When Illustrator Renee Boje Naively Agreed To Help A Friend Prepare
A Book About Medical Marijuana, She Never Dreamed She's Become A
Fugitive. Glamour Caught Up With Her In Canada To Find Out Why
She's Facing And Fighting A 10-Year-To Life Sentence.
Nearly two years have passed since Renee Boje kissed her kitten,
Yoda-the-Zen-Master, good-bye and told her friends and family a lie
- that she was walking away from her life as a Los Angeles - based
freelance illustrator to embark on a mystical journey to find
herself. "I didn't want to let them know that I was going to leave
the country," says the 30-year-old redhead, a shy beauty who wears
a dusting of glitter around her spirited eyes. "I didn't want to
endanger anyone."
Nobody suspected a thing. "If you know Renee, she's - a unique
spirit," Jason Boje, 23, says about his sister. "It wasn't weird
to me that she wanted to travel around."
But the truth was beyond weird. She was on the run from federal
drug authorities, and to tell her loved ones that she was heading
to Canada could have put them in an awkward position if U.S.
Marshals came questioning.
This spring, they found her anyway. Now, in a test case that
has gained international attention, Boje finds herself at the
center of a bitter, high-profile legal feud that pits the state
of California against the U.S. Government over the legality of
smoking pot for medicinal purposes. She has been charged with
growing and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute
it - and she faces a possible prison term of l0 years to life as
a medical-marijuana queen pin. But Boje contends she was just
helping a friend illustrate a book called How to Grow Medical
Marijuana and hanging out at his Los Angeles house, where, after
the passage of a new California law, he was growing pot -
legally, he believed - for his own medicinal use.
Federal authorities are demanding that Canada return Boje to
California so that she can stand trial, and have begun extradition
proceedings against her. "I thought that his growing marijuana
was all perfectly legal," Boje says one August day during an
exclusive Glamour interview at the isolated house she calls Zen
Central, tucked in the woods on the coast of British Columbia.
"I can't even think about serving time."
Citing California's Proposition 215 (also known as the
Compassionate Use Act of 1996), which decriminalizes the use of
pot for some sick people - a law powerfully opposed by Washington
- Boje is seeking political asylum in Canada, claiming she's being
persecuted in the United States for her belief in the medicinal
value of marijuana. She remains free in Canada until her case is
resolved. But it's a lose-lose situation for her: If she wins
asylum she'll avoid prison, but can never again set foot on U.S.
soil. A failed asylum bid means extradition to the U.S. and
prosecution as a drug dealer.
Quite by accident, Boje has become the central icon in this
roiling battle. If Canada establishes a precedent by allowing
her to stay, it will grant a moral victory to the growing ranks
of Americans who feel marijuana should be legal nationwide by
prescription to the legions of people - from anorexics to cancer
and AIDS patients - whose suffering, some studies say, could be
relieved as a result.
"I do think she's doing the right thing," says her mother,
Margaret Struthers Boje, a registered nurse in Staten Island,
New York. "She is putting her life on the line for medical
marijuana. I'm very proud of my daughter... I love her so much."
Renee Boje sees her plight less heroically. For her, it's a
profoundly personal struggle to remain free. "Sometimes I'm
scared," she admits. "It was hard at the beginning, for sure.
I didn't quite know what was going to happen to me when I ran.
I just thought to myself: Freedom and the rest of the world -
or a possible 10 years to life in a U.S. prison?" She manages
a guileless smile. "So I said, 'Wait a minute, the rest of the
world sounds really good.'"
Evil Drug or Good Medicine?
Boje, who grew up in Culver City, California, studied art at
Loyola Marymount, a nearby Catholic college. After that, she
lived a bohemian life in Los Angeles, finding piecemeal work as
an illustrator and interior designer. Boje is offbeat, arty, a
modern-day hippie. But while she has become a heroine to those
who oppose the heavy-handed methods of America's war on drugs,
she's an unlikely standard-bearer. She rarely drinks and says
she has only once tried anything harder than pot. She says she
became an infrequent marijuana smoker only after the onset of
her legal problems caused her migraines and anxiety attacks.
"With the full force of the government being after me, it
definitely can get scary. I use pot for that," she admits.
The seeds of her troubles were planted in November 1996, when
she joined the 56 percent of California voters who approved
Proposition 215, the statewide referendum that exempts from
prosecution anyone who possesses and cultivates marijuana with
a doctor's written or oral recommendation. It also allows
others to act as "caregivers," legal growers and suppliers of
the drug to qualified patients.
Since the California law was passed, similar measures have won
voter approval in Alabama, Arkansas, Nevada, Oregon, Washington
and the District of Columbia, and as Glamour went to press, an
independent poll showed a compassionate-use bill would likely
become law in Maine in November. In addition, 70 percent of
Americans feel that if marijuana helps the seriously ill, it
should be legal for them to use, according to an ABC News poll.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Congress' research
arm, released a report confirming pot's medicinal benefits.
"Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of
cannabinoid drugs (in marijuana)...for pain relief, control of
nausea and vomiting and appetite stimulation," the report said.
Boje says what motivated her vote was a simple sense of
compassion. "If this herb can help people," she says, "then it
doesn't make any sense to keep it from them."
Despite mounting public support, Washington's hard-line position
remains unchanged. The drug is still banned under federal law
and therefore technically illegal even in the so-called medical
-marijuana states. Attorney General Janet Reno has made it clear
that the federal prohibition of marijuana will not be altered
just because voters apparently want doctors to be able to
prescribe it, says Nicholas Gess, the associate deputy attorney
general for drug issues. "The notion that you decide guilt or
innocence at the polls, that's anathema to us, I'll be blunt,"
he says.
Behind Washington's tough stance is the White House's top drug
-policy official, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who has called the
referendum movement "a Cheech and Chong show." In his first in-
depth interview since the IOM report was released, he tells
Glamour that he'll never approve the use of smoked marijuana.
Instead, if it proves medically sound in clinical trials, he
says he favors distilling marijuana's therapeutic compounds
into pills, inhalants or suppositories. "I normally tell that
to the guys in the audience," he laughs, "because they can't
really imagine a Saturday-night suppository party. That kind
of takes some of the thrill away."
Inside the Pot Mansion
In March 1997, shortly after the passage of Proposition 215,
Boje was out with friends at Hollywood's Galaxy Gallery, an
upscale art cafe, when she met one of the bill's best-known
proponents, Todd McCormick, a charismatic 29-year-old activist
and writer, He was openly smoking pot. "I went over and said,
'You're pretty brave, sitting here and smoking a joint out in
public,' and he said, 'Well, it's legal for medicinal purposes
here in California.' I went, 'Right on.'"
McCormick was the first intended beneficiary of Proposition
215 Boje had ever met. Two doctors had given him letters
recommending pot to combat the extreme pain that comes from a
rare cancer-like disease he suffers from, Hisriocytosis-X.
McCormick told Boje that he was beginning a homegrown project
to create hybrid pot plants, on the theory that different
cannabis strains are more effective than others for different
types of illnesses. He said that he intended to publish his
research in a book, How to Grow Medical Marijuana, and asked
Boje to be his illustrator for $15 an hour. Touched by his
story, she agreed.
That was to be the extent of her involvement. "She did art
for me," McCormick says over the telephone. Peter McWilliams,
the publisher and president of Prelude Press, which had paid
more than $100,000 in advance for the book, agrees that she
was just another face around the house.
As Boje soon found out, McCormick's was no ordinary home
office. He had plunged his advance into renting a 12,000-
square-foot mansion in posh Bel Air. The place had moats,
jutting turrets and about 20 cavernous rooms, all filled with
McCormick's verdant marijuana farm - a staggering 4,116
plants. Celebrity pals like Larry Flynt and Woody Harrelson
dropped in to visit. "It was a magical place," Boje recalls,
"There were these cobblestone bridges and a sea of marijuana."
She worked every day for three months at the house, making
sketches.
Arrested and Humiliated
An unidentified informant blew the whistle in July, 1997,
and the Drug Enforcement Agency, seemingly eager to bring a
test case against the referendum, moved quickly. For two
days late in the month, two Los Angeles County sheriff's
deputies and a local DEA agent peered through curtainless
windows from across the street. In their affidavits, they
say they witnessed Boje and another young woman, Aleksandra
Evanguelidi, "moving trays of plants around a patio area,"
watering plants, studying a cannabis-related Internet site
on a large-screen TV and, finally, smoking from a bong with
McCormick.
Neither Evanguelidi nor her attorney would comment for this
article, but McCormick says he hired Evanguelidi to be his
housekeeper and nothing more. He denies that either she or
Boje smoked pot or watered the plants.
In any case, on the afternoon of July 29, the women were
stopped by a patrol car as they drove away from the house,
arrested on suspicion of "possession with intent to deliver,"
handcuffed and read their rights. They were astounded to
learn that the entire household was about to be raided.
"I was really scared," Boje recalls. "I remember arguing
with the officers, saying, 'What you're doing is wrong! This
is legal in California. He has a license to grow - he's got
two prescriptions from doctors. Proposition 215 passed!'
They said, 'What's Proposition 215? What are you talking
about? Marijuana’s not legal'"
After the women were taken into custody, Boje says she was
held for 72 hours and subjected to strip searches by female
guards a shocking 15 times. At least twice, she says, this
happened in a windowed room surrounded by male witnesses.
"It was humiliating," Boje says quietly. (A public affairs
officer with the LA.P.D. refused to comment on the arrest.)
The Charges Are Dropped, but the Threat Remains
After their three-day ordeal, Boje and Evanguelidi were
released without being charged. McCormick, however, was
held on $500,000 bail, which his friend Woody Harrelson soon
posted. Several other McCormick acquaintances were charged
as part of a conspiracy to possess, grow and distribute a
staggering $20 million worth of marijuana. Eventually,
even the book publisher, Peter McWilliams, a well-known
fixture in Los Angeles literary circles, was brought into
custody. The indictment characterized him as the group's
ringleader and financier - "the Bill Gates of medical
marijuana" - because of the $100,000 he had advanced to
McCormick for his book project.
Expecting that the charges would be brought against the
women, and that they would be convicted despite their
clearly minor roles, famed Los Angeles defense attorney
Kenny Kahn - a fiend of Boje's and Evanguelidi's - told
them, "If you were my daughters, I'd tell you to get the
hell away from here, leave the country."
The women came to their anguished decision in a few days.
"It was so hard," Boje says. "I ended up giving all my
things away because I knew inside of me that I wasn't going
to be able to go back.”
Boje packed only a sleeping bag and a few clothes in her
backpack along with a collection of poems she had written
over the years. She and Evanguelidi hitchhiked north,
walking over the border in May 1998, then went their
separate ways (they haven't spoken since). Boje had $50.
The Life of a Fugitive
For nearly a year, Boje drifted from place to place,
cadging rides and scrounging off the-books jobs - organic
Farmland, hemp-handicrafts salesperson - desperately afraid
that she would be found and arrested. "I didn't know if
they were going to reinstate the charges, or when, so I
just traveled around and kept a low profile," she recalls.
"I thought, maybe they'll never find me and I can kind of
just live this way, and figure it all out later." The bad
news arrived late last year, via a friend's message to her
secret e-mail account. The charges were reinstated;
Evanguelidi had already turned herself in. Boje considered
surrendering, too, but after consulting a local attorney,
she decided against it. "After my experience in jail,"
she said, "I just couldn't imagine going back"
So instead she bought some henna, colored her blond hair
red, and kept moving. She eventually landed with a group
of "compassionate use" pot growers in Vancouver, where she
says she baked pot brownies for people with AIDS
(prescription marijuana is technically illegal in Canada,
but exceptions are granted by the Minister of Health on a
case-by-case basis). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
caught up with her one morning last February, slapped her
with a formal extradition request from the State Department
in Washington and took her into custody.
An Uncertain Future
As it turns out, she was granted bail (an anonymous donor
put up the money) and a hearing, set for this fall. As she
awaits a resolution of her fate, Boje sticks to a vegan diet,
practices yoga and even takes belly-dancing lessons to stave
off her anxiety. "I find it helps to move my body," she says
late one afternoon on Zen Central's sun-drenched balcony.
She lives here openly as the guest of Maury Mason, a retired
director of Canadian Greenpeace who took her in after her
jail release and now volunteers as her campaign director and
publicity guru.
As Glamour went to press, Boje's first extradition hearing -
to determine whether Canadian authorities would return her to
the United States for prosecution - was scheduled the winter,
says John Conroy, one of Boje's Canadian attorneys. If she
loses, she will likely be sent back to stand trial in Los
Angeles, where the prosecution of McCormick and McWilliams
was scheduled to begin in November. But Conroy is cautiously
optimistic: Medical marijuana is a less controversial issue
in Canada, where the country's top health official this summer
ordered rigorous research on the drug. If Boje wins, she will
be allowed to petition to stay in Canada or leave there for
another nation.
She expects to stay. In addition to fighting her extradition,
Boje is waging an historic campaign to gain asylum in Canada,
much as Vietnam War resisters did three decades ago. Her
argument is based on the severity of America's drug laws,
particularly the punishments handed down under federal
mandatory sentencing guidelines, which she feels constitutes
persecution when applied in cases involving medical marijuana.
These are pretty onerous stakes to be resting on the fate of
one young woman, and especially when winning carries an awful
price. She will never be able to come home, and though her
family and friends may visit her, they have not yet made the
trip. "If I get married, she won't be at the wedding," says
her brother, Jason. "That's so sad to me."
But Boje doesn't allow herself to think about what she's
missing. She has no time or use for romance, and has no
paying job. Instead, she devotes her days to researching
precedents and promoting her defense fund at concerts and
coffee shops and on the Web (www.thecompassionclub.org/renee).
She will need at least $250,000, she says. On the last day
of Glamour's visit, she had only $21 in the bank. But she
pushes on now with a newfound confidence that her case,
despite the odds, is at least worth fighting.
"I had no idea it would so profoundly change my life when
I started to work for Todd," she says during a hike near
Zen Central, a large, black-and-white cat called Monkey Boy
following at her heels. "At first I was just in total shock.
Then suddenly I lost my fear a few months ago. I was sitting
on the beach and meditating, and felt myself change from
victim to warrior. I thought, You vote on a law, and it
passes, and then the government just ignores it?"
At times, she says, the thought of her friend McCormick
being denied his natural medication makes her cry in anger.
That's when she finds the strength to continue.
She bends down to give Monkey Boy a pat. "I don't intend to
lose," she says, smiling. "It's not an option for me, really."
