Renee Boje is a minor character in a major California marijuana case
-- "a very small fish," as she says.
Yet the 30-year-old free-lance artist has managed to create an
international stir in her battle to avoid trial on U.S. drug charges. In
essence, Boje claims she is among the thousands of refugees seeking
protection in Canada from rogue governments and dictatorships.
She is a political victim, she says, of the U.S. war on drugs.
"The punishment does not fit the crime," she says. "I am only guilty of
being too trusting and underestimating the power and determination
of some very dark forces in my government."
Boje (pronounced Bo-zhay) once lived in Bel Air, Calif., at a
mansion known as "the castle," where she sketched pictures of
marijuana for a friend who was writing a book about how to grow
the plants. He was cultivating more than 4,000 plants that he said
were for medical purposes and research.
That leisurely life ended abruptly in July 1997, when federal drug
agents raided the mansion. Federal indictments charged nine people
with growing and then selling the plants to a cannabis buyer's club,
which then dispensed the narcotic.
Boje and the others say they were growing marijuana legally under a
1996 California law permitting the drug to be used for medical
purposes. Seven other states have passed similar "medical marijuana"
measures. Supporters of those laws say marijuana helps alleviate
pain and nausea.
Boje's friend, Todd McCormick, 29, and his chief backer, Peter
McWilliams, 50, accepted a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to
conspiring to create a commercial marijuana-cultivation operation.
McCormick, who has cancer, has agreed to a five-year prison term.
McWilliams, who has AIDS, faces up to five years in prison.
The indictment against Boje accuses her of conspiring to grow and
manufacture marijuana, charging that she was observed watering the
plants and smoking marijuana. If convicted on all charges, she would
face a minimum of 10 years in prison.
But before she could be indicted, Boje fled in late 1997 to British
Columbia. The province is known as a haven for marijuana growers
and users. One recent poll showed that 63 percent of its residents
thought possession of marijuana should not be a criminal offense.
There, Boje lives in a two-story home within walking distance of a
beach and forest. "It's got a balcony with a view of forest and lots of
windows and a skylight for viewing the stars at night," she says.
For a time she drew pictures and grew cannabis, trying to relax after
"the intensity of the U.S." But her marijuana-growing activity was
again shattered by authorities -- Canadian police, this time. Last
February she was arrested, and U.S. officials were alerted to her
whereabouts. (Marijuana charges arising from her Canadian arrest
were dropped yesterday, Boje says.)
Boje hired an attorney and began fighting extradition to the United
States. She claims to be a refugee from political persecution, and
says she is a victim of the conflict between California's voters, who
passed the referendum approving the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, and U.S. officials who continue to enforce federal
prohibitions on the drug. She also says she will face inhumane
conditions, including sexual molestation, in U.S. prisons.
So far, Boje has lost most of her court battles.
First, she was denied a chance to appear before a refugee review
board because of the U.S. criminal charges pending against her.
Of the 62 Americans who were allowed to apply in Canada for
refugee status in 1998, none was accepted. Overall, about 44
percent of the 30,000 applicants were granted the protection. Most
of these came from countries that are either non-democratic or
undergoing civil conflict, or both.
A Canadian judge is expected to rule soon on the U.S. request for
Boje's extradition. If she loses that fight, she can appeal to the justice
minister and then appeal through the court system to Canada's
Supreme Court. The process could take almost two years.
John Conroy, her attorney, says that Boje has a good shot at winning
because many Canadians believe that U.S. drug policy is unfair. If
she had been charged in Canada with a similar offense and officials
determined that the marijuana was intended for use as medicine, he
says, she would likely get a fine.
"The American penalty is clearly disproportionate to what we think is
proportionate up here," Conroy says.
Other legal experts doubt that she will win her court fight.
"She has some chance, but probably not a very good chance," says
Julius Grey, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal.
A ruling in Boje's favor could harm U.S.-Canadian relations, legal
scholars say, and Canadian judges might not want to risk upsetting
their country's closest and largest neighbor.
A Canadian judge would be more likely to block an American
extradition order, the scholars say, when an accused person faced a
potential death sentence. Canadian law forbids capital punishment.
"I have a hard time believing that Canada would use its political clout
to protect somebody like this," says John Yoo, an international and
constitutional law professor at the University of California at
Berkeley.
Though Boje has garnered some attention in international
publications, including a December profile in Glamour magazine,
Canada's local press has played down the story.
"It doesn't have a high profile," says John Drabble, city editor for the
Vancouver Sun. "This is not front-page news."
He says that most Canadians understand the reason Americans take
the drug fight so seriously -- gun violence. He has even received a
few faxes from readers who advocate sending Boje back home to
face charges.
Boje's fight has also highlighted policy differences between state and
federal officials about allowing marijuana for medical uses.
"The most grievous concern is that 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids will
want to rationalize their behavior," says Thomas Constantine, former
head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. "They will say
these are not drugs and they are not dangerous. They'll say it's
medicine."
But Boje, an artist who creates stained glass, paints, makes cartoons
and takes photographs, says that new studies show that marijuana is
a valuable medicine and pain reliever.
She says she smokes marijuana because she suffers from migraine
headaches and because "I also suffer from stress."
She has established a legal-defense fund, and her Web site
(www.thecompassionclub.org/renee) proclaims that she is in dire
straits: "Emergency funds needed."
She says she worries about bounty hunters coming her for in the
middle of the night to "put her in the back of a van and drive her
across the border."
If she avoids prison, she plans to stay in Canada.
"I actually want to open a holistic, environmentally conscious healing
community," she says. "Offer lots of different things. Acupuncture,
anything to do with alternative healing."
