NOTHING EASY ABOUT LIFE IN EXILE

Humboldt County Man Dreams Of Returning Home, But
Threat Of Prosecution Keeps Him Away

Steve Tuck fled his McKinleyville home nine months ago to avoid
marijuana trafficking charges.

Now living on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, the self-styled
medical marijuana researcher has picked up where he left off.

He and five friends -- three Canadians, two Americans -- maintain a
small, chalet-roofed house near Gibsons solely to grow pot.

Still, life in exile is hard.

"Living here would be wonderful -- if I could go home," said Lucy
Tuck, who followed her husband north in November.

A Kentucky native, Steve Tuck was arrested in Humboldt County in July
2000, and sheriff's deputies seized almost 800 pot plants.

The district attorney chose not to prosecute, saying Tuck was
"misinformed" about the county's interpretation of Proposition 215,
which legalized medicinal marijuana use with a doctor's approval.

Last March, sheriff's deputies descended again, seizing 900 plants
Tuck was growing for the Humboldt Research Institute, which he founded
to grow and study marijuana.

The district attorney filed six felony charges against him, including
cultivation and intent to distribute.

Tuck, who studied biology and environmental sciences at Western
Kentucky University, said he was producing distinct marijuana strains
to treat symptoms of specific illnesses such as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma
and multiple sclerosis.

He and other advocates argue that Prop. 215 is a farce if people can't
grow enough pot to meet the needs of medical users.

But those who arrested Tuck have little patience for his
claims.

"He's not a medicinal marijuana man. He's a drug dealer," said Sgt.
Wayne Hanson, who heads the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department drug
enforcement unit.

At Tuck's new pot house, a brass plaque by the front door reads: "No
agents, peddlers or solicitors."

The house is sparsely furnished: A small glass-topped table with three
chairs, an unassembled weight bench, a partially assembled punching
bag apparatus, an exercise machine, a computer on a small desk, some
plastic storage bins.

A Rottweiler puppy romps through the rooms.

A 10-foot-by-111/2 -foot room with wall-to-wall beige carpeting is
crammed with 50 healthy-looking marijuana plants; many of them, at 6
feet tall, dwarf Tuck.

Suspended from two four-by-four beams, five lanterns provide the right
6,000-watt mixture of high pressure sodium and metal halide lighting.

"There are hundreds of grow rooms like this on the coast," he said
during a visit to the house. "This is the Humboldt County of Canada."

According to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Ed Hill, 38
indoor marijuana gardens were raided in the area over the past year;
none involved Americans.

"In no way are we turning a blind eye to it," Hill
said.

But Tuck said British Columbia is a far less risky place to grow
marijuana. Certainly he has a different relationship with Canadian
officials than he did with those at home.

This month the Canadian government accepted his offer to donate 600
marijuana seeds for use in the country's 9-month-old medical marijuana
program. The seeds will be tested "to determine their acceptability
for use," said a Canadian Health Ministry spokesman.

A small, thin man -- he stands 5 feet 6 inches -- Tuck, in a machine
gun chatter of sentences, defends a life now devoted to growing and
smoking pot: "It saved my life, I'm not ashamed of it. I don't break
into people's houses. I don't steal. I was trying to help people."

Unlike some refugees, Tuck's U.S. charges aren't federal. So he'd be
permitted to invoke Proposition 215 and medical marijuana use as
elements of his defense.

But the Tucks say Humboldt County law enforcement officials have it in
for them. And, pointing to other cases, they fear that even if they
beat the local charges, federal heat would soon turn their way.

Nevertheless, said Lucy Tuck, "we've even talked about Steve turning
himself in so we could go home. It's hard living here with no family."

She faces no charges in the United States, but Steve's her husband and
without marijuana, the Tucks say, he'll die sooner than he should.

Tuck was honorably discharged from the Army in 1987 after injuring his
spine. He credits marijuana with saving his life and getting him out
of a wheelchair. Complications from the injury continue to plague him,
and he also uses morphine for pain.

The Tucks dream of returning to Humboldt County -- to open another pot
club.

"What I want to know is, am I going to die in a foreign country?"
Steve Tuck said. "Because I'm in a lot of pain, and I want to go home."

"If he'd stuck around he could have gone to court, had this thing
adjudicated by now and gone on with his life," said Jim Dawson, an
investigator at the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office.