Marijuana.com

Buzzby

Rhode Island Legalizes Medical Marijuana
AP | New York Times | 01/03/2005

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Rhode Island on Tuesday became the 11th state to legalize medical marijuana and the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that patients who use the drug can still be prosecuted under federal law.

The House overrode a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri, 59-13, allowing people with illnesses such as cancer and AIDS to grow up to 12 marijuana plants or buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana to relieve their symptoms. Those who do are required to register with the state and get an identification card.

Federal law prohibits any use of marijuana, but Maine, Vermont, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington allow it to be grown and used for medicinal purposes.

The U.S. high court ruled June 6 that people who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it can still be prosecuted under federal drug laws, even if their states allow it.

Federal authorities, however, have conceded they are unlikely to prosecute many medicinal marijuana users.

''I'm sure everybody in this room knows at least one person who would have benefited from medical marijuana,'' Rep. Thomas Slater, who has cancer, told fellow lawmakers before the vote. Slater said he does not use marijuana now, but it could become part of his treatment in the future.

Carcieri, unhappy with the override, said the law fails to provide ways for users to buy marijuana legally and leaves Rhode Islanders open to federal prosecution.

''Users will be forced to purchase marijuana in the illegal street market, putting them at risk and complicating the difficult jobs that our law enforcement personnel must do every day,'' the governor said.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the vote showed ''misguided and out-of-touch'' views on the harms of marijuana.

''There's this notion from the '60s or the '70s that marijuana is a harmless drug,'' Riley said. ''It's not.''

__________________

 

Buzzby

I'm glad to see that the governor who decided that sick people should just keep suffering is now so concerned about their welfare. It sounds like he's ready to expand the legislation to allow legal sales and to defend his constituents against the feds.


Does this dick really think that people who need medical marijuana weren't using it because they were worried about a possession rap? What the new law is going to do is allow them to do what they've been doing without having to worry about Barney Fife and Smokey the Bear putting their butts in jail.


Who is "misguided and out-of-touch"? Everyone with any expertise who doesn't draw a federal paycheck agrees about the benefits of medical marijuana.


What has this got to do with medical marijuana? What other drug that is used to treat serious medical problems is required to pass the "harmless" test? For that matter, people die from aspirin all the time. While marijuana may not be totally "harmless", it's a lot less harmful than that.

Dennis

This guy must be reading off of a script. He says the same things over and over. He says marijuana is harmful, yet 160 million marijuana consumers worldwide seem to be okay with it. And he makes these declarations that just about everyone knows are outright lies! It's almost like a board game they're trying to win, but they keep getting bad roles of the dice. If I had to do his job, I would feel like a worthless piece of crap and resign.

PotShot

Fantastic!

Let's see how the feds react to this one...

__________________

Carl Sagan Goodness Richard Dawkins Goodness

king cola

''There's this notion from the '60s or the '70s that marijuana is a harmless drug,'' Riley said. ''It's not.''

A lot of drugs have the potential of bein dangerous. Unless someone smoked a few pounds of marijuana in just a few minutes which is definatly impossible, smoking non laced pot can't kill you. With all the pain killers Evil Knevil was on over the years he finally ended up needing a new liver. The same still continues to happen for other people. Atleast marijuana is just one drug that can handle a lot of different medical conditions instead of someone needing to take a bunch of different drugs. If someone had back pains and arthritis in their fingers, if it wasn't for marijuana people would be forced to probably take 2 or 3 different prescriptions when marijuana alone could probably handle all of those conditions at once.

I wonder if the DEA will try busting a few patients in the state of Rhode Island! It still continues to happen in California, but what i can't figure out is why hasn't patients in Maine or some of the other states that allows medical marijuana been harrassed. We hear about it happening all the time in California.

 

Dennis

In most states where medical marijuana is legal, they grow their own or acquire it from the black market. I think Califormia is the only state where they're selling it right out of commercial businesses.

Buzzby

This is largely mythological. In the decade since Propostion 215 was passed, exactly 20 individual medical marijuana patients in California have been busted by the DEA. There are currently 100,000 people in that state receiving medical marijuana, so your chances (as a patient, not a distributor) of getting busted are exceedingly minimal (>0.02%).

The DEA is quite aware that the amount of bad press that comes from busting a sick person for having a little weed or growing a few plants is counterproductive (for them) because it creates more support for medical marijuana.

killer12382

The problem comes into play when the businesses become too commercial.

killer12382

That's why they tend to go after the compassion clubs.

Buzzby

The compassion clubs are easy targets because they are often fronts for commercial pot distributors and sell to unqualified people. People will go in and buy a half a pound of weed every day, bag it up, and sell it on the street. If the outlets won't police themselves the police will do it for them.