Entrepreneurs eye the White House

Age: 61
Campaign Web site: kubby2008.com

Standing on a stage in front of a crowd of thousands at the 2006 Seattle Hempfest, Steve Kubby decided to accept the suggestion that he run for president.

"I was drafted," says the medical marijuana activist and 1998 Californian gubernatorial candidate, whose former entrepreneurial ventures include ski magazines and a summer camp.

Diagnosed with cancer of the adrenal gland, Kubby has been treating his illness with marijuana for more than three decades. Without it, he says, his blood pressure would reach fatally high levels. But his medical need hasn't stopped him from getting into some legal scrapes: A drug enforcement task force raided his home in 1999, removing more than 250 marijuana plants from his basement garden.

Fortunately for Kubby, proposition 215, a 1996 Californian ballot initiative legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, was an adequate defense against criminal charges. But he was still convicted of possessing a psychedelic mushroom and a peyote button. After five years in exile in Canada, from which he tried to appeal his conviction, Kubby returned to the U.S. in 2006 to serve 40 days in jail.

If elected, Kubby says his first action will be to shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration and legalize all drugs.

Kubby's other proposed policies include instituting an open-door immigration policy, ending income taxes, and initiating an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. As for his position on drugs, Kubby hopes Libertarian Party members at the convention will be able to see beyond the cannabis leaf in his candidacy.

"This is no more about marijuana than the Boston Tea Party was about tea. It's about liberty," Kubby says.

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