From Steve Kubby:
Dear Editor
I’m writing to thank the Tribune for covering my candidacy for South Lake Tahoe City Council, and to correct some factual errors which found their way into an article you published today, via citations of older accounts of my story in other newspapers.
Yes, I was initially convicted on charges of possessing psilocybin and mescaline. What the stories you cite leave unmentioned is:
– That a few tiny fragments of a peyote cactus and a magic mushroom were found in a drawer in a guest bedroom of my home, not in my actual possession. It was Placer County that then ordered for their own police chemist to extract microscopic amounts of psilocybin and mescaline from the cactus and mushroom fragments. Incredibly, I was subsequently charged for possession of controlled substances — that the police chemist had extracted on their own.
– That these charges were thrown in as a desperation measure after the Placer County prosecutors realized that they had no chance of persuading a jury to convict me for my completely legal cultivation of medical marijuana.
–That Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner personally visited me at the jail and apologized for what was being done to me.
–That when I returned from Canada in January of 2006, to face a simple violation of probation charge and I was arrested at SFO, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued a special resolution of support for me.
– That the conviction has subsequently been dismissed and expunged by Superior Court Judge David Nelson, on July 3, 2008, in Mendocino County, California.
Yes, I moved to Canada, with the full knowledge and consent of the court, since my misdemeanor conviction was being appealed. However, once I left, my appeal was tampered with and upgraded to a felony appeal, by judges who had been recused from my case, forcing me to choose between staying alive in Canada or returning, under a new and fraudulent court order which would have meant a sentence of death.
I suffer from malignant pheochromocytoma, a disease which usually kills in 1-3 years. I’ve lived with it for more than 35 years. So far as I know I am the longest-surviving diagnosed victim of this disease, and medical marijuana is the only medicine I use.
Most malignant pheochromocytoma patients die not from the cancer proper, but from a side effect of it: Over-production of adrenaline resulting in systemic cardiovascular failure. Medical marijuana is the only thing that keeps my blood pressure and heart rate in check and allows me to stay alive.
When it was made clear to me that I would be refused my legal medicine in jail and subjected to painful, tortuous death, I sought humanitarian asylum in Canada. Canada’s legal and medical authorities found my health claims so compelling that they issued me a Health Canada Exemption, allowing me to grow up to 135 plants, store up to 13 pounds and travel anywhere in Canada with up to 3 pounds.
Unfortunately, I eventually lost my Canadian appeal and was issued a “Thirty Day Departure Order, at which point I contacted Placer County officials and arranged to report to court on a violation of probation charge. I never “fled to Canada”, nor was I ever threatened with deportation or extradition. Furthermore, my fears of being killed in jail were confirmed when I nearly died while in custody of Placer County, before finally being released and, eventually, officially cleared of any and all wrongdoing.
I’m not ashamed of having acted to save my own life, any more than I’m ashamed of having worked to the best of my ability to save the lives and restore the health of countless others whose medical conditions are responsive to — sometimes responsive ONLY to — medical marijuana. I consider the story as it actually happened (as opposed to the way in which other papers sometimes reported it and the way in which the Tribune cited it) to be foremost among my qualifications for office.
I’ve spent the bigger and better part of my life fighting to protect the rights of my fellow Californians, and intend to continue doing so as a member of South Lake Tahoe’s City Council.
Let freedom grow,
Steve Kubby
PS: Documentation in support of everything I’ve stated in this letter can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kubby
Source: Independent Political Report
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