The war on drugs must be re-evaluated "methodically and clinically," from a global perspective, former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75 told a MacMillan 117 audience Friday. The speech kicked off the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Northeast Regional Conference, hosted at Brown this weekend.

"We need to ask ourselves, is this working?" Chafee, a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, said of current drug policies. "We have to be honest with ourselves in looking at this worldwide problem."

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PROVIDENCE -- The war on drugs should be reassessed and a global drug policy established, former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee told attendees of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Northeast Regional Conference, which kicked off yesterday evening at Brown University.

"We're at the point now where we really need to assess whether or not it's working," Chafee told the crowd of about 120. "There are a lot of people who will tell you it's not working. We should be open and honest with ourselves and what are our options."

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PROVIDENCE - It might be time for America, and perhaps the rest of the world, to assess its drug laws to see if they are working, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee told a regional drug policy conference at Brown University Friday.

With elected leaders of some South American nations talking about legitimizing the sale of their countries' coca crops and the cultivation of opium-producing poppies "exploding" in places like Afghanistan, generating money that is funneled to terrorism and prompting poppy growers to assemble their own private militias, Chafee said at the end of his presentation it may be time for a United Nations summit on the issue.

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The war on drugs has long been about heavy bombing rather than thoughtful prevention.

Jails and prisons fill up due to mandatory sentencing laws. U.S. officials tell poor farmers in other countries that they have to destroy their cash crop because if they don't it will eventually go up the noses of bored Americans.

And the national drug appetite continues to grow and continues to demand more and more.

I remember once sitting in a college auditorium and listening to the petite Nancy Reagan bringing her "Just Say No" message to students who probably had done more research on the subject than she had.

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When a student is caught in possession of marijuana, there is little they can use as an excuse to get out of being arrested or slapped with a hefty fine, according to Mahmoud ElSohly, a research professor at the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi.

As part of the Forensic Science Seminar Series, ElSohly made his presentation, "Marijuana in Forensics," to about 60 students and members of the community in Pastore Chemical Laboratory Friday. Referring to his latest research, ElSohly talked about the fact and fiction of marijuana usage and why certain defenses for positive marijuana testing don't hold up in court.

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Nearly two-dozen people crowded into a small and stuffy hearing room at the Rhode Island State House last Wednesday. Some came in wheelchairs, while others used white canes to guide them.

They came to ask lawmakers to make Rhode Island's medical marijuana law permanent. Right now, the law is set to expire on June 30, 2007. On that date, nearly 250 patients licensed by the state health department will lose their legal privilege to use pot to help them manage the pain of serious diseases, including cancer, AIDS, MS and glaucoma.

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Regarding Dr. Kenneth Mayer's thoughtful March 6 column, "Research proves effectiveness of medical marijuana use:" If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause death by overdose, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association.

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AS RHODE ISLAND debates making its medical marijuana law permanent (it's set to expire in June if not extended by the legislature), recently published research demonstrates marijuana's value for patients with life-threatening illnesses. It is clear -- as shown in a new study from the University of California, published in the prestigious medical journal Neurology -- that marijuana can sometimes provide relief when conventional drugs fail.

As an HIV/AIDS physician and researcher, I have seen patients who suffer from a variety of painful and debilitating symptoms. Some are caused by the disease itself, while others may be side effects of the medicines we may need to use to treat viral illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.

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Legislators, Students Seek To Make Medical Marijuana Permanent

The war is not over for supporters of the Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act in Rhode Island, as legislators and the University of Rhode Island Students for Sensible Drug Policy now call for the bill to remain permanent.

In 2006, the Rhode Island General Assembly overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's veto on the bill, and agreed to implement it on a trial basis. The law protects patients with debilitating medical conditions who opt marijuana as medical treatment.

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As two bills in support of medical marijuana use approach hearings in the state legislature, sponsors say the current incarnation of the Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Act has garnered greater support than in any previous year.

The bill's stated purpose is "to protect patients with debilitating medical conditions, and their physicians and primary caregivers, from arrest and prosecution, criminal and other penalties." Qualifying medical conditions include cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and illnesses that cause severe symptoms alleviated by marijuana use, such as nausea or seizures. Sufferers and their caregivers would be allowed to acquire and cultivate the drug as well as possess relevant paraphernalia.

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PROVIDENCE -- "The sky has definitely not fallen" as a result of Rhode Island's law permitting the use of medical marijuana by gravely ill patients, said Sen. Rhoda Perry. "It's gone exactly as we expected," she said. "A relatively small number of people, for whom more traditional pain treatment hasn't been effective, have been referred by their physician and have used the program successfully to relieve their pain. It has worked virtually without incident and has proven to be an effective program that doesn't promote abuse.

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The Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves. Under their plan, individuals were to have maximum freedom to make decisions for themselves, and citizens were to retain their power to make most decisions about crime and punishment at the state level. Not so much anymore.

A few weeks ago, federal drug agents raided 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County. The U.S. attorney's office said they violated federal laws against the cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

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Sick citizens should have access to cannabis. When I read that Rhonda O'Donnell called the bill "compassionate" ("Medical Marijuana Act up for review," Feb. 6), I was reminded of its Biblical implications. "But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:17).

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

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Since the implementation of the Medical Marijuana Act last spring, Rhonda O'Donnell, a 44-year-old former registered nurse with multiple sclerosis, has used marijuana to alleviate her pain without fear of breaking the law.

O'Donnell, the first person in Rhode Island to apply for the Medical Marijuana Program, praised the therapeutic effects of marijuana. "It's instantaneous cooling of the burning," she said. "I don't need it that often, but when I do, it works for me."

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DRUG ABUSE presents such danger to public health and safety that it requires its own war, the War on Drugs. The tangible results of three decades of this war are a quadrupling of nonviolent prisoners, resulting in a steady diversion of state funds from drug treatment and to the prison system. No price is too dear for our health and safety, but health and safety are expensive to maintain.

The cost of our current abuse-prevention system, when measured in the lives lost to prison and a chronic lack of treatment available to a growing user population, is painful for its victims and expensive for taxpayers to bear. When the policy stakes and costs are high, leaders demand an accounting, to ensure progress on important policy objectives and to control the costs of a critical program.

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One year ago, Rhode Island became the 11th state to legalize marijuana for medical use. Since then, more than 350 patients and caregivers have applied to become card carrying medical marijuana users. Will legislators be willing to continue the program?

Rhonda O'Donnell smokes pot. No, she doesn't have a bead curtain guarding the entrance to her bedroom and, no, she doesn't sit up late with Bob Marley and the munchies. O'Donnell, 44, has multiple sclerosis. She uses marijuana to control the pain, stiffness and burning in her legs associated with MS. She started smoking pot over the last year, after the Rhode Island General Assembly passed legislation legalizing the drug for medicinal purposes. She is one of almost 200 Rhode Islanders who have signed up for the program so far.

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WEST WARWICK - The group of West Warwick High School students sat around drinking, laughing and talking. The SADD truth is that they were drinking Gatorade, eating cupcakes and enjoying one another's company.

The group of about 20 students is trying to get the word out that drugs and alcohol aren't needed for teens to have a good time and they said that is one of many reasons they revived the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) organization.

One of the founding members, junior Chelsea Carlson, said the students wanted to revive the group because they needed to get the message out there and they needed someone their fellow students could relate to.

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PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union sued General Treasurer Paul J. Tavares yesterday, challenging new regulations that allow his office to deny or reduce compensation to crime victims who have been convicted of unrelated drunken-driving or drug-dealing offenses.

The treasurer administers the state's Crime Victim Compensation Program, which pays claims to crime victims, under certain conditions.

Over the past two years, Tavares has adopted regulations that authorize him to deny or reduce compensation if, in the preceding five years, crime victims have been convicted on charges of driving while intoxicated, selling or delivering drugs, or possessing drugs with the intent to sell or deliver them.

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To the Cigar,

A great person and dear friend of many was arrested with many others in a recent drug bust on campus. This person was not a drug dealer. He was not a threat to society. Despite this, he was taken from his room at three o'clock in the morning by the police, who had a warrant for his arrest.

In the bust, our friend was taken down and seven other students were arrested for selling drugs to undercover police officers. Although several counts of dealing crack, hallucinogenic mushrooms, ketamine, cocaine and marijuana were among the charges against the students, our friend was accused of "one count of delivering marijuana."

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To the Cigar,

I'm a little confused as to why this whole drug bust is such a huge deal. The police spend so much time and money building up cases against these kids, when liquor stores all across the country sell drugs on a daily basis in broad daylight.

This information might be a little startling at first glance but the last time I checked, alcohol and tobacco are drugs.

You may now stop your internal dialogue. I'm not sure as to how you can have a "war on drugs" by excluding certain, coincidentally taxed ones. Either you make all drugs illegal or you shut the hell up.

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