This Just In

Advocates push for a legal source in RI

Medical Marijuana

By IAN DONNIS | February 20, 2008

Medical marijuana proponents plan to seek General Assembly support this session to create an establishment, known as the Compassion Center, which, as the theory goes, would have state Department of Health backing to grow and distribute medical marijuana to approved patients.

While the outlook for such a measure remains uncertain — at minimum, it would likely have to overcome a gubernatorial veto — it would address the glaring shortcoming in Rhode Island’s medical marijuana law.

As it stands, registered medical marijuana users in Rhode Island have legal approval to smoke marijuana, but they are left on their own when it comes to obtaining what re¬mains an illegal narcotic.

The Phoenix recounted last spring (see “Who’s afraid of medical marijuana?” News, May 2, 2007) how this poses a danger for state-approved marijuana users, such as Bobby Ebert, who says he was assaulted in downtown Providence one night while trying to obtain marijuana. Faced with a debilitating illness, he nonetheless saw the quest as being well worth it. “After all,” he says, “I’ve got a disease that could kill me tomorrow.”

Jesse Stout, of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, says state Representative Thomas Slater (D-Providence) and state Senator Rhoda Perry (D-Providence) are expected to introduce the legislation, during the last week in February, to establish a distribution method for registered users of medical marijuana.

As he put in a recent e-mail, “The patients we represent have been asking us the same question — ‘Now that I can legally possess medical marijuana, where am I supposed to go get it?’ ”

The concept, Stout says, is for “a nonprofit Compassion Center to be licensed by the De¬partment of Health to grow and distribute marijuana to patients. The bill provides specific rules for how this independent Compassion Center will be regulated by the Department. Here at Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, we think this bill is a good solution for patients who need safe access to this medicine, but don’t want to have to go to the criminal black market, and cannot grow it themselves because they are too sick or too poor.”

Considering the Ocean State’s status as a somewhat socially conservative state with a predominantly Catholic population, the General Assembly’s January 2006 approval of the state’s medical marijuana law, over a gubernatorial veto, may have seemed counter-intuitive.

Then again, it was the experiences of people such as Slater, who saw acquaintances facing illnesses as potential beneficiaries of medical marijuana, which helped to underscore support for the measure.

Stout is hopeful, pointing to public opinion surveys in support of medical marijuana in Rhode Island.

Yet approving the actual distribution of the drug — as opposed to just the concept — is a bolder step, and it remains to be seen if it will enjoy sufficient support.

Parts of this report were first posted February 11 at thephoenix.com/notfornothing.

Who’s afraid of medical marijuana?
Two hits of marijuana in the morning, and two in the evening before he goes to sleep.
Backers of ‘compassion centers’ come up short
If proponents thought that the state’s approval of medical marijuana two years ago signaled broad support for legal distribution of the drug, the General Assembly’s defeat of legis-lation to create “compassion centers” shows otherwise.
Politics of pain
When it comes to the legalization of medical marijuana in Rhode Island, the question has generally been when — not if — it would happen.
Drugs and culture
University of Southern Maine professor Wendy Chapkis usually studies, teaches, and writes about gender issues, so her latest non-fiction outing, Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine , might seem like a bit of a departure.
Going to pot
The state's medical-marijuana laws, which govern how patients can access pot for medical purposes, is on the brink of significant change.
Prescriptions for pot
Smoking a joint can be a better and more effective way of easing chronic pain than the use of prescription narcotics such as OxyContin and morphine.
Whole Foods health-care boycott gathers momentum
Unfortunately for Whole Foods Market CEO and founder John Mackey, those who appreciate his store for the healthy, eco-friendly (read: left-leaning, progressive) lifestyle it promotes are the same citizens who support universal health care.
Why ban smoking?
This editorial originally appeared in the February 20, 1998 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
Weed picking up speed?
When the Phoenix published a cover story about the potential tipping point in the fight to end marijuana prohibition, we smelled something in the air: it seemed more than ever that such a resolution might be possible.
What ails the health-care debate?
If the idea of thinking about the ongoing push for health-care reform gives you a headache, you are not alone.
On fire
It’s rare to read or hear anything in any of the media that’s not in lockstep with the Public Health Commission and the movement it represents.
Hey, hey, we're the Monkees
The law of averages says if you put 100 monkeys in a room with 100 computers, they'll eventually write a workable national health-care bill. Apparently, that rule doesn't apply to 100 US senators.
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