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."