Then, on March 14, Kubby turned himself in to serve a 60-day sentence for failure to appear in court. The situation underscored the outspoken reform advocate’s point that America has better use for law enforcement than to persecute cannabis users. His rare adrenal cancer can cause life-threatening blood-pressure spikes that his doctors say are controlled by use of up to an ounce of cannabis per day. Kubby and his wife, Michelle, were targets of a high-profile medical marijuana case that began with a raid on the patients’ basement garden on Jan. 1, 1999.
Michelle was acquitted of all charges, and jurors hung on the charge that Kubby was growing to sell; but he was convicted and sentenced to four months in jail for fragments of peyote and mushroom.
Kubby, active in the Prop 215 campaign and a Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in 1998, fled to Canada with his family five years earlier but Canada deported Kubby, his wife, and their two young children to the US, where he was promptly arrested.
Judge Cosgrove denied Kubby’s request to use medical marijuana behind bars, but did authorize marinol, a pharmaceutical synthetic-THC product.
Steve Kubby in front of the Bulldog in Oaksterdam. Photo by Jaime Galindo