T
The420Guy
Guest
It's a different war, but it's having the same old consequences. In the
1960s, Americans fled to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. Four decades
later, American medical marijuana patients are crossing the border again,
claiming they're political refugees from the U.S. government's war on drugs.
"I'm a member of a class of society they're trying to oppress-or wipe out
completely," says Renee Boje, from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Boje, 32, is probably the most famous American fugitive in Canada: the U.S.
is currently trying to extradite her to face charges for conspiracy to
cultivate hundreds of cannabis plants at the Los Angeles home of Todd
McCormick, a cancer patient and medical marijuana activist.
If convicted, Boje faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years-a penalty
so severe that she's become the poster child for the increasing numbers of
U.S. citizens heading north to take advantage of Canada's liberal pot laws.
"There are hundreds of Americans here," she says, "because they're being
persecuted by their own government."
Many of the refugees are quietly growing and using their own weed-the
Vancouver-based B.C. Compassion Club, one of a dozen operating across
British Columbia, alone estimates that over 100 of its 2,000 clients are
Americans. But others, like Boje, haven't kept such a low profile. Over the
past couple of months, several prominent U.S. activists have fled to British
Columbia as well-including Steve Kubby, 56, the Libertarian Party's 1998
candidate for governor of California, and Ken Hayes, 34, who operated the
6th Street Harm Reduction Center in San Francisco.
Kubby, who has adrenal cancer, faces a 120-day jail term for drug possession
in California, which he says would kill him; in February, even though he was
already in Canada, Hayes was charged with conspiracy to grow more than 1,000
plants and could be sentenced to at least 10 years. Both have formally
claimed refugee status under United Nations conventions, arguing that they
have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in the United States. Canadian
immigration officials have decided there's enough substance to the claims
that Kubby, Hayes, and their families may remain in the country until a
final hearing a year from now.
"U.S. officials have violated the law and intentionally targeted the leaders
of the medical marijuana movement by using conspiracy charges," says Kubby,
from his home on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast-just before he's due to read the
daily news on pot-tv.net, an internet TV channel. "I'm being threatened with
a death sentence. How can anyone justify that and say it's not an attempt to
persecute me?"
Understandably, comments like this have already won the refugees plenty of
attention from Canadian news media -- and American officials as well.
"Providing sanctuary to some of these people who see Canada as an easy place
to escape the long leash of U.S. law enforcement is dangerous," said Robert
Maginnis, a White House drug policy advisor, in a recent interview on
Canada's Global TV network. "I would hope that the Canadian government would
see fit to send them back to the U.S. so they can face charges, because we
have, just like you do, a sovereign right over our citizens to enforce the
laws of our land."
The vast difference between how medical marijuana laws are applied in Canada
and the U.S., however, partly explains the exodus. Although California
voters passed Proposition 215, creating a Compassionate Use Act, in 1996,
over the past two years the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has used federal
law to raid and prosecute medical marijuana clubs across the state. In May
last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the DEA's actions, ruling that
"marijuana has no medical benefits", and this June the U.S. government
obtained an injunction shutting down the few remaining California clubs for
good.
The Canadian federal government, on the other hand, has granted permits to
possess or grow marijuana to more than 800 Canadians who suffer from AIDS,
cancer or multiple sclerosis. And Canadian courts, which aren't bound by
mandatory minimums, are generally lenient on those who don't have permits:
last month the B.C. Supreme Court stayed cultivation charges against a
Vancouver man caught with 96 plants because he has AIDS and hepatitis; a few
days later the same court gave an "absolute discharge" (i.e. no jail, fine,
or criminal record) to the director of a compassion club who pleaded guilty
to possession of five pounds of marijuana.
Alex Stojicevic, the Vancouver lawyer representing Hayes, Kubby and several
other American refugee claimants, says it's "nothing new" for U.S. citizens
to flee to Canada to avoid drug charges-what's new is the U.S. crackdown on
medical marijuana that accelerated after the Bush administration took
office. His clients' argument, he says, is that they're being persecuted for
holding a political opinion shared by a majority of California voters, but
not by the feds. "Since Mr. Ashcroft became attorney-general and Mr. Bush
the president, the view is that things are going to get worse," says
Stojicevic. That's what's fueling this."
Stojicevic admits it's unlikely many of his clients will ultimately win
refugee status, because Canadian courts have consistently held that "the
United States is still a country where the rule of law applies, and the real
forum for complaining about these things is there, not here." However, a few
Americans might be allowed to stay for compassionate reasons--earlier this
year, Renee Boje married a Canadian, and they now have a four-month-old son.
Stojicevic also notes that Boje's case is unique: while the other Americans
will simply be ordered to leave Canada if their claims of persecution fail,
the final decision to extradite Boje is up to Canada's minister of justice,
who may consider (according to Canadian law) how "unjust and oppressive" it
would be to send a young mother to 10 years in prison for watering some
plants.
Unfortunately, the U.S. activists have made a difficult situation even
harder for themselves: in April, after one of them showed reporters a grow
operation he'd started, neighbors complained and the Mounties arrested
Kubby, Hayes and several others. (Hayes also says he was visited by a DEA
agent based in Vancouver, who tried to intimidate him into returning
"voluntarily" to the U.S.) They were released only after Marc Emery, the
leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party and the owner of pot-tv.net and a giant
marijuana seed bank, put up $5,000 bail. If convicted of cultivation and
possession charges, each of the Americans could be ordered to leave Canada
before the final hearings of their refugee claims.
The refugees are unrepentant. "I don't want to go back to the United
States," says Ken Hayes. "The people who are still there fighting are doing
a noble thing ... but it's inevitable that wherever there's liberty, that's
where people will seek to be."
Author: Ross Crockford, AlterNet
Published: July 11, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Independent Media Institute
Contact: info@alternet.org
Website: Home
DL: Alternet.org
1960s, Americans fled to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. Four decades
later, American medical marijuana patients are crossing the border again,
claiming they're political refugees from the U.S. government's war on drugs.
"I'm a member of a class of society they're trying to oppress-or wipe out
completely," says Renee Boje, from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Boje, 32, is probably the most famous American fugitive in Canada: the U.S.
is currently trying to extradite her to face charges for conspiracy to
cultivate hundreds of cannabis plants at the Los Angeles home of Todd
McCormick, a cancer patient and medical marijuana activist.
If convicted, Boje faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years-a penalty
so severe that she's become the poster child for the increasing numbers of
U.S. citizens heading north to take advantage of Canada's liberal pot laws.
"There are hundreds of Americans here," she says, "because they're being
persecuted by their own government."
Many of the refugees are quietly growing and using their own weed-the
Vancouver-based B.C. Compassion Club, one of a dozen operating across
British Columbia, alone estimates that over 100 of its 2,000 clients are
Americans. But others, like Boje, haven't kept such a low profile. Over the
past couple of months, several prominent U.S. activists have fled to British
Columbia as well-including Steve Kubby, 56, the Libertarian Party's 1998
candidate for governor of California, and Ken Hayes, 34, who operated the
6th Street Harm Reduction Center in San Francisco.
Kubby, who has adrenal cancer, faces a 120-day jail term for drug possession
in California, which he says would kill him; in February, even though he was
already in Canada, Hayes was charged with conspiracy to grow more than 1,000
plants and could be sentenced to at least 10 years. Both have formally
claimed refugee status under United Nations conventions, arguing that they
have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in the United States. Canadian
immigration officials have decided there's enough substance to the claims
that Kubby, Hayes, and their families may remain in the country until a
final hearing a year from now.
"U.S. officials have violated the law and intentionally targeted the leaders
of the medical marijuana movement by using conspiracy charges," says Kubby,
from his home on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast-just before he's due to read the
daily news on pot-tv.net, an internet TV channel. "I'm being threatened with
a death sentence. How can anyone justify that and say it's not an attempt to
persecute me?"
Understandably, comments like this have already won the refugees plenty of
attention from Canadian news media -- and American officials as well.
"Providing sanctuary to some of these people who see Canada as an easy place
to escape the long leash of U.S. law enforcement is dangerous," said Robert
Maginnis, a White House drug policy advisor, in a recent interview on
Canada's Global TV network. "I would hope that the Canadian government would
see fit to send them back to the U.S. so they can face charges, because we
have, just like you do, a sovereign right over our citizens to enforce the
laws of our land."
The vast difference between how medical marijuana laws are applied in Canada
and the U.S., however, partly explains the exodus. Although California
voters passed Proposition 215, creating a Compassionate Use Act, in 1996,
over the past two years the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has used federal
law to raid and prosecute medical marijuana clubs across the state. In May
last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the DEA's actions, ruling that
"marijuana has no medical benefits", and this June the U.S. government
obtained an injunction shutting down the few remaining California clubs for
good.
The Canadian federal government, on the other hand, has granted permits to
possess or grow marijuana to more than 800 Canadians who suffer from AIDS,
cancer or multiple sclerosis. And Canadian courts, which aren't bound by
mandatory minimums, are generally lenient on those who don't have permits:
last month the B.C. Supreme Court stayed cultivation charges against a
Vancouver man caught with 96 plants because he has AIDS and hepatitis; a few
days later the same court gave an "absolute discharge" (i.e. no jail, fine,
or criminal record) to the director of a compassion club who pleaded guilty
to possession of five pounds of marijuana.
Alex Stojicevic, the Vancouver lawyer representing Hayes, Kubby and several
other American refugee claimants, says it's "nothing new" for U.S. citizens
to flee to Canada to avoid drug charges-what's new is the U.S. crackdown on
medical marijuana that accelerated after the Bush administration took
office. His clients' argument, he says, is that they're being persecuted for
holding a political opinion shared by a majority of California voters, but
not by the feds. "Since Mr. Ashcroft became attorney-general and Mr. Bush
the president, the view is that things are going to get worse," says
Stojicevic. That's what's fueling this."
Stojicevic admits it's unlikely many of his clients will ultimately win
refugee status, because Canadian courts have consistently held that "the
United States is still a country where the rule of law applies, and the real
forum for complaining about these things is there, not here." However, a few
Americans might be allowed to stay for compassionate reasons--earlier this
year, Renee Boje married a Canadian, and they now have a four-month-old son.
Stojicevic also notes that Boje's case is unique: while the other Americans
will simply be ordered to leave Canada if their claims of persecution fail,
the final decision to extradite Boje is up to Canada's minister of justice,
who may consider (according to Canadian law) how "unjust and oppressive" it
would be to send a young mother to 10 years in prison for watering some
plants.
Unfortunately, the U.S. activists have made a difficult situation even
harder for themselves: in April, after one of them showed reporters a grow
operation he'd started, neighbors complained and the Mounties arrested
Kubby, Hayes and several others. (Hayes also says he was visited by a DEA
agent based in Vancouver, who tried to intimidate him into returning
"voluntarily" to the U.S.) They were released only after Marc Emery, the
leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party and the owner of pot-tv.net and a giant
marijuana seed bank, put up $5,000 bail. If convicted of cultivation and
possession charges, each of the Americans could be ordered to leave Canada
before the final hearings of their refugee claims.
The refugees are unrepentant. "I don't want to go back to the United
States," says Ken Hayes. "The people who are still there fighting are doing
a noble thing ... but it's inevitable that wherever there's liberty, that's
where people will seek to be."
Author: Ross Crockford, AlterNet
Published: July 11, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Independent Media Institute
Contact: info@alternet.org
Website: Home
DL: Alternet.org