cannabisnews.com: Steve Kubby Takes Stand in Marijuana Trial 





Steve Kubby Takes Stand in Marijuana Trial 
Posted by FoM on December 01, 2000 at 07:19:06 PT
By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Auburn Journal
Steve Kubby told jurors Thursday that it was donations for his work as a medicinal marijuana advocate – not from pot sales – that produced a steady flow of money from Oakland and San Francisco cannabis buyers clubs. Prosecutors point to the money as evidence of potential drug dealing.On trial with his wife, Michele, on a total of 16 drug charges, Kubby took the stand for the first time in his own defense before a Placer County Superior Court jury that has been hearing the case since September. The most serious allegation the couple is accused of is growing marijuana for the purpose of selling it.
Prosecutors have shown the jury what they allege is a paper trail that includes cash and money orders from buyer club principals to the Kubbys' bank accounts.Asked by defense attorney Tony Serra at the end of Thursday's testimony whether he had sold marijuana to either club, Kubby answered "never."Instead, the money that came from the clubs was considered donated funding for advocacy work, he said. Kubby had played a key roll in the 1996 Proposition 215 campaign to legalize medicinal marijuana use in California. Two years later, he ran as the Libertarian Party candidate for governor. Despite Prop. 215's passage, medicinal marijuana was being denied through a "criminal conspiracy" by district attorneys to rewrite the law, Kubby said."I felt I still had a job to do," he said.Donations began to come in at an increasing rate, Kubby said."I started getting more and more money," he said. "It appeared people were ready to give me money to continue this work and it was a gift."In January 1999, a law enforcement raid on the Kubby's rented Olympic Valley home resulted in the seizure of 265 marijuana plants.Michele and Steve Kubby contend the grow was for personal, medicinal purposes. They both had doctor's recommendations for marijuana at the time of the raid. Steve Kubby has been diagnosed with a rare form of adrenal cancer. Michele Kubby‘s recommendation for cannabis was to treat an irritable bowel disorder.During testimony Thursday, Steve Kubby told jurors he initially had reservations about the use of marijuana to treat a fatal form of cancer he was diagnosed with in the mid-1970s. But his old college roommate Richard "Cheech" Marin – a comedian formerly known for drug-based humor with the duo Cheech & Chong – convinced him to give it a try in the mid-1980s, he said.Kubby said he continued to use prescription drugs but the pot helped reduce his blood pressure. After he secured a steady supply in the late 1980s, Kubby said he increased the amount he smoked and that helped even further.Before pot, Kubby said he had found some relief by consuming massive doses of Vitamin C. He said he was written up by Vitamin C proponent and Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Linus Pauling in a book on the subject, described as Patient N. Downing 80,000 milligrams a day resulted in several unpleasant side effects, Kubby said."Initially, I got great results," he said. "But the amount of Vitamin C I could take went down."Kubby, 54, also gave the jury a synopsis of his early life and his attempts to deal with adrenal cancer through standard medical procedures, including chemotherapy, radiation, drugs and four surgeries.He told of his first symptoms – headaches in college in Southern California – and the progression of the cancer and the resulting decision in 1980 to close a camp for children he had established a decade earlier in Shasta County. Earth Camp One played host to several children of celebrities, including James Coburn and Joan Baez, and was mentioned in National Geographic and Newsweek, Kubby said."I was told I had as little as six months to live," Kubby said. "I took a break for what I believed was my impending death."Kubby moved to the Tahoe area in the early 1980s and after five years in the cleaning business, established Ski West – a magazine that he published for five years. Kubby said he closed the magazine after another magazine sued over use of the name, a lawsuit he said would have cost $250,000 to win. Eventually, he would establish an online outdoor sports web page.Kubby said marijuana not only curbed his cancer, it saved his life when he broke his neck in 1991. That incident helped convince Kubby to became a pot advocate."It was my belief that cannabis prevented my paralysis and my death, and could benefit people that way too," he said.Kubby said that after he wrote the book – "The Politics of Consciousness" – Men's Wearhouse CEO George Zimmer asked his advice on drug policy reform and eventually became a major financial backer of Prop. 215."I said the first thing we had to do was get the sick, the disabled and the elderly off the battlefield," he said.Thursday morning, Michele Kubby broke down in tears for a second consecutive day, this time during cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran. Shown a videotape of the start of the Jan. 19, 1999, search, Kubby turned away, a handkerchief held to her face.Cattran used the videotape in an attempt to establish that Kubby had misrepresented the raid in a fund-raising letter for the couple's legal defense fund and on the Kubby web page. Both made reference to a search where officers pointed guns at the Kubbys but no weapons were shown drawn in the video.Michele Kubby said the letter was put together by a professional fund-raiser and while it contained her signature, she had requested the reference to guns being drawn be taken out. The web page was built by her husband, she said.Asked about the page's use of an "s" followed by a "/" symbol – which Cattran said can represent a signature – Michele Kubby replied "I don't know what that means."The trial continues Tuesday with Steve Kubby expected to resume his testimony. Note: He disputes prosecutor's contention that he was a big dealer.Source: Auburn Journal (CA)Author: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff WriterPublished: December, 1, 2000Copyright: 2000 Auburn JournalAddress: 1030 High St., Auburn, CA 95603Contact: ajournal foothill.netWebsite: http://www.auburnjournal.com/Related Articles & Web Site:The Kubby Fileshttp://www.kubby.org/Wife Insists Pot Grown in Home Purely Medicinalhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7811.shtmlMichele Kubby Testifies There Was No Intenthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7810.shtmlWitnesses Line Up To Testify for Steve Kubby http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7677.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Steve Kubbyhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=kubby 
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