COVENTRY - An application has been filed to open a medical marijuana dispensary or compassion center in Coventry. Starting March 18 and ending May 17 the Rhode Island Department of Health was accepting applications for the operation of up to three "medical marijuana compassion centers." On May 28, Director of Health David R. Gifford released a notice of public hearing that stated the Rhode Island Department of Health had received 15 completed applications in response to the open application period. The public had the opportunity to be heard on the applications at a June 29 hearing at Capitol Hill in Providence. [continues 936 words]
PROVIDENCE -- A group of developers, residents and artists that have helped transform a section of the Valley neighborhood into a thriving community are upset with a proposal to establish a medical-marijuana compassion center near them. The state Health Department has yet to select operators for up to three centers for people in the state's medical-marijuana program, but officials are reviewing 15 applications and they are bound by a state law to select an operator for the state's first marijuana dispensary no later than July 30. [continues 759 words]
PROVIDENCE -- The much-anticipated hearing on who may be approved to open the first medical-marijuana dispensary in Rhode Island whizzed by with mild opposition on Tuesday morning in the basement of the Cannon Building of the state Health Department. More than 125 people packed into the auditorium and another two dozen waited outside, but there were no real fireworks. Only one speaker, Edward "Ted" Maroney, livened up the crowd when he questioned the "ridiculous prices" that the proponents of the Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center in Providence have suggested for marijuana sales in their dispensary. [continues 1016 words]
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The old warehouse complex in the Valley neighborhood has been many things to many people over the past 150 years. It was once home to the James Hanley Brewing Co., and Harry Houdini, the renowned escape artist, paid a visit and successfully broke free from a locked beer cask. In recent years, the fortress-like site has served as the Capitol Records Center, a storage facility for reams of archived state documents. Now, the two vacant buildings at 431 Harris Ave. may soon take on a new historic significance: A group of investors is contending to turn it into the state's first medical marijuana store. They would name it the Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center, after the late Providence state representative who championed the legalization of medical marijuana, to grow and applicants interested in operating a compassion center in Rhode Island under rules developed by the Department of Health. There are applications for other centers in Providence as well as for marijuana retail sites in Pawtucket, Portsmouth, the Warwick/Cranston area and northern Rhode Island. Several applicants have yet to secure an exact location while one did not respond to a request seeking a tour of its proposed facility. Another declined the offer, while Slater officials agreed to meet with a Journal reporter and photographer. [continues 923 words]
Seeks Permit for Facility on High Point Avenue PORTSMOUTH - A Middletown man hopes to be one of the 15 applicants chosen by the state to open a medical marijuana sales center - and he hopes to win Portsmouth's approval to open the marijuana sales and growing operation in the industrial park. Seth H. Bock, of 565 Wolcott Avenue, Middletown, has applied for a special use permit to allow a retail sales business in a light industrial zone. The Zoning Board of Review will hear the proposal at its June 17 meeting, beginning at 7 p.m. in Town Hall. [continues 496 words]
PROVIDENCE - The state Department of Health received 15 proposals by Monday from applicants seeking to establish the state's first compassion center, or store, to sell marijuana to patients registered in the medicinal-marijuana program. Two of the applications had been submitted through Friday, while 13 more came in just before the deadline passed at 4:30 p.m., health officials said. Annemarie Beardsworth, Health Department spokeswoman, said that the department will not release the names of the applicants or other details of the proposals, including proposed center locations, until department officials review the applications. [continues 296 words]
Richard M. Evans got an arrow-splitting bull's-eye exposing cannabis (marijuana) prohibition, persecution and extermination ("The president's pot problem," April 22) for what it is. Truth is, another reason to end cannabis prohibition that doesn't get mentioned is because it is biblically correct, since God Our Father, The Ecologician, indicates He created all seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very first page (Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30). The only biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that it is to be accepted with thankfulness (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5). The list of reasons to relegalize cannabis is growing faster than the plant itself. Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
EAST PROVIDENCE - Kenneth J. Berube was one of the first patients who was approved for the state's medical-marijuana program, to deal with an anxiety disorder and other ailments that have prohibited him from working. But the issuance of the license that allows him to legally smoke marijuana has brought a host of unexpected problems. Over the past 3 1/2 years, Berube has gone through eight caregivers, or licensed suppliers of marijuana, and he suspects that some of them are illegally dealing the drug. He said that he knew all of them and dropped them after he had disputes with them over increases in the price of marijuana. [continues 753 words]
Two bills that would end the criminal prohibition of marijuana use came before the Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday. The first bill -- proposed by Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, whose district includes College Hill -- would legalize the drug under certain conditions. The second bill -- introduced by Rep. John G. Edwards, D-Tiverton and Portsmouth -- would decriminalize marijuana consumption and levy a $150 fine for possession. The two bills come on the heels of a March recommendation by a state Senate study commission that the state decriminalize small amounts of the drug. [continues 910 words]
Why decriminalize marijuana when drugs are central to many of the problems relating to gangs, teenage suicide, teenage violence and low academic achievement? Anyone close to the issue -- teachers, police officers, counselors, and parents -- can speak to this with certainty: Kids have been reaching out for guidance and direction for decades, and as a nation, we have not been able to provide an answer to the confused and sometimes hypocritical and contradictory environment they have grown up in. Another mixed societal message is not going to help. [continues 781 words]
PROVIDENCE - While a special Senate commission continues studying the prohibition of marijuana and perhaps a Massachusetts-style decriminalization of the drug, two House members have submitted legislation to tighten up the state's medical marijuana law. The Senate commission, chaired by Sen. Joshua Miller, will meet Wednesday at 5 p.m. to hear from Rhode Island Public Defender John J. Hardiman, Esq.; Jack Cole of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; a representative of the Massachusetts Police Chiefs Association; and commission member Joe Osediacz, a retired state trooper. Osediacz will discuss state laws concerning the taxation of marijuana. [continues 678 words]
PROVIDENCE -- Two state lawmakers -- who are retired Providence police officers -- have introduced legislation to close what they see as loopholes in the state's medical-marijuana law that allowed a man with a long criminal record to obtain a marijuana-use card from the state Department of Health months after his latest arrest on drug charges. The case, known as State of Rhode Island versus Orlando Martino, is headed to court again for a status conference on Thursday, with Martino's lawyer seeking a dismissal of all of the charges pending against him -- including a marijuana-possession charge from last August -- on the grounds that the same law that enabled him to obtain a medical-marijuana card insulates him from prosecution. [continues 591 words]
State health regulators have issued proposed regulations for the operation of compassion centers to dispense medical marijuana, but it could still take up to a year before the first center opens its doors in Rhode Island. Acting under legislation passed by the General Assembly last spring, the state Department of Health last week issued 22 pages of proposed rules for licensing and operating up to three compassion centers in Rhode Island. The rules, covering everything from the amount of marijuana dispensed to the background of those dispensing it to the security systems in place to guard it, will be the subject of a formal public hearing on Feb. 2. [continues 897 words]
On Oct. 19, the Justice Department circulated a memorandum to federal prosecutors in Rhode Island and the other 13 medical marijuana states instructing them not to prosecute individuals using medical marijuana or those involved in dispensary operations that are "in clear and unambiguous compliance" with state laws. The move was hailed by medical marijuana advocates such as Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, who called it "an extremely welcome rhetorical de-escalation of the federal government's long-standing war on medical marijuana patients." We generally approve of ending wars but, as Americans have learned recently, winning the peace can be just as important. In this context, that would be Rhode Island taking advantage of the unprecedented window of opportunity created by the Justice memo to develop a superior medical marijuana distribution system. [continues 394 words]
Once again, Rhode Island is wading into muddy waters. In May the General Assembly approved a law mandating that the health department establish privately run medical cannabis dispensaries; the first is scheduled to open next year. Rhode Island would be only the third state to enact such a law, and it has a chance to improve on California's wild and unregulated system and New Mexico's tightly constrained delivery-only network. But the new program has some crucial flaws that the Assembly must admit and rectify. [continues 470 words]
PROVIDENCE — About 60 people crowded into a basement auditorium in the Cannon Building Tuesday seeking answers about the formation of three "compassion centers," where licensed patients would be able to buy marijuana. But it quickly became apparent that there were more questions than answers. Charles Alexandre, a top health official, and Gregory Madoian, a lawyer for the Health Department, patiently went through the recently revised community review draft of the Medical Marijuana Program legislation that lawmakers approved in June. Along the way, those in attendance raised questions about dozens of provisions in the 22-page document. [continues 485 words]
PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Department of Health is moving forward with plans to create the state's first medical marijuana clinic where patients who use the drug for medicinal purposes can legally purchase it. Officials have released a draft version of the regulations regarding operation of such clinics and have scheduled "an informal community review meeting" Tuesday, inviting the public to share its thoughts. In June, lawmakers closed a loophole in the state's medical marijuana law, approving the creation of up to three so-called "compassion centers" where they say authorized patients will be able to safely buy affordable marijuana. [continues 570 words]
Regarding Froma Harrop's thoughtful July 30 column, "Pot could be gold for California": Marijuana will probably remain a criminalized substance because lots of people, organizations and industries have a vested financial interest in the status quo of marijuana prohibition. They want marijuana to remain completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled by criminals. Relegalizing marijuana would make it substantially less profitable for not only growers and sellers, but also for lots of politicians and members of law enforcement. The notorious gangster Al Capone had hundreds of politicians and police officials on his payroll during the 1920s because of Prohibition. Shouldn't we assume that the drug cartels of today are following Capone's business model? Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
PROVIDENCE -- Firefighters raced to a vinyl-sided ranch house in the city's North End in July and forced their way inside to battle a late-morning fire. They quickly extinguished the flames and discovered that the source of the blaze was an elaborate marijuana cultivating operation in the basement. The Fire Department called the Police Department. Officers assigned to the Narcotics Bureau responded to the house off Charles Street and learned that Kurtis Thomas was licensed to grow the marijuana through the state's Medical Marijuana Program. [continues 954 words]
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- State Representative Thomas C. Slater, who successfully urged legalizing medical marijuana in Rhode Island, died Monday at his home in Providence. He was 68. The cause was cancer, other legislative leaders on the issue said in announcing his death. Despite being seriously ill, Mr. Slater, Democrat of Providence, attended General Assembly sessions this summer to oversee an expansion of the state's medical marijuana program. A former Marine first elected to office in 1994, Mr. Slater was best known for sponsoring legislation that in 2006 made Rhode Island the 11th state in the country to allow chronically ill patients to possess small amounts of marijuana to ease their symptoms. The drug remains illegal under federal law. [continues 75 words]
THE POPULAR TV series Weeds is about a widowed suburban mother who deals pot to preserve her family's cushy California dream. Not a few Californians would like to see the theme writ large for their state. California has legalized medical marijuana, its cannabis crop is valued at $17 billion a year, and people there smoke pot openly. But the state can't collect a penny of revenues from the enormous enterprise. As California faced budget Armageddon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for "a debate" on the potential of tapping marijuana as a source of tax revenues. That's all he can do, because federal law still criminalizes marijuana use. [continues 526 words]
GLOCESTER - It's probably a safe bet there wasn't a single Fourth of July parade in the country Saturday that featured spaced-out Rastafarians dressed in lab coats and flashing peace signs. The "Medical Marijuana for All" float - a tribute to Rhode Island becoming the third state in the nation to permit marijuana sales to chronically ill patients - had the crowds attending Glocester's infamous Ancients and Horribles Parade in stitches as guys with dreadlocks and lab coats marched in front of a day-glo VW bus filled with cannabis (fake cannabis, that is). Following behind the bus were a couple of women pushing baby strollers with signs that read: "Pot for Postpartum." [continues 574 words]
PROVIDENCE — Weeks after legalizing the sale of marijuana to sick people, lawmakers have voted to explore how much Rhode Island might collect in revenue if it were to make all sales of marijuana legal and impose a "sin tax" of $35 per ounce. During the General Assembly's aborted rush to adjournment Friday, the Senate approved a resolution — introduced earlier the same day — to create a nine-member special commission to study a swath of issues surrounding marijuana. Among them: "The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws ... The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana." [continues 697 words]
Rhode Island became the third state in the country Tuesday to allow the sale of marijuana for medical purposes. The House and Senate easily overrode Governor Carcieri's veto of bills that would permit up to three dispensaries that advocates have dubbed "compassion centers." In 2006, the General Assembly permanently legalized the use of medical marijuana. Doctors could prescribe it for critically ill patients. But there was no legal way to buy the drug, leaving patients or their caregivers to grow it, or buy it on the street. [continues 487 words]
PROVIDENCE -- Republican Governor Carcieri has, as promised, vetoed legislation that would make Rhode Island the second state in the nation to allow state-licensed dispensaries to sell marijuana to the chronically and critically ill. In his first veto message of the year, Carcieri said: "Although the intent of the legislation is to allow consenting adults to use marijuana only for medicinal purposes based on illness, the increased availability, along with a complacent attitude, will no doubt result in increased usage, and will negatively impact the children of Rhode Island." [continues 481 words]
PROVIDENCE -- Nearly a decade after patient advocates first pressed for full-scale legalization of marijuana for medical use, Rhode Island on Tuesday became only the second state to establish state-licensed dispensaries to sell the drug to the critically ill. Senate lawmakers gave final approval to the House and Senate versions of the legislation, sending it to the governor's desk with enough votes to override a veto, if necessary. Governor Carcieri, a longtime critic of medical marijuana, confirmed in a brief interview Tuesday that he will "do the same thing I've done with it in the past." A year ago he vetoed a compromise plan to study the concept, saying it would "move Rhode Island further down the path of weakening the laws governing -- and public perception of -- illicit drugs." [continues 453 words]
PROVIDENCE - Following the lead of the Senate, the House of Representatives Wednesday approved by a lopsided majority a bill approving the establishment of a non-profit "compassion center" to distribute medical marijuana to authorized patients. After just over 10 minutes of debate the House voted 63-5 to pass the bill introduced by Providence Rep. Thomas Slater. A companion bill passed in the Senate last month on a 35-2 vote. Before the measure can become law, the House must pass the Senate version of the bill and/or the Senate must pass the House version of the bill and send it to Gov. Donald Carcieri who, according to his spokeswoman, is "expected to veto it." [continues 636 words]
A Growing, But Still Problematic, Remedy On a recent morning, Kirk Manter, 54, lifts a 3-foot-tall marijuana plant grown in a house on a quiet street in Woonsocket. He shoves the leafy plant packaged in a tall trash bag into his Jeep Cherokee and drives it to a man in South County who is battling multiple sclerosis. A wooden cross dangles from his narrow neck. His white T-shirt features a picture of a caduceus the symbol of the medical profession against a bright green plant. [continues 857 words]
PROVIDENCE -- A proposal that would create licensed dispensaries to sell marijuana to those who've been prescribed the drug for medicinal purposes is headed for an official vote on the House floor in the coming weeks, having cleared a final committee Thursday night. Establishing the so-called "compassion centers" would allow the hundreds of Rhode Islanders legally allowed to use the drug under a relatively new state law to safely and affordably purchase it, supporters say. Though lawmakers in 2006 legalized use of medical marijuana for those who suffer from certain chronic, debilitating illnesses, they never provided a legal avenue to obtain the drug, drawing concerns about safety and accessibility. [continues 127 words]
PROVIDENCE -- For the second year in a row, a state Senate committee has approved a bill to allow licensed dispensaries -- known as "compassion centers" -- to grow and sell marijuana to the estimated 600 patients who currently have the state's blessing to use the drug for medicinal purposes. The unanimous vote on Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Health & Human Services, chaired by the lead sponsor of the legislation -- Providence Democrat Rhoda Perry -- elicited mixed reactions from the front-row spectators wearing T-shirts that said: "Rhode Island Compassion Club." [continues 740 words]
PROVIDENCE -- No one seems to be getting worked up about a bill before the General Assembly that would decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, making it a civil violation punishable by fine rather than jail time. At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, only three people -- a former New Jersey police detective, a spokesman for a convict assistance agency and a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union -- testified about the bill. All were in favor of it. [continues 412 words]
There are children who matter so little that no government agency even bothers to count or keep statistical track of them. They are the children of prisoners. Nationally, the justice systems have no interest in how children or families are affected by an offending parent's imprisonment. The state ensures that the sins of the father are visited upon the son. The number-one predictor of a child going to prison is having had a parent in prison. The number-one drag on a child's academic success is family chaos of any kind. And nothing is as chaotic as having a parent yanked out of their lives and branded as a convict. [continues 808 words]
IS IT TIME -- yet -- to tax marijuana? California dodged a budget bullet, and now Massachusetts, New York and other states are under the same gun. As governors and state legislatures scrape for new sources of revenue, has the time come to talk seriously -- really seriously, without winks, puns and smirks -- about regulating and taxing marijuana? It's hard to avoid the brutal truths, and even harder to admit them. The marijuana market is immense, barely restrained by prohibition laws, while the harm it causes society is minuscule compared with alcohol and tobacco. [continues 573 words]
PROVIDENCE - Without committing to bringing the bill out of the House Health Education and Welfare Committee that he chairs, Warwick Rep. Joseph McNamara said he looks more kindly this year toward a bill that would establish state-authorized dispensaries to distribute medical marijuana. The Senate passed legislation last year to create the "compassion centers," but the House HEW committee, upon McNamara's recommendation, amended the bill to establish a commission to study the issue. The amended bill passed the House and Senate but was vetoed by Gov. Donald Carcieri. [continues 934 words]
WHEN A PIZZERIA closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit. The Bush administration's hostility toward embryonic stem-cell science created opportunity in Canada. Starved of adequate federal support, American labs doing this cutting-edge science shrank or closed down, and many of their researchers moved to Canada. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of American university professors and assistants relocating to Canada jumped 27 percent, according to Canadian immigration officials. Some were stars in stem-cell research. [continues 526 words]
PROVIDENCE -- For Bobby Ebert, the legalization of medical marijuana in Rhode Island didn't just bring relief, it brought a slew of unwanted anxieties. State law allows the Warwick HIV patient to use the drug to alleviate his chronic pain -- but it offers him no place to buy it legally. So Ebert did what many of Rhode Island's medical marijuana patients do. Frail and in pain, he made his way from his suburban apartment to the streets of Providence in search of a drug dealer. The first time he went, he was robbed. [continues 479 words]
For Rhode Islanders suffering from terminal illnesses or chronic pains, medical marijuana can provide badly needed relief. But getting the marijuana in a safe, legal manner can be problematic for these patients - which is why state legislators have introduced a bill allowing for the creation of up to three nonprofit Compassion Centers to grow and distribute the plant. The bill was introduced in the state Senate last week by Sen. Rhoda Perry D-Dist. 3 P'91 and will be introduced in the House of Representatives today by Rep. Tom Slater D-Providence. It is a reincarnation of a 2008 bill which failed to pass the House despite winning a 30-5 vote in the Senate. [continues 728 words]
A wide array of pundits has been referring to the recent election as "historic" because, for the first time, an African-American was elected president. But for Jeff Morris, a sophomore at Suffolk University in Boston, the election was historic for a different reason. Morris, who started a chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws at Suffolk this semester, is celebrating the passage of Massachusetts Ballot Question 2, which decriminalizes the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, making it a civil offense instead of a criminal one. [continues 939 words]
Libertarian Favors Legalization After growing up with "Just Say No" with television commercials imploring them to be "Above the Influence," today's college students have spent their youths grounded in America's so-called "war on drugs." But on Tuesday night, students filled List Auditorium to hear one man's take on exactly why the whole campaign makes no sense. Jeffrey Miron, Harvard economics professor, outspoken libertarian and staunch advocate of drug legalization, told his audience that since his positions tend to be unpopular, he gets a "weird feeling" when an audience agrees with him. [continues 559 words]
CRANSTON, R.I. -- Classic American diners are dinosaurs these days. Many of them, anyway. Take Sherwood's Diner, once so popular in Worcester, Mass., that patrons who were firefighters rigged a fire bell to ring inside the diner. Or Hickey's Diner, hooked to a 1954 Chevy truck on the town green in Taunton, Mass. Or the gigantic Louis' Diner in Concord, N.H., with stained-glass windows, basket-weave tile, and a colorful history, including having an owner who was convicted of rum-running during Prohibition. [continues 1140 words]
It was one of the good things in a bad year. It was a serious attempt to put some fairness and common sense into a system sadly lacking in either. It was an attempt to keep people who shouldn't be in prison out of prison. It was hopeful. And it was shot down by Governor Carcieri, who apparently wants to keep the ACI running at full capacity and then some. So on Wednesday, people gathered across from the ACI in Cranston to point out how really shortsighted the governor has been. [continues 536 words]
PROVIDENCE -- The General Assembly's rush to adjournment took a pause, as legislators in both the Senate and House of Representatives called it a night on Friday and took the unusual step of reconvening on Saturday morning to wrap-up the legislative session. Here are some of the highlights of the end-of-session lawmaking blitz: Efforts to establish "compassion centers" where registered medical marijuana users could obtain the drug without dealing on the sometimes dangerous black market failed, but a joint House and Senate resolution was passed to create a study commission that will spend the legislative off-season evaluating the idea. [continues 276 words]
ONCE AGAIN the cancer diagnosis of a well-known national figure -- in this case Sen. Ted Kennedy -- has sparked a flurry of interest in efforts to treat and cure this frustrating, complex and deadly illness. One of the most promising areas of research involves a group of chemicals whose origins may seem shocking. The chemicals, called cannabinoids, are the active components in marijuana. Yes, marijuana, the very same drug that seems to generate endless controversy here and abroad, and that our government still claims causes cancer -- a claim that appears to stand reality on its head. [continues 551 words]
The Senate recently voted 29-6 to pass legislation allowing the establishment of marijuana dispensaries in order to provide a safe venue for patients prescribed medical marijuana to obtain the drug. Sponsored by Senator Rhoda Perry (D-Dist. 3), the bill would fill a hole in current law whereby patients prescribed medical marijuana are unable to safely obtain it. Perry sponsored the bill that created Rhode Island's medical marijuana program two years ago along with House sponsor Rep. Thomas C. Slater (D-Dist. 10). He is also sponsoring the dispensary legislation this year in the House version of the bill, H-7888. The House Health, Education and Welfare Committee held that bill for further study in early April. [continues 399 words]
PROVIDENCE -- For the second year in a row, state lawmakers have approved a bill to wipe out the state's mandatory minimum sentences for serious drug crimes, such as the sale of heroin, cocaine or significant amounts of marijuana. And for the second year in a row, Republican Governor Carcieri is likely to veto it. Since this "is essentially the same bill that went to the governor last year, and he vetoed it, it is reasonable to believe it will receive the same treatment this year," said Carcieri spokeswoman Barbara Trainor in response to inquiries after the measure cleared its final legislative hurdle yesterday. [continues 615 words]
PROVIDENCE -- The Senate approved legislation yesterday that would create "compassion centers" where chronically ill patients enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program could openly purchase the drug. Despite the 29-to-6 vote, the bill faces opposition in the House of Representatives and is not expected to become law this year. "I would really have to have a sock over my head if I didn't know that," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence. The legislation is named in part for her nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, who died of complications from AIDS and cancer. [continues 329 words]
PROVIDENCE - A bill to create "compassion centers" to dispense medical marijuana that appeared headed for passage in the Senate was derailed at the last minute by an amendment that would have forbidden smoking the drug in cars or where children are present. When the oral amendment offered by Sen. Leo Blais passed on a vote of 18-16, the sponsor of the original bill, Sen. Rhoda Perry, moved to have the measure sent back to the committee she chairs for a second try at having the bill pass without the amendment. [continues 815 words]
State Allows Drug Use For Suffering Patients A year after making medical marijuana legal for patients to use, Rhode Island lawmakers say it's time to establish a safe and legal means for them to obtain the drug. Right now, qualifying patients may grow marijuana, but they can't legally buy it. As a result, they often resort to buying it on the street. Some legislators and doctors call that scenario an unwanted weak link in an otherwise successful law. They've heard too many stories like that of Buddy Coolen, 29, a medical marijuana user who three months ago was robbed at gunpoint by a drug dealer while trying to buy marijuana to treat his debilitating gastrointestinal condition. [continues 495 words]
I agree with the editorial in favor of changing the federal law in order to protect patients in states that have permitted marijuana for medical use. However, in your article on Feb. 14, titled "Marijuana quandary," you have one important omission in regard to the existence of national legislation. I have in fact introduced that very legislation in every year since 1997. The States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act would give effect to decisions made by the states to prescribe marijuana when, in the physicians' medical judgment, it is an appropriate treatment. This bill would allow states, by their appropriate decision-making processes and without fear of federal interference, to decide if they wish to let physicians practicing medicine in those states add marijuana to the long list of substances they can prescribe when they believe it to be medically indicated. Furthermore, my bill would put a stop to federal raids and criminal penalties on patients who are following state law by eliminating federal penalties related to the medical use of marijuana in states where the activity has been approved by the legislature or the people (through the referendum or initiative process). [continues 189 words]
I'm writing about Bob Kerr's outstanding March 26 column: "Time to legalize marijuana." The headline should have been: "Time to re-legalize marijuana." For most of our nation's history, marijuana was legal. And contrary to the Reefer Madness propaganda and lies that created the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 that criminalized marijuana, we had almost no problems with marijuana or its users. There are two types of people who support the continued criminalization of marijuana: Those with a vested financial interest in the prohibition of marijuana. This includes drug-war cheerleading politicians who are probably on the payroll of the drug cartels; and suckers -- taxpayers who pay to support the world's largest prison system, our unwinnable war on drugs and who have bought into the propaganda and lies of the drug-war bureaucracy and industry. Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
Inside Rhode Island
