cannabisnews.com: Witnesses Line Up To Testify for Steve Kubby 





Witnesses Line Up To Testify for Steve Kubby 
Posted by FoM on November 16, 2000 at 07:05:50 PT
By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer 
Source: Auburn Journal
A nun, an AIDS worker, an attorney and a journalist took the stand as witnesses for the defense Wednesday in the Steve and Michele Kubby marijuana possession-for-sale trial in Auburn.Jane Weirick is a nun who now serves as director for a medicinal marijuana dispensary in San Francisco backed by the Catholic Church. She testified that during the time she was employed at a San Francisco cannabis buyers club she saw Steve Kubby line up to buy pot several times.
But Weirick said she never observed Steve Kubby – who has a doctor's recommendation to grow and smoke marijuana to treat a rare form of cancer – in the role of a vendor at the club. The Market Street club shut down in 1998. Weirick became a nun in late 1999.Asked by Michele Kubby's defense attorney, J. David Nick, whether she had ever seen any vendor purchase marijuana at the club, Weirick said she had not.Steve Kubby, who ran for governor in 1998 on the Libertarian Party ticket, was charged with marijuana possession for sale after 265 pot plants were seized in a January 1999 raid of his Olympic Valley home. Prosecutors are attempting to link the Kubbys to sales at cannabis clubs in Oakland and the Bay area, pointing to bank deposits of more than $100,000. The defense contends the money was to a great degree campaign contributions.Greg Farnsworth, currently a San Francisco AIDS Resource Center codirector, also denied a Kubby sales connection with the club. Pot was bought for around $2,300 a pound, and sold in 3.5-gram packages. The clubs were an offshoot of Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative of 1996.Farnsworth said that on two, possibly three occasions, he saw club official Jeff Jones hand an envelope to Steve Kubby containing cash and checks for his campaign. He added that he observed sales by vendors to the club and Kubby was never involved during the 1½ years he worked there.Truckee defense attorney Dale Wood said he was approached in the summer of 1998 by Steve Kubby, who showed him a grower's contract reportedly issued by the San Francisco club. The contract conferred on Kubby the title of caregiver. Wood said he advised Steve Kubby that the contract would give him no protection."I said (club founder) Dennis Peron didn't understand the law," Wood said. "He had established himself as a caregiver with the club but he couldn't transfer that to a third person.""And he followed your advice?" asked Placer County Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran during cross-examination.Wood never got a chance to answer the question. On an objection by defense attorney Nick, based on the premise the question was too speculative, Cosgrove disallowed the query.Pete Brady, a journalist who focuses on marijuana and politics for Canada's Cannabis Culture magazine, spent a lengthy period Wednesday morning testifying about a New Year's visit to the Kubby home less than a month before the bust. The Dec. 31-Jan. 1 visit included a denial by Steve Kubby of access to the grow room but did include a photo shoot with one plant, he said.Brady said he was later questioned by North Tahoe Drug Task Force investigator Michael Lyke whether he had shared marijuana with Steve Kubby or purchased some from him. He testified that he told the investigator that Steve Kubby was "extremely stingy" with his pot."He didn't give me or offer to sell me anything," Brady said.Brady was asked by the defense about Kubby's pot-smoking routine. He said Kubby would roll a joint, smoke it and within 10 to 30 minutes, roll another one and toke up. Steve Kubby was smoking two to three marijuana cigarettes an hour, he said. The defense contends the harvest from the Kubby garden would be close to 3.5 pounds and was for personal use only – not the 25-pound estimate made by law enforcement. Source: Auburn Journal (CA)Author: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff WriterPublished: November 16, 2000Address: 1030 High St., Auburn, CA 95603Copyright: 2000 Auburn JournalContact: ajournal foothill.netWebsite: http://www.auburnjournal.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:The Kubby Fileshttp://www.kubby.org/Marijuana.orghttp://www.marijuana.org/ Tenth Amendment - Up In Smoke http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7565.shtmlFighting Cheech & Chong Medicinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6533.shtml  Pot Trial Focuses On Magic Mushrooms http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7468.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Kubby:http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=steve+kubby
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