ITG

Senate commission to study marijuana decriminalization
07/20/09 | Ethiopian Review | Desta Bishu

PROVIDENCE — Weeks after legalizing the sale of marijuana to sick people, lawmakers have voted to explore how much Rhode Island might collect in revenue if it were to make all sales of marijuana legal and impose a “sin tax” of $35 per ounce.

During the General Assembly’s aborted rush to adjournment Friday, the Senate approved a resolution — introduced earlier the same day — to create a nine-member special commission to study a swath of issues surrounding marijuana. Among them: “The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws … The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana.”

The sponsors of the eleventh-hour measure — which requires no further action — include Senators Joshua Miller, D-Cranston; Leo Blais, R-Coventry; Rhoda Perry, D-Providence; Charles Levesque, D-Portsmouth, and Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown.

In a brief interview Wednesday, Miller said the resolution was sparked by the referendum-driven move to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in Massachusetts, and by what he perceives as “a national trend towards decriminalization.” In November 2008, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, making getting caught with less than an ounce of pot punishable by a civil fine of $100.

Asked why he waited until what was to be the last day of the session to introduce the measure, Miller said he and his fellow sponsors felt it was “very important” for this study to be “defined as an issue” completely separate and apart from the passage — over Governor Carcieri’s veto — of legislation allowing the creation of state-regulated dispensaries to sell marijuana for medicinal use.

Miller said it also “took that long for it to be taken seriously.”

The resolution creates a “Special Senate Commission to Study the Prohibition of Marijuana” made up of “elected members of the Rhode Island Senate, local law enforcement officials, physicians, nurses, social workers, academic leaders in the field of addiction studies, advocates or patients in the state’s medical marijuana program, advocates working in the field of prisoner reentry, economists, and members of the general public.”

The measure poses a number of specific questions for study, among them: “Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use. … Whether adults’ use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918. … Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana. … Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels. … Whether those who sell marijuana on the criminal market may also sell other drugs, thus increasing the chances that youth will use other illegal substances.”

The resolution also cites questions about the “dangers associated with marijuana resulting from it being sold on the criminal market, including if it is ever contaminated or laced with other drugs.”

The panel has until Jan. 31, 2010, to report its findings and recommendations to the Senate, though it would stay alive through Jan. 31, 2014.

Miller, a bar owner who says he does not use illegal drugs — or even drink liquor more than a few times a year — said he is not hoping or expecting any specific outcome. “I am more open-minded that that,” he said. “I am hoping to react to the best research and data we can get out of looking at it.”

A year ago, Carcieri vetoed a joint House and Senate call for a study of the wisdom of creating state-regulated marijuana dispensaries.

But “since this was only a Senate resolution, it does not come to the governor for his approval,” Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said.

In February, one of the cosponsors, pharmacist Leo Blais, proposed a bill — The Sensible State Marijuana Policy Act — that would have decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, reducing it to a civil offense for which anyone age 18 or older would face a $100 fine and forfeiture of the marijuana. The bill never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As of Wednesday, no person or group had formally applied for the license to run the first of the three marijuana dispensaries allowed by the so-called “compassion centers” bill.

Both the House and Senate have each passed, for the second year in a row, their own versions (S39 and H5007) of a bill to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes.

But no one version of the measure has yet cleared both chambers, in this year when the House and Senate went on hiatus, with no certain return date, and no final action on a bevy of high-profile bills.

__________________

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

Buzzby

Young people have consistently reported that it is easier for them to obtain marijuana than alcohol or tobacco. Drug dealers don't ask for ID...

That sounds like a no-brainer. Hardly anyone knew anything about marijuana in 1918, much less smoked it.

Of course.

Almost certainly.

That's the only way in which marijuana is a "gateway drug".

Both are rare, but anything can happen in a totally unregulated market.

If this panel is honest, I can hardly see how they'd not advocate legalizing marijuana.

__________________

Frylok

It's ludicrous that R.I. needs to blow millions on a commission to study decriminalizing pot when the evidence is already in and has been for 30 years. Save the money on the commission (we're in a recession, remember) and just do it.

Victor_vicious

Wow, what a difference a few years can make. The questions are not hard, they are the opposite of what they would have been 10 years ago, almost all of the questions put Marijuana in a good light, reminding people of all the little snippets of pro-marijuana, anti prohibition material they may have been exposed to for 3 seconds.

Reminds me of a BenFranklin Balance Sheet close. What old ben would do, take out a piece of paper, draw a line down the center, and on the left hand side, he would list all of the reasons you would want to Decriminalize Marijuana, and on the right hand side, he would let you list all of the reasons for continuing this prohibitionist stance in light of all of the positives. At the end, you just add up the two columns, the answer becomes obvious, and the only question left is how to implement the plan for doing so.

Senator Miller has done his homework, he knows how to word the questions. If we do our jobs properly and make sure all of the information is available to the members of the study committee it shouldn't take long in this 'cash strapped' economy?? VV

claygooding

Politicians never pass up the chance to spend your money,only theirs.

claygooding

The anti-drug cartels are lining up,and big bucks are moving from their supporters to newspapers for any stories that cast disparity
and woe on the legalization of marijuana. And we are fighting three different major markets,pharmaceuticals,textiles and paper. All which stand to lose millions,and possibly billions,when and if legalization occurs. The legalization of marijuana also removes the laws against hemp production,which will greatly effect the markets of the textile industry and paper industry.
I believe the pharmaceutical companies will be the big losers though
because of their losses for most of their mood altering drugs,all of their sleeping pills and will result in lower dosages of their pain medications because even pain management clinics have attested to the fact that the patients that used cannibus with their prescription medications,required less of the chemical pharmaceutical prescription drugs than when they used the prescription drugs alone,which reduced some of the harmful side effects caused by the man made drugs.
The violence and black market supporting anti-drug cartels are grasping at every straw as they are being out debated at every confrontation with facts and studies,some they paid for when trying to find harm in marijuana. And all they have are the what ifs and perhaps theories or myths they generated for their stupid anti-drug ads. Even their "What about the children?" fall back has been answered with the fact that legalization would have stores selling where id's are checked and underage use is prevented,versus dealers that never check id's,and it is going to continue until they remove the profit from marijuana dealing and
return it to its proper place in society,a useful medical and recreational substance that belongs to no one,and everyone. Mother natures most perfect plant,both feared and revered throughout history,with deep roots in religions and medical practices,before we prohibited it and caused all the ruckus now happening.