuana they say is keeping him alive.

Following an immigration hearing on the Lower mainland, the couple
returned to the Coast and applied for political refugee status as
members of a persecuted social group.

The Kubby issued a writ to the B.C. Supreme Court earlier this month
after hearing that an applicant was successful in a similar case that
came before the B.C. Supreme Court at the end of June.

The writ says "the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act fails to
adequately exempt persons from criminal liability who possess or
produce marijuana for personal medical use."