Marijuana.com

Lothar121

Kubby Case Becoming Media Circus
Marijuana activist to appear in court today
Penne Usher | Auburn Journal | 01/30/06

The topic of jailed medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby is gaining popularity on the Internet as he reports failing health and poor medical attention in Placer County Jail.

Placer county law-enforcement officials say they are treating Kubby humanely as they do all inmates.

Kubby, 58, has reportedly spoken with supporters since his Friday incarceration.

Fred Colburn, of Meadow Vista, has been friends with Kubby since the activist ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor on the 1997/1998 ballot. He said he spoke to Kubby early Monday morning.

"Steve's thinking they are deliberately punishing him (in jail)," Colburn said. "He's only had one blanket, is vomiting and can't keep food down."

Kubby, who fled Placer County to Canada to avoid incarceration in 2000 was arrested on a no-bail warrant Thursday and transferred to Placer County Jail Friday.

Kubby contends he must have marijuana daily in order to survive and stave off the affects of a rare form of adrenal cancer. He credits a Canadian doctor who agrees with him, but UC David cancer specialists said there is no scientific evidence to support Kubby's claim that marijuana is keeping him alive.

Dr. Fred Meyers, professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine for UC Davis Medical Center, has said there is no medical proof that smoking marijuana cures or alleviates the symptoms of the adrenal cancer that Kubby is said to have.

Kubby's Canadian doctor said cannabis alleviates the symptoms of Kubby's adrenal cancer.

"(Kubby's) kind of cancer, metastatic pheochromocytoma, releases adrenaline into the blood and these drugs speed up your heart making your body run faster," said Dr. Joe Connors, a medical oncologist for British Columbia Cancer Agency in a telephone interview Monday.

Connors said that too much adrenaline keeps Kubby's body in a constant state of "flight or fight."

"The marijuana he had been smoking helped," Connors said.

Despite reports posted on numerous Web sites and blogs about Kubby's physical condition, jail official's report that he appears to be doing well.

"He's been seen by the medical staff and he's being taken care of," Capt. John Fitzgerald, of the Placer County Sheriff's Department said Monday. "I can't elaborate because medical records are confidential."

Technorati.com, a Web site that reports it tracks 26.7 million sites and 1.9 billion links, lists Kubby as its most searched topic Monday above Ted Koppel and Ipod.

Many of the postings are duplicates of press releases posted on Kubby's own Website Kubby.com.

In one posting, Michele Kubby said she was able to get a prescription for the drug Marinol for her husband.

Marinol has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration to treat "nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy for patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional treatments," according to the Marinol.com Web site.

"When Steve first entered the jail, his blood pressure had risen to 170 over120. The jail medical staff were concerned and administered the Marinol," Michele Kubby wrote in an e-mail. "Steve says he feels his blood pressure lowering, but he can tell that Marinol is not going to be effective in the long run."

E-mails and blogs report that Kubby is in "solitary confinement," and allowed only one blanket. Jail personnel say Kubby is separated from other inmates for his own safety.

"He's in N-tank in a private cell, not in the general population," Fitzgerald said. "He classifies to be in a private cell for numerous reasons including his safety."

Michele Kubby, who remains in Canada with the couple's two children, said she plans to be in California soon but will not make today's court appearance.

"I will not be able to make the hearing time on Tuesday. I hope anyone who goes tells him I am thinking of him and love him very much," Michele Kubby wrote in an e-mail sent to the Journal.

The Kubby family had been seeking to stay in Canada, however, the Canadian Border Services rejected the family's bid for protection Dec. 9 and ordered them out of the country.

Kubby fled to Canada with his family in an effort to avoid incarceration after a 2000 conviction in Placer County on charges of possession of mescaline and psilocybin.

He was transported to Placer County jail Friday afternoon and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. in Dept. 13 of Placer County Superior court today.

Kubby will most likely have to serve his custody time of 120 days and address his probation violation, which could give him additional time behind bars.

He was also one of the authors of Prop. 215, the compassionate-use act passed by the voters of the state of California in 1996.

The Journal's Penne Usher can be reached at penneu@goldcountrymedia.com.

__________________

Donate. Write. Make a difference..
Libertyindex | Posting Guidelines | Marijuana Policy Project | NORML | DPA | Drug WarRant | Media Awareness Project

 

castklear

Senate Bill 420 California

California Civil Code 11362.785C

(c) Nothing in this article shall prohibit a jail, correctional facility, or other penal institution in which prisoners reside or persons under arrest are detained, from permitting a prisoner or a person under arrest who has an identification card, to use marijuana for medical purposes under circumstances that will not endanger the health or safety of other prisoners or the security of the facility.

KUBBY CAN GET HIS MEDICINE ACCORDING TO STATE LAW!

Auburn County needs to implement SB 420 or Kubby needs to sue them into obeying the State Law under sb420. File a motion then SUE!

Its time they gave that confiscated pot to correctional facilities instead of wasting it by burning it at the dump. They need to have a little respect for our medicine!

Cattran is a bumb a liar and a fool! ALL THE OTHER OXEN FREE.....game of tag is over!

__________________
It is your job, the task of the people in this world to strip the last remnants of ancient, cruel belief's from the civilized man.

Buzzby

The jailers are not prohibited from allowing a prisoner access to marijuana. The paragraph quoted does not require them to do so. Unless there's more to the law than the paragraph you quoted, Kubby has no basis for a suit.

To do that, it would have to read like this:

(c) A jail, correctional facility, or other penal institution in which prisoners reside or persons under arrest are detained, is required to supply, or allow supply to, a prisoner or a person under arrest who has an identification card, with marijuana for medical purposes under circumstances that will not endanger the health or safety of other prisoners or the security of the facility.

__________________

MrIMStoned

Why does it keep mentioning that he has only 1 blanket? He's only one person ergo he gets one blanket. What a stupid grab for sympathy.

__________________
"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

TheNewGuy

Maybe because sick people (with terminal illnesses especially) might need more than one blanket, while a healthy person wouldn't?

__________________
"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

 

PotShot

Wow. I was surprised to see that. At least Kubby is getting attention, hopefully it will spur more people into action. Of course this is internet attention, and everyone on the internet is a "liberal whackjob" anyhow.

__________________
Posting Guidelines

Carl Sagan Goodness Richard Dawkins Goodness

MrIMStoned

Maybe because sick people (with terminal illnesses especially) might need more than one blanket, while a healthy person wouldn't?

Why? I'm sure the jail is heated and I'm sure that one blanket will keep you plenty warm.

Buzzby

What a stupid idea!

Sick people often experience cold to a greater extent than people who are healthy. To deny such a person an extra blanket under a one-man-one-blanket policy would be both cruel and vindictive.

Cassius

It also depends on the size and quality of the blanket. The comforter on my bed would probably keep him plenty warm. However, I'm guessing that Placer County Jail blankets are kinda thin and small. The little blanket I use for decoration on my couch doesn't keep me warm at all.

__________________

{ Cassius, Your Humble Narrator }
{ Posting Guidelines | Erowid Drug Information Resource | instantfilehosting.com }

Toking Jedi

I'm really tired of so-called medical "experts" at some hoity-toity university claiming that there is no proof that smoking marijuana doesn't cure the symptoms of this and that disease, when the evidence is right in front of them: Kubby is living proof that cannabis works to allieviate the symptoms of his disease, and his doctor will attest to that. That's the problem with experts: they think they know everything and thus are not open to new ideas. Someone should slap them, shake them up, anything to snap them a little more back to reality and give them beginner's mind, and then tell them to take another look at the evidence. I guarentee you if that were to happen they'd look at the situation and say, hey, marijuana does work to alleviate his symptoms!

__________________