High crimes?

Writer faces jail after interviewing medical marijuana activist

By Randall Lyman

Journalist Pete Brady continues to dangle on a thin rope as prosecutors hound him to come up with false testimony against the Kubbys. Brady was on his last day of probation when he was arrested. Pete Brady is a qualified medical marijuana patient who uses medical marijuana under a doctors supervision for control of back pain.

WHEN A FREELANCE WRITER for High Times magazine met with a prominent medical marijuana activist, he thought he was just getting a good story. He might be getting five years in state prison.

On New Year’s Day, Pete Brady interviewed California Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby at Kubby’s house in Olympic Valley, near Lake Tahoe. On Jan. 21 the Chico-based writer was arrested for possession of marijuana by officers of the Butte County sheriff’s department, according to information from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Web site www.marijuananews.com.

Two days earlier Kubby and his wife, Michele, had been arrested by a four-agency anti-drug task force Kubby, an outspoken medical marijuana user and activist, told the Bay Guardian that the task force, which had placed him under surveillance for six months, made the two arrests after observing Kubby—through the window of his home—showing Brady some marijuana buds Kubby said he was only showing Brady what he had grown and did not sell Brady any marijuana.

See
Arrest Of California Cannabis Journalist Shows That The War On Medical Marijuana
Has Become A War on The First Amendment -- Analysis By Richard Cowan
and links

Both Kubby and Brady are medical marijuana patients under Proposition 215, the California Compassionate Use Act. Brady’s arrest for possession of about an ounce of marijuana came on the last day of his five-year probation term for possession. Consequently his case will not get a regular court hearing—only a probation revocation hearing, at which his original sentence of five years could be reinstated.

The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 22 in Chico. Brady was released after posting $12,000 of his own money as bail Brady declined to comment for this story, saying his attorney had advised him not to speak to the press. Butte County officials could not be contacted by press time.