PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Rhode Island's Senate voted Tuesday to block a bill allowing nonprofit stores to sell marijuana to chronically ill patients after a last-minute revision banned patients from smoking while driving or near other people.
Lawmakers voted 33-2 to send the bill back to a committee because the bill's sponsor, Sen. Rhoda Perry, considered the amendments offensive to chronically ill patients enrolled in Rhode Island's medical marijuana program. She wants the amendment repealed.
"It wasn't necessary and it's insulting," Perry said.
Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, and Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed said Perry's proposal will come up for another vote. She was not sure when. Rhode Island and 11 other states permit chronically ill patients to possess small amounts of marijuana for pain relief. The drug remains illegal under federal law.
State lawmakers approved the medical marijuana program in 2006, but they never explained how patients were supposed to legally buy the drug. Several patients have reported being assaulted when they tried to purchase marijuana from street dealers, said Rep. Thomas Slater, who's supporting an identical bill in the House.
"People ... had to go into unsavory neighborhoods in order to get the marijuana because we have no center, we have no place for them to pick it up," said Slater, a Democrat.
Under the proposal, up to three nonprofit stores would be allowed to sell marijuana to the more than 700 patients and caregivers registered with the state Department of Health. If approved by the Senate, the proposal would go to House lawmakers.
Republican Gov. Don Carcieri previously vetoed Rhode Island's medical marijuana program because it conflicted with federal law, although lawmakers overturned his veto. Carcieri has not decided if he would veto the current proposal, his spokeswoman said.
None of the dozen states that have legalized marijuana for pain relief have spelled out how patients are supposed to buy the drug, creating a legal vacuum, said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for decriminalizing marijuana.
"We certainly think a system of regulated dispensaries are a good idea," Mirken said.
New Mexico has come closest. Lawmakers approved a medical marijuana bill in 2007, but Gov. Bill Richardson has not decided whether to implement a state-licensed production and distribution system. State health officials there fear they could be prosecuted under federal law for distributing the drug.
California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, but it never set up a system for buying the drug. In the absence of state regulation, marijuana dispensaries are overseen by local cities and towns. Some permit the dispensaries to operate, while others ban them.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration does not typically target sick patients, but its agents raided almost two dozen marijuana dispensaries in California in 2007. Federal authorities also sent letters to at least 30 landlords threatening to seize their property if they leased it to marijuana clinics.
"We don't target the sick and dying, but marijuana is against federal law, and DEA enforces the federal law," said Special Agent Anthony Pettigrew, a spokesman for the DEA in Boston.
Eyewitness News WPRI / FOX Providence - Providence, Rhode Island News, Weather, Traffic and Sports | (9:15 pm) R.I. Senate sends medical marijuana bill back to committee
Pain killers are street drugs too...according to this logic, people should find them outside the system also.
Have a good one!
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