It's no secret. Most Americans now favor making marijuana legal. The national numbers are similar to those in Rhode Island, where a recent poll showed that 57 percent of Rhode Island residents support legalization. Prohibitionists are rapidly losing the debate because the facts are against them. Nonetheless, they continue to repeat three arguments that have been thoroughly debunked by objective scientific research.

First, opponents of legalization claim that marijuana is a "gateway" to hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. Numerous studies over the past 70 years - including one commissioned by the White House - have discredited this hypothesis. Yet prohibitionists continue to claim that marijuana use leads to later use of heroin and other dangerous drugs. Roughly half of all American adults have tried marijuana. If marijuana is a "gateway drug" as opponents claim, why do we find that only 2 percent of Americans have ever tried heroin?

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Members of a local church who use marijuana in various forms for what they claim is a religious ritual gathered at Roger Williams National Memorial on Saturday, while several U.S. Park Service police officers watched to make sure no one in the group smoked on federal property.

Instead, four members of the West Greenwich-based Healing Church anointed each other with cannabis-infused oil at the well at the park. They also drank a jar full of a white liquid, called bhang, made from fermented kefir grains, honey and marijuana. But they didn't smoke because authorities made it clear that smoking marijuana on federal grounds would not be tolerated.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A church that meets in a West Greenwich home and uses cannabis in its services has obtained a permit from the National Park Service to conduct a religious service at the Roger Williams National Memorial, a site chosen for its significance to the idea of religious freedom.

Cannabis activists Anne Armstrong and Alan Gordon, representatives of The Healing Church, applied for a permit for a 45-minute Celebration of Holy Fire at 8 p.m. on May 23 for about 100 people on the small federal property at 282 North Main St.

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R.I. Growers Can Attest to Perils of New Market

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. - A tiny spider mite is all it could take to cripple Seth Bock's business.

Bock grows marijuana, legally, for a living, and the peril presented by just one small insect illustrates how difficult it can be to establish a thriving dispensary.

His is one of three medical marijuana dispensaries in Rhode Island, and his experience provides vital lessons for companies in Massachusetts that have won licenses to grow and sell marijuana. The first is expected to open in April.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Two Johnson & Wales University graduates are ready to open the state's first medical marijuana vapor lounge in downtown Providence Saturday.

Named Elevated, the small storefront lounge on Peck Street does not intend to sell marijuana, but offer licensed medical marijuana patients a casual space to consume their medication in vapor form, said owner Kevin Cintorino Friday. Pipes and accessories for marijuana "vaping" will be available to rent.

"A lot of landlords don't let you use medicine in your apartment, so people have to go to their friends' houses and other places that aren't convenient," said Cintorino, who is also a medical marijuana patient. "Here they can relax and talk about what works best with other people who know about it."

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Regarding the Jan. 12 Commentary piece by Susan Shapiro ("My pot addiction nearly ruined my life"):

While we have suffered many of these platitudes against legalization before I do take exception to her admonition to more forward slowly. We should be moving along at an exhilarated clip as there is a very real window of opportunity here for Rhode Island.

Colorado's experiment has proven to be a boon to its economy just as gambling's approval in 1974 did for New Jersey. The first state in the East that approves legalization will be the one to reap the rewards. Once legalization is approved that window will slowly start to close and revenues will fall as other nearby states start their own legalization processes. Witness the effect Indian reservation gambling has had on the casinos of New Jersey.

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It is 2015 now, believe it or not. Rhode Island muddles along, perpetually over-taxed, under-employed, and struggling to keep up economically with both our neighbors and the rest of the country.

Our unemployment stands at 7.1 percent, 47th out of 50 states. The 2015 budget projects a $200 million deficit, which is a pretty incredible feat considering Rhode Island is one of the most highly taxed states in the union.

Our state needs something new, something to boost us up and out of the rut we always seem to find ourselves in. The Marijuana Regulation, Control and Taxation Act could very likely be exactly what Rhode Island needs to turn itself around.

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In his Jan. 3 Commentary piece ("Talking police and Newtown's millions"), Chris Powell writes of the police's response to blacks: "Young black men commit a hugely disproportionate amount of crime."

Unfortunately, this is only one side of a very stacked equation. The vast increase in incarcerations over the past decade is because of the "war on drugs, " with half of all drug arrests since 2010 being for marijuana (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Fact Sheet 2014). While blacks and whites have the same rate of marijuana use (according to American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP), The New York Times reported on June 3, 2013 that they are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession or sales.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A graduate student has sued a textile company for refusing to hire her for a two-month internship because she uses medical marijuana to treat frequent and debilitating migraine headaches, a decision her attorney calls discrimination.

Christine Callaghan, who is studying textiles at the University of Rhode Island, sued Westerly-based Darlington Fabrics Corp. and its parent, the Moore Co., on Wednesday. The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Ms. Callaghan, said it believes it's the first lawsuit of its kind in the state.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is suing a Westerly-based fabric manufacturer on behalf of a University of Rhode Island graduate student who says she was denied a paid summer internship because she is a registered medical marijuana user.

The lawsuit alleges that Darlington Fabrics violated the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act and the state medical marijuana law when it turned down Christine Callaghan for a paid internship at the company last July after she disclosed she was a medical marijuana cardholder, the ACLU said in a news release. Callaghan uses medical marijuana to treat "frequent, debilitating migraine headaches."

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Tuesday's elections showed us that the momentum for marijuana policy reform continues to grow across the country. Oregon and Alaska became the third and fourth states to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol, and voters in Washington, D.C. overwhelmingly approved a measure to remove all penalties for adult marijuana possession.

Americans are rejecting costly and ineffective marijuana laws that punish adults for using a substance that is less harmful than alcohol. Marijuana prohibition is on the way out.

Ballot initiatives to regulate and tax marijuana are expected to appear in Massachusetts and Maine in 2016. Rhode Island has an opportunity in the 2015 legislative session to become the first East Coast state to regulate and tax marijuana. I hope the General Assembly notices the national trend towards marijuana policy reform and enacts legislation to give our state a head start advantage in the emerging legal marijuana economy.

Mark Gray

Providence

The writer is president of Young Democrats of Rhode Island.

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WOONSOCKET, R.I. - CVS Pharmacy announced that it would offer the opiate antidote Narcan without a prescription at all of its 60 pharmacies in Rhode Island by the end of month.

Narcan, also known as naloxone, offers immediate help for anyone overdosing from an opiate such as heroin or a prescription painkiller such as OxyContin. If given in time, Narcan can reverse an overdose by restoring breathing.

"Over half of our pharmacies are now under a collaborative agreement that allows them to dispense Narcan without a prescription," CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis said Friday. "It's part of our commitment to combat prescription drug abuse. We think it's a great public service."

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CRANSTON, R.I. - Inside a cinderblock classroom at the Adult Correctional Institutions' medium-security facility, a group of inmates who are nearing their release dates get a lesson about how to say alive on the outside.

Their chances of dying from a bullet are nothing compared with the risk of a fatal drug overdose.

The men are told how to recognize the signs of an overdose: Pale or bluish skin. Faint pulse. Slow or labored breathing. "They may sound like they're snoring," Rebecca McGlodrick, a volunteer instructor, says, but when someone is overdosing the noises mean they're "struggling to take a breath."

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For decades marijuana prohibition has been one of the cornerstones of our ineffective and costly war on drugs. The sad irony, however, is that using criminal law to direct our police officers, prosecutors and judges to arrest and punish individuals for marijuana has failed to reduce its widespread availability and use.

Despite criminal penalties, daily marijuana use has more than tripled among teenagers since the early 1990s. According to an annual survey from Columbia University, nearly half of all high school students know of someone in their school who sells drugs. Ninety-one percent of those teenagers know a peer who sells marijuana. By comparison only 1 percent knows of a classmate who sells alcohol.

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When something is broken, it needs to be fixed. Marijuana prohibition is a broken policy, and it is time to enact a solution.

The "rush" to end marijuana prohibition ("Why rush on pot, Rhode Island?," Commentary, May 6) comes from the fact that we have lived under this failed policy for more than 70 years.

We have seen that marijuana prohibition does nothing to reduce the availability and use of marijuana. Instead, it only enriches criminals who sell it illegally in an unregulated market. We don't need to wait any longer to know that our current approach to marijuana is the wrong way to go.

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The Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team, or DMAT, conducted recent training and has ordered 300 doses of Narcan for the state police.

With the death toll from Rhode Island's ongoing drug overdose epidemic continuing to rise, the State Police on Friday announced the full deployment of Narcan to state troopers.

"If Narcan can save even one life, then it is incumbent upon us to have it available and for our troopers to be trained in its administration," said Col. Steven O'Donnell, superintendent of the state police. "Narcan will keep someone alive long enough for rescue personnel to respond, provide additional medical assistance, and transport the victim to the hospital. It's the right thing to do."

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The Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team, or DMAT, conducted recent training and has ordered 300 doses of Narcan for the state police.

With the death toll from Rhode Island's ongoing drug overdose epidemic continuing to rise, the State Police on Friday announced the full deployment of Narcan to state troopers.

"If Narcan can save even one life, then it is incumbent upon us to have it available and for our troopers to be trained in its administration," said Col. Steven O'Donnell, superintendent of the state police. "Narcan will keep someone alive long enough for rescue personnel to respond, provide additional medical assistance, and transport the victim to the hospital. It's the right thing to do."

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Legalization Bill Would Allocate Millions In Tax Revenue To Narcotic Abuse Prevention

The House Judiciary Committee last week heard testimony on several bills proposing to legalize marijuana in Rhode Island and to improve current regulations on the sale and distribution of medical marijuana.

While marijuana legalization has gained momentum in the state recently, there remain concerns for some about regulation and legalization's effects.

Legalizing marijuana

The first bill - introduced Feb. 13 by Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence - would legalize the possession and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana for personal use for adults over 21 years old, a policy supported by 47.6 percent of respondents in an April 10 poll from the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. The committee heard testimony on the bill Wednesday.

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In the late 1970s and early '80s, just as this country's war on drugs was ramping up, I joined the Providence Police Department, serving five years as a uniformed police officer in the patrol division. Even then, with the lion's share of our federal drug enforcement budget devoted to treatment, I had doubts about the efficacy of a "war on drugs." The criminal justice system seemed ill-suited for addressing public health problems, and it appeared that the issue was being manipulated and exploited for political reasons. But I could never have imagined the damage this new prohibition would inflict on the fabric of our cities and on our national identity.

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It's time to retire the marijuana bust photograph. So, this week in The Providence Phoenix, we are hereby sending the accompanying photo - both a recent local example of what we mean when we say "marijuana bust photograph" and a symbolic stand-in for an entire genre of news photography - somewhere warm and sunny to live out the rest of its days away from the public eye.

We cannot speak on behalf other local media outlets: newspapers, radio stations, TV channels, or online outlets like Coventry Patch, which ran this pic under the headline "Coventry, Scituate Police Make $250,000 Pot Bust in Joint Investigation," on March 14. (There's a nice "joint" pun tucked in there.) We can only speak for ourselves.

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