Pubdate: Wed, 27 Apr 2011
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2011 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Authors: Katherine Gregg and Philip Marcelo, Journal State House Bureau
Note: With staff reports from Richard C. Dujardin
Bookmark: http://www.drugsense.org/cms/geoview/n-us-ri (Rhode Island)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

WATSON PRESENTS HIS VERSION OF ARREST IN CONN.

PROVIDENCE - In a televised speech on the House floor about his 
arrest in Connecticut last Friday on driving-under-the-influence and 
marijuana-possession charges, House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson 
admitted to using marijuana to treat flare-ups of the pancreatitis 
that landed him in the hospital last November.

Watson, R-East Greenwich, said he took a small amount of the drug 
with him when he went to Connecticut that day to help a friend move 
because he had had a pancreatic attack the day before, and wanted the 
drug handy if he had another severe one.

"I confess I did treat with marijuana on one of those rare occasions 
where I had that debilitating pain that literally had me flat on my 
back and wondering at what point do I decide an ambulance comes and 
takes me away. And I've got to confess it worked. It provided relief. 
And it alleviated the pain."

"I didn't smoke marijuana that day because I didn't suffer a 
relapse," he said of the Friday of his arrest.

But he acknowledged that he is not among the 3,428 Rhode Islanders 
legally authorized to use marijuana under the state's 
medical-marijuana program because he feared his personal medical 
information would somehow leak out of the state Department of Health.

A Health Department spokeswoman said: "We have been running the 
program for almost four years now and we have not released any 
patient's names."

"Now I know that the Department of Health prides itself on the 
confidentiality of that program. But let's face it," Watson said. "I 
am a public official, as we all are. We're a small state, and I am 
not certain that my privacy wouldn't be compromised were I to do this 
medical-marijuana treatment in the proper form and fashion."

In his speech, Watson also raised questions about how he was treated 
by the police in East Haven, Conn., after one of the officers saw his 
General Assembly ID in his wallet, asked what it was and learned that 
he was a state legislator in Rhode Island.

"I wish there had been cameras there. I wish it wasn't just my word 
against the police," he said. But "I deny that I failed any of the 
sobriety tests."

The East Haven police did not respond to a request for comment, but a 
dispatcher confirmed that none of the community's police cruisers are 
equipped with cameras.

Following his speech, many in the House rose from their own seats to 
give him a standing ovation, including all of the members of his own 
small Republican bloc in the overwhelmingly Democratic House who, a 
short time earlier, had taken a unanimous vote of confidence in his leadership.

House Speaker Gordon D. Fox, with whom Watson has often sparred, said 
afterward: "You saw how difficult that was for him. This is a time to 
say, 'Let him deal with his issues. Politics has no role to play in 
this, and we'll see what happens'... I feel for him on a human level."

Asked if he accepted Watson's medical explanation for his 
unauthorized use of marijuana, Fox said: "It is not my duty to judge 
whether it is believable or not."

Rep. Michael J. Marcello, D-Scituate, was not among those who stood 
to applaud Watson after his speech. A lawyer, Marcello said: "It is 
more appropriate that this plays out in a courtroom, not this room."

Rep. Roberto DaSilva, D-East Providence, did applaud.

A Pawtucket police lieutenant, DaSilva took some offense to Watson's 
characterization of what the Connecticut police did that night. "I 
was not there. But there are two sides to every story," he said in an 
interview after Watson's speech.

But, "A lot of what he said here makes a lot of sense. He has a 
medical condition that he'll have to deal with. His constituents will 
judge him on his actions and decide if they want to return him here, 
and his colleagues have given him a vote of support," DaSilva said.

Watson was stopped by Connecticut police as he was driving his pickup 
truck through a checkpoint in East Haven Friday night.

A police report said his eyes were "extremely glassy and bloodshot," 
his speech slurred, and he had difficulty performing a series of 
sobriety tests. After handcuffing Watson and placing him under 
arrest, the arresting police officer said he found "a small plastic 
sandwich bag containing a green leafy plant-like substance and a 
small wooden marijuana smoking pipe" in Watson's right pants pocket.

Watson, 50, is due back in Connecticut on May 11 to face charges in a 
New Haven court of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol 
and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

On Monday, Watson issued a brief statement in which he denied driving 
under the influence. On Tuesday, he elaborated.

"Well, I guess I got those pesky pay raises off the front page," he 
began to laughter as Fox was heard saying in the background, "I owe you."

Then, Watson explained why he brought a "small amount of marijuana" 
with him to Connecticut. "That was a mistake. I recognize that," he 
said. "I also didn't expect that any point in time during the day ... 
that I would be stopped and inventoried by the police" at a roadblock 
sobriety checkpoint "that frankly we don't allow here in our state. 
We determine that to be an unconstitutional intrusion on citizens 
freely going about their business and their lives.

"Well I encountered that event ... confident that I was neither 
intoxicated or under the influence," he said. "The police asked me 
had I been drinking. I was open and honest as I always believed that 
you should be with police. I told them yes, I had several drinks at 
dinner, which is true.

"They asked me where I had been. They asked me where I was heading. 
They asked me for my license ... [and while] I was retrieving my 
license, another officer took note of the legislative ID card in my 
wallet and wanted to know what it was, and I informed him. Well, I am 
a legislator.

"It seemed from that moment on, the whole dynamic changed. It 
appeared that the police suddenly became 'agendized.' I was ordered 
to park my car and exit the vehicle. I was immediately told that I 
would have to submit to a field sobriety test. ... I complied with 
every request asked of me."

"I was asked to submit to a Breathalyzer test. I complied because I 
was not intoxicated. I was not under the influence. I took the test. 
And, it came in well below the legal limit. It came in at 0.05, 
consistent with somebody that just had several drinks at dinner, well 
below the legal limit to operate a vehicle."

Watson said the depiction of him, in the police report, as someone 
"incapable of standing and incapable of speaking" is "belied by the 
fact that I was processed and released in an hour... Police do not 
release intoxicated individuals. They detain them for [their] own 
personal safety and the safety of the public."

Questions remained about how Watson obtained the marijuana and how he 
got home that night. Watson, 50, was not immediately available to 
answer follow-up questions.

A member of the House since 1993, and a senator for two years before 
that, he closed saying: "I am very sorry I brought ridicule to this 
chamber, a chamber I love. ... Believe me, I know what an honor it is 
to be in this room."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake