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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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