Marijuana advocate gets new legal team

Steve Kubby, the medical marijuana advocate and former Squaw Valley resident currently incarcerated in Auburn, has hired a new legal team that has requested their client's case be heard by Judge John Cosgrove, who sentenced Kubby in 2000 to 120 days in jail for possession of psilocybin and mescaline.

"Kubby is asserting his right to be re-sentenced as a felon by Judge John L. Cosgrove, the original trial judge," Kubby's wife, Michele Kubby, stated in a release posted on www.kubby.com. "A felony sentencing hearing provides Kubby with new rights not available to him under misdemeanor sentencing rules."

Neither Kubby's new lawyer, David Nick, or Placer County Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran were available for comment Tuesday.

Kubby is scheduled for another hearing March 3 at 8:30 a.m. in Auburn.

Kubby, who ran for governor as a libertarian in 1998 and was co-author of Prop. 215, California's Compassionate Use Act, maintains that he needs medical marijuana to fight his adrenal cancer. He is currently taking Marinol, a pharmaceutical form of synthetic THC, which his wife has said is temporarily controlling his high blood pressure.