E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rhode trip How a small, heavily Catholic state became poised to legalize medical marijuana — and what it means for the rest of us BY IAN DONNIS
	The finest kind New England gets high Percentage of people over age 12 who have used marijuana within the past month, by region, in the six New England states. (Compare to a national average of 5.1 percent.) Connecticut (state average: 5.7 %) * Eastern: 6.4 % * North Central: 5.7 % * Northwestern: 5.1 % * South Central: 6.1 % * Southwestern: 5.2 % Maine (state average: 6.7 %) * Southern Coast: 7.7 % * Western Mountains + Mid-Coast: 6.8 % * Northern + Down East: 5.3 % Massachusetts (state average: 9.1 %) * Boston: 12.2 % * Central: 9 % * Metrowest: 8.5 % * Northeast: 8 % * Southeast: 9.5 % * Western: 8.8 % New Hampshire (state average: 6.3 %) * Central: 5.7 % * Northern: 6.8 % * Southern: 6.5 % Rhode Island (state average: 7.2 %) * Bristol and Newport Counties 5.9 % * Kent County: 6.3 % * South County: 9 % * Providence County: 7.4 % Vermont (state average: 7.8%) * Champlain Valley: 9.4 * Rural Northeast: 6.9 * Rural Southeast: 6.4 * Rural Southwest: 7.2 Source: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released last month.

Coming less than 24 hours after the US Supreme Court supported the federal government’s right to prosecute sick people who use marijuana to control their discomfort, the Rhode Island Senate’s emphatic June 7 vote in support of medical marijuana may have come as a surprise — to everyone but Rhode Islanders.

On the surface, the tremendous 34-2 bipartisan support shown for the medical-marijuana bill was curious. After all, Rhode Island is a heavily Catholic state where, despite an independent streak and an overwhelmingly Democratic General Assembly, most legislators are social conservatives, and the popular Republican governor, Donald L. Carcieri, strongly opposes the very concept. Then again, in the smallest of states, where everyone, it seems, knows someone who might benefit from medical marijuana to treat cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, or some other debilitating illness, the bill’s passage makes perfect sense.

Take the case of State Representative Thomas C. Slater (D-Providence), a 30-year veteran of the Marine Corps Reserves, who describes himself as a strong opponent of recreational marijuana use and looks as if he would feel at home in a VFW Hall. Although he has supported medical marijuana in the past, Slater, 64, became a highly visible proponent — the lead sponsor in the House this session — after studying up on the subject. The issue touches close to home for him, since he has been treated for cancer, and the disease has affected a number of people in his family. While Slater says he would not use medical marijuana should it become legal (and recognizes that its main benefit may be psychological for some people), his advocacy — in which he steadily framed the issue as one of compassion — steeled the resolve of some wavering colleagues. With the widespread incidence of cancer, AIDS, and other illnesses, he says, "people are well aware of how devastating these diseases can be. People out there in the community have a friend who is sick, have a relative who is sick, and they want relief for that person."

Adds Representative Raymond J. Sullivan Jr. (D-Coventry), "When you sit across the table from someone who tells you they only have seven, eight, or nine months to live, and say that this is the only thing that can help them get through the day — whether it be eating or relaxing their muscles, whatever issue that might be — I don’t know how we can look that person in the eye and tell them that we’re going to treat them like a criminal. It just doesn’t make sense to me. This is not about legalizing marijuana. It’s not about increasing taxes. It’s about easing the suffering of people who are in the last stage of their life or dealing with serious illnesses."

Of course, there’s no single explanation for how the issue of medical marijuana, which had foundered in the Rhode Island General Assembly since the late ’90s, suddenly attracted such a groundswell of broad legislative support across partisan lines. True, the bill’s success is due, at least in part, to the campaign waged year after year by proponents such as Senator Rhoda Perry (D-Providence). The main Senate sponsor, Perry offered poignant testimony of how her nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, suffered before dying from AIDS at age 41 last year. But while Perry is an unabashed liberal, support in recent years from groups such as the Rhode Island Medical Society and the Rhode Island State Nurses Association, as well as from AIDS Project Rhode Island and the local chapter of the ACLU, reflects just how mainstream medical marijuana has become — something borne out by referendums and a variety of polls in conservative states. The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, DC–based advocacy group, also focused a beefed-up political campaign on Rhode Island, using a lobbyist, as well as phone banks and television commercials targeting Carcieri’s stated opposition to medical marijuana.

Ultimately, though, the greatest factor seems to lie on the flip side of Rhode Island’s distinctive civic intimacy, which has fostered the Ocean State’s justly deserved reputation for political corruption. Put another way, in this tiny state of just over one million people, the personal tends to become political a lot faster than it does anywhere else.

So when related legislation passed the last hurdle in the Senate on June 28 — quickly, without discussion, and on a 33-1 vote — it was as though it were the blandest and most pedestrian of bills, in spite of Governor Carcieri’s veto the very next day.

Not fade away

Rhode Island’s medical-marijuana bill would protect doctors, patients, and caregivers from state prosecution if a state-certified physician finds that marijuana might aid a Rhode Island resident suffering from a "chronic or debilitating" medical condition. It does not outline a source for the marijuana, meaning that patients with state-issued registration cards would be expected to obtain it illegally, although they would be able to possess up to 12 plants or 2.5 ounces of "usable marijuana" at a time. In an amendment that bolstered legislative support, the initiative would cease on June 30, 2007, unless legislators voted to continue it.

None of that appeases opponents, who see the US Supreme Court’s June 6 ruling in Gonzalez v. Raich, allowing the federal government to ban medical marijuana, as definitive. In a statement issued that same day, John Walters, President Bush’s drug czar, said the decision "marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue. Our nation has the highest standards and most sophisticated institutions in the world for determining the safety and effectiveness of medication. Our national medical system relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion. To date, science and research have not determined that smoking a crude plant is safe or effective. We have a responsibility to ensure that the medicine Americans receive from their doctors is effective, safe, and free from the pro-drug politics that are being promoted under the guise of medicine."

Proponents, however — who point to numerous studies in support of medical marijuana’s benefits — hail what’s happening in Rhode Island as a clear rebuke to federal assertions that the states’ legalization of medical marijuana has been rendered moot. As the MPP pointed out in a statement last week, "The recent US Supreme Court decision in Gonzalez v. Raich did not overturn the right of states to pass medical marijuana laws, and no authority has ever declared state medical marijuana laws unconstitutional." Asked why the Office of National Drug Control Policy dispatched two representatives, John Horton and Patrick Royal, to lobby Rhode Island legislators against overriding Carcieri’s veto, Bruce Mirken, the MPP’s director of communications, says, "It says they realize they’re about be caught lying.... They’ve been pretty decisively proven wrong, and if it [medical marijuana] becomes law in Rhode Island, it will be a fairly large national story, and I think they’re desperate to avoid that."