Don't Have to Live Like a Refugee?
The Los Angeles Times reports on the latest travails of marijunana activist and former Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby. The cancer-stricken Kubby fled to Canada, facing prosecution in the U.S. Now Canadian immigration officials might be sending him back. An excerpt:
"Immigration officials are pushing to deport Kubby for drug violations stemming from a 1999 bust of his medical marijuana garden in Squaw Valley, Calif. Kubby, 56 and still wrestling with adrenal cancer, countered by seeking to become a political refugee. If he is returned to America, Kubby contends, he will face persecution and death.
On Wednesday, a hearing began in Vancouver to decide if this American -- one of four U.S. medical marijuana expatriates seeking to become refugees -- will be turned out by his adopted homeland.
His case appears to be a longshot: Canadian immigration officials say only one U.S. citizen has ever won refugee status. But it has stoked memories in western Canada of Vietnam-era draft resisters who fled the United States decades ago. It also has caused a stir in government offices on both sides of the border."
