Steve Kubby
The idea that the cancer patient behind California Proposition 215 would spend a single day in jail suffering from a rare form of adrenal cancer for over 25 years, is so absurd frankly - I find it hard to even believe.
VANCOUVER — An American medical marijuana advocate who tried to claim refugee status in Canada is out of jail in California and says he wants to come back here - at least for a visit.
Steve Kubby served a total of 40 days of a 120-day sentence for possessing drugs found in a police raid almost a decade ago.
Last week, California Superior Court essentially erased the conviction under legislation that allows the move when defendants have fulfilled the terms of their probation.
“This was such a tempest in a teapot,” Kubby, a 61-year-old former ski magazine publisher and pot activist, said in an interview from his home in Mendocino, Calif. “This whole thing was so absurd. It’s finally gotten straightened out.”
He is not just a “medical marijuana advocate” - he deserves a bit more recognition than that…
Steven “Steve” Wynn Kubby (born December 28, 1946) is a Libertarian Party activist who played a key role in the drafting and passage of California Proposition 215. The proposition was a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana which was approved by voters in 1996. Kubby himself is well-known as a cancer patient who relies on medical cannabis.
I’d like to thank him personally should he ever read this. 
Kubby suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer that he says can only be kept in check by using marijuana. Without it, he says his body over-produces adrenaline, which can spike blood pressure, causing heart attacks and strokes.
Not only has the medical marijuana kept his cancer in check - as his doctor has claimed it has stopped its growth!
All other patients with this diagnosis have had a 100% mortality rate within five years. His physician, Dr. Vincent DeQuattro, a specialist from the USC School of Medicine, monitored his condition and treated him with conventional therapies, including chemotherapy, until referring him to the Mayo Clinic in 1981 for yet another surgery and radiation.
For the next 25 years, Kubby claimed to control the symptoms of his disease solely by smoking medical marijuana and by maintaining a healthy diet. His original doctor, an expert on this condition shocked to learn he was still alive, said, “In some amazing fashion, this medication has not only controlled the symptoms of the pheochromocytoma, but in my view, has arrested its growth.”
Wow, a 100% mortality rate in under 5 years thwarted by the natural medical marijuana use.
He said his work on a 1996 voter initiative that set up California’s medical marijuana licensing system brought him enemies in the anti-drug establishment. Kubby and his wife Michele were arrested in 1999 by police in Placer County, near Sacramento, on allegations they were running a major marijuana grow-op. While appealing the conviction, Kubby and his family came to Canada in 2001, setting up house on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast and later near Kamloops.
He claimed refugee status, arguing that he’d be deprived of life-saving pot in jail in the U.S.
Life-saving is exactly what it is when you read about how long he has battled cancer. Medical marijuana should never be denied to people like this.
After losing a court appeal, he complied with a voluntary departure order in 2006, flying back to the United States to turn himself in.
In the end Kubby served only 20 days of the 120-day term in Placer County jail, plus 20 more for a probation violation in coming to Canada.
Not that bad, unless of course you are suffering daily pain and agony from not being able to use a natural medicinal herb. Again, this is not just some “stoner” trying to smoke pot and circumvent law - this is very real.
“They pulled me off the plane and roughed me up, treated me like a criminal, like a terrorist,” says Kubby.
“They nearly killed me. I was peeing blood. I scared the hell out of the hospital staff, I was having such a rough time.”
Would you not use medical marijuana if you were peeing blood? I mean, c’mon - this is a no-brainer.
Kubby applied to have his guilty verdict set aside under a section of the California Penal Code that allows a conviction to be expunged if the defendant has fulfilled conditions of his probation or it was terminated early.
Although I know it was and will be difficult to do so, it is good this is at least in the past now - and we can move forward and focus on the fight before us. Never forget the sacrifice the patients and advocates of medical marijuana have made during these times. Again, from me personally - thank you Steve Kubby. It is people like you who inspire me to join this fight and instill courage in the rest of us to stand in the face of this tyranny.
The truth will set us all free.