Pubdate: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 2001 The Sacramento Bee Contact: P.O.Box 15779, Sacramento CA 95852 Feedback: http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html Website: http://www.sacbee.com/ Forum: http://www.sacbee.com/voices/voices_forum.html Author: Wayne Wilson, Bee Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/kubby.htm (Kubby, Steve) KUBBY DRUG CONVICTIONS REDUCED TO MISDEMEANORS Applause erupted in a Placer County courtroom Friday when a judge reduced to misdemeanors the felony drug convictions of medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby and dismissed all the remaining pot counts against him. Kubby, 54, who now resides in Lake County but plans to move to British Columbia as soon as he fulfills the conditions of probation, was fined $2,700 and ordered to serve 120 days of alternative sentencing. "The jail would not be an appropriate place for Mr. Kubby," said Judge John L. Cosgrove, acknowledging Kubby's claim that he needs pot to keep a rare form of cancer from taking his life. Loudly expressing their appreciation for the judge's rulings were a couple dozen proponents of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, the law that permits seriously ill Californians to cultivate and use marijuana for medical purposes. They had filled Cosgrove's courtroom in support of their standard-bearer, Kubby, the Libertarian Party's candidate for governor in 1998. And it turned out to be a banner day for the movement locally. In addition to asking the judge to drop the marijuana case against Kubby and his wife, Michele, District Attorney Bradford Fenocchio also filed a motion to halt the pending retrial of Roseville dentist Michael A. Baldwin and his wife, Georgia, on similar charges. Both couples were arrested after raids on their homes turned up gardens of marijuana plants in various stages of cultivation. And both claimed medical exemptions, citing doctors' recommendations that they use marijuana to treat physical ailments that had disrupted their lives for years. The Baldwins' trial ended in May of 1999 with the jury deadlocked, leaning slightly toward acquittal. And the four-month Kubby trial concluded in December with the jury hung at 11-1, the majority voting that the Kubbys' 265-plant grow was for medicinal use only. But that same panel returned guilty verdicts against Steve Kubby for possessing minute quantities of psilocybin and mescaline found during the Jan. 19, 1999, search of his home. The psilocybin was contained in a single mushroom stem that Kubby said he had obtained and studied years ago for a book he wrote on the religious significance of psychedelic mushrooms. And the mescaline was in the form of a "peyote button" that Kubby claimed he had never seen and must have been left in the house by a visitor. The probation officer's report noted that the amount of illegal narcotics recovered was "extremely small" and that Kubby's explanation for their presence was "believable." And Judge Cosgrove said those factors, along with Kubby's "impeccably clean" prior record, persuaded him to treat both offenses as misdemeanors. But Kubby didn't escape unscathed. He will be subject to search and seizure for the three years he is on formal probation and will have to serve 120 days in an as-yet-to-be-determined alternative sentencing program. In the motion to dismiss the remaining counts against Kubby, Deputy District Attorney Christopher M. Cattran said the prosecutorial decision was "not a comment on guilt or innocence, but rather an indictment of the vagueness, whether intentional or unintentional," of the new law relating to medical marijuana. Cattran said the request to dismiss in no way reflected a lack of confidence in the investigative efforts of the North Tahoe Narcotics Task Force or the Placer County Sheriff's Department. But "because of the vagueness (of the law), inconsistent court rulings interpreting the section and the remaining conflict with Federal law, a second trial on the remaining counts is not prudent," Cattran wrote. On behalf of DA Fenocchio, Cattran asked the California legislature "to establish specific guidelines with respect to the amount of marijuana appropriate for medical use." And he pledged that, "Until the legislature speaks," the Placer County prosecutors' office "will work with law enforcement, citizens and health care providers of this county and neighboring counties to establish guidelines that provide guidance for law enforcement and a basis for evaluation of each case." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek