MEDICAL MJ USERS TAKE REFUGE IN CANADA

By Thomas D. Elias
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT


Vancouver, British Columbia - American medical marijuana activists have been
heading to Canada in the past year, joining a fast-growing expatriate
community reminiscent of the draft dodgers of the 1960s and '70s.

Most of the medipot users have come since July 30, when Canada instituted
new regulations that allow users of medipot to grow and smoke a specified
amount of marijuana after they demonstrate a medical necessity and get
permits from local authorities. The amount each is allowed to use varies
from case to case.

Canadian authorities say they are unsure exactly how many new immigrants
from America are medipot refugees. "They don't usually list that on our
paperwork as their reason for coming here," says An- gela Battiston of the
Canadian immigration service.

But so-called "compassion clubs" of pot users say the number of medipot
refugees probably is in the hundreds.

"We have several here and we're just a small town," said an officer of the
Sunshine Coast Compassion Club, located in Sechelt, British Columbia, a town
of 18,000 reachable only by a one-hour ferry from Vancouver.

Some of the activists as well as their Canadian supporters have compared the
immigrants to the young Americans who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War
seeking refuge from a draft law they opposed.

"Canada has a history of protecting people from their own governments," said
Renee Boje, a medical marijuana user fighting extradition from British
Columbia to California on drug charges.

"We're really not like draft dodgers fleeing the Vietnam War," says Steve
Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian Party candidate for governor of California. "For
many of us, this is a matter of life and death."

Kubby, who moved to Sechelt last winter, was acquitted last year of
marijuana possession and possession-for-sale charges after a highly
publicized trial in Auburn, Calif. But he was nevertheless convicted on one
misdemeanor count of possessing a hallucino- genic mushroom and sentenced to
120 days in jail.

Kubby moved to Sechelt a few months after having partial success using
California's 1996 Proposition 215 as a defense, even though a series of
attorneys general and the U.S. Supreme Court have held that federal
narcotics laws override the ballot initiative, which allows use of marijuana
for medical reasons with a physician's approval.

At his trial, Kubby produced testimony from a University of Southern
California doctor who said steady pot smoking is the only reason he is alive
25 years after being diagnosed with a rare form of adrenal cancer.

He fled to Canada after learning he would not be allowed to use marijuana in
jail. "The 120 days amounts to a death sentence," he said.

Kubby is one of three medipot refugees from California arrested by Canadian
immigration officers this spring. All face possible deportation after
hearings in Vancouver during the next two months. All are free on bail.

"We believe his U.S. conviction classes him as criminally inadmissible as an
immigrant to Canada," said Battiston.

Others now threatened with deportation include Steve Tuck, 35, with six
felony pot charges against him in Humboldt County, Calif., and Ken Hayes,
wanted on federal charges of growing pot for sale through a medical
marijuana users club in San Francisco.

Using Proposition 215 as a defense, Hayes was acquitted in 1999 on previous
charges of possessing 899 pot plants he said he was growing for use by the
same medipot club. Tuck also maintains he was growing marijuana to control
pain and muscle spasms arising from a spinal injury.

All three contend their immigration woes are a form of continuing harassment
by California and U.S. authorities.

Copyright =A9 2002, Newsday, Inc.