PROVIDENCE -- Two committees of the state House of Representatives took up a host of proposals on Wednesday seeking to regulate marijuana, bringing out medical-marijuana patients, university students and former and current law-enforcement officers.

Supporters of a bill to legalize and tax the drug, including a handful of former and retired police officers, argued that the proposed law would make the state safer by allowing the police to focus on major crimes rather than marijuana offenses, while also helping the state dig out of its financial troubles by providing additional tax revenue.

[continues 509 words]

PROVIDENCE - The long-awaited decision on medical marijuana dispensaries was announced Tuesday afternoon with the Department of Health selecting three applicants, the maximum permitted under state law. They are: Summit Medical Compassion Center in Warwick, The Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center in Providence, and Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth.

Rhode Island is one of four states that has authorized state-regulated marijuana dispensaries.

The selections Tuesday were made from among 18 applicants who proposed dispensary operations of various sizes, mostly in the metropolitan area, to serve the state's growing number of state-licensed medical marijuana users who now must either grow the marijuana themselves or connect with a licensed individual grower or caregiver.

[continues 855 words]

The coming weeks could bring big changes to Rhode Island's marijuana policy. Not only are state Sen. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston, and Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton and Portsmouth, pushing to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of pot, but the state Department of Health will soon select up to three applicants to open medical marijuana dispensaries. This announcement will begin the state's transition to a medical marijuana system more like California's.

We supported decriminalization efforts last spring, and we encourage lawmakers to pass Miller's and Edwards' bills. As we wrote last year, decriminalization will reduce expenditures on enforcement -- Edwards estimates $1 to $4 million in savings, while Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron predicts savings could exceed $10 million -- and also allow the criminal justice system to spend more time dealing with greater threats to public safety than someone lighting up a joint.

[continues 407 words]

PROVIDENCE -- Twenty-one candidates have filed applications to open medical-marijuana compassion centers in Rhode Island.

The deadline for the new round of applications was noon Friday. Annemarie Beardsworth, spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said she did not know whether the 15 former applicants who were previously rejected had refiled.

She said that it will take "a matter of weeks" for the department to review the new applications for completeness "to make sure everything we asked for was included in the application." Once an application is deemed complete, she said, it will be posted online for public inspection on the Department of Health's website.

[continues 446 words]

PROVIDENCE -- The director of a proposed medical-marijuana distribution center has filed a petition with the state Health Department seeking a judgment on whether health-care practitioners can be affiliated with the operation of the drug-selling businesses.

David C. Hughes, the point man behind Community Care Health and Wellness Inc., a would-be compassion center in Coventry or West Warwick, submitted the three-page petition on Sept. 27, with Dr. David Gifford, the state's health director.

In part, Hughes said he wonders whether a physician, nurse practitioner or physician's assistant would face disciplinary action by the Health Department's professional licensing board for owning or working for a compassion center that sells medical marijuana.

[continues 404 words]

It seems that cannabis (marijuana) prohibition is a government-subsidized jobs program ("Splendor in the Grass?" Nov. 8 editorial) for greedy police and their unions.

When cannabis is completely relegalized, police will never spend time confronting responsible adults for using the relatively safe, God-given plant cannabis. That means that citizens will be safer since police will spend more time actually protecting citizens.

That reality extends toward DARE, too, which causes increased hard-drug addiction rates. How many people tried cannabis and realized it's not nearly as harmful as DARE claimed and think that other substances must not be so bad either, only to become addicted to hard drugs?

A sane or moral argument to continue cannabis prohibition and extermination doesn't exist.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

More states, such as Rhode Island, now allow cultivation of marijuana plants for what are supposed to be medicinal purposes. But law-enforcement and other officials are expressing increasing concern about how much of this stuff is being misused ---- sold to people who simply want to get high, and not for treating any ailment, except perhaps boredom.

And in fact, because these plants are so easy to grow, probably a lot will be misused.

But concern about the expanded sale of pot could tie up police when they should be thinking about other things. Better for them not to worry too much about it, or at least no more than they do about much more serious substance-abuse problems.

[continues 259 words]

Substance Abuse Task Force Leaders Concerned With Marijuana Usage Among Barrington Teens

BARRINGTON -- Forty four.

It's just a number, but to Kathy Sullivan and Dr. Kristen Westmoreland it's also an alarming statistic relating to marijuana use among students at Barrington High School.

In a 2009 survey administered to local middle school and high school students, 44 percent of seniors reported using marijuana within the last 30 days. That figure is more than double the national average of 21 percent.

[continues 1006 words]

WARWICK -- The crowd gathered in the grand ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Saturday envisioned a world in which tests could be done in Rhode Island to determine the potency of marijuana and whether it was grown organically. It pictured businesses popping up to help growers yield fruitful crops, and consumers buying their product without fear of arrest or being stigmatized.

About 45 marijuana growers, users and other interested people gathered at the hotel for the first-ever grow clinic sponsored by High Times, a magazine devoted to marijuana, and its legalization. In a room permeated by the sweet scent of the leafy drug, the crowd devoured tips about cultivation, cooking and consumption. The mission: to learn how to grow the best and biggest plants.

[continues 809 words]

Rhode Island's medical marijuana situation is in a bit of a haze. After denying every license in a first round of applications last month, the state's health department is once again soliciting compassion center applications.

There are currently about 2,500 patients and 1,800 caregivers in the state, said Katherine Reardon '12, president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Caregivers are private citizens with the legal right to grow marijuana for up to five other patients. According to Reardon, the problem with the system is a lack of regulation.

[continues 390 words]

NEWPORT -- A probation violation hearing for a Tiverton man in the state's medical-marijuana program, who was arrested three weeks ago on drug-trafficking charges for the second time in five years, has been continued in Newport County Superior Court for the second consecutive week.

Shayne R. Costa, 50, of 698 Windwood Drive, Tiverton, will remain held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions for at least another week when he is scheduled to return to court for a possible resolution on the violation charges. In 2006, Costa received a 10-year suspended sentence for growing 28 marijuana plants on his property.

[continues 254 words]

PAWTUCKET - The City of Pawtucket has agreed to apologize to one of its employees and to pay her legal fees after she sued over its drug-testing policy.

Romana Ramos, a police matron and interpreter for 17 years, contended that she was unlawfully required to submit to a random urine test for drugs and a chemical breath test for alcohol. The penalty for refusal was a 30-day suspension. Both tests proved negative, according to the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union.

[continues 103 words]

PROVIDENCE - In a surprise move, the state Health Department on Friday announced that none of the 15 applicants seeking to open the state's first compassion center for medical-marijuana patients are qualified to open their doors.

The announcement came in a four-paragraph e-mail that said all of the applicants "either failed to meet the minimum scoring requirements or they were disqualified from review for failing to comply with the application requirements."

The department said it will begin the process of soliciting applications again in October and the current applicants may reapply.

[continues 697 words]

When medical marijuana became legal in Rhode Island in June 2007, Luis Hernandez figured it would only be a matter of time until a school teaching proper growing techniques sprang up. As he watched years go by, nobody took action, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. His school, the New England School of Alternative Horticultural Studies, will conduct its first class Sept. 25 in Barrington.

"There's a right way to do it, and there's a wrong way to do it," Hernandez said of the process. "Here's how you do it safely without electrocuting yourself, without burning the house down - and if you really want to get good results."

[continues 813 words]

It took time, but Congress has finally tightened the egregious sentencing gap between crimes involving crack cocaine and those linked to the powder form. In legislation signed by President Obama Aug. 3 - a disparity that had been 100 to 1 was trimmed to 18 to 1. Under previous law, a person charged in federal court with possessing 5 grams of crack faced a mandatory minimum of five years in jail. But someone with the powder form had to possess 500 grams to incur the same penalty.

[continues 331 words]

With the location announcement for Rhode Island's first "compassion center" just weeks away, the Town Council adopted a new ordinance on Tuesday night, making town specific regulations for these medical marijuana facilities.

"Under the Medical Marijuana Act it is a requirement of cities and towns that each applicant has to be in compliance with the local zoning board. This will give teeth to the laws," said Town Attorney Timothy Chapman. State regulations for compassion centers require that they be at least 500 feet from a school, have alarm and security measures to deter theft and follow dispense and possession restrictions.

[continues 281 words]

JOHNSTON -- The town will allow the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes under a new ordinance approved Tuesday night by the Town Council.

The ordinance establishes rules for permitting medical marijuana dispensaries, as well as facilities for cultivating the narcotic, only in Johnston's industrial zoning districts.

No one has proposed any such facility, or "compassion center" ---- the term used in the ordinance, say town officials.

In the spring of 2009, the General Assembly passed legislation that provided a legal basis for the establishment of such medical marijuana dispensaries.

[continues 241 words]

Opposition is mounting in several communities where there are proposals to open the state's first medical-marijuana compassion center for patients licensed to smoke marijuana for a variety of medical maladies.

Monday night, the Woonsocket City Council passed a resolution that says, in part, that the largest city in northern Rhode Island "is not conveniently located for patients from throughout" the state, so it is an inappropriate location for a compassion center. Last month, the Coventry Town Council passed a similar, but much more detailed resolution.

[continues 626 words]

WOONSOCKET - Never mind that the state Department of Health has yet to grant a single license for a compassion center where medical marijuana would be distributed, local officials are all set to go on record against one that's seeking a permit to set up shop in Park Square. The City Council will consider a resolution on Monday denouncing the proposal, which City Council President John Ward calls "illegal." Ward said the facility is in violation of the state law that allows DOH to license compassion centers on condition they are no closer than 500 feet from the nearest school.

[continues 806 words]

With the selection announcement drawing near, municipalities, businesses and neighborhoods are bracing themselves in the event that a compassion center may be coming to the area.

Three of the 15 compassion center applicants have proposed sites in Warwick, one of which may be chosen as the first center to sell marijuana to patients in the state's growing medical-marijuana program.

"Obviously, the city has concerns about such a business and we have made suggestions that a proposed center should really be part of a larger medical facility and have the requisite amount of medical supervision as well," said Mayor Scott Avedisian.

[continues 701 words]