PROS, CONS OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA GET HEARING

No Vote Is Taken on a Bill That Would Make Rhode Island the 11th State to
Protect Patients, Their Caregivers and Doctors From Arrest Under State Drug
Laws.

PROVIDENCE -- Lawmakers with their own family stories of cancer treatments
and patients who have suffered the agony of debilitating diseases stepped
forward last night to urge a House committee to legalize the use of
marijuana for medical reasons.

But the bill, which appears to be gaining steam in both chambers of the
Assembly, also drew opposition from both the Carcieri administration and
state police, and concerns from a chief state court judge.

The House Health, Education and Welfare Committee did not vote on the bill,
which has been sponsored by two-thirds of the chamber's members. But the
committee chairman, Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, D-Warwick, expressed a
willingness to work on the issue.

"I don't think anyone I've talked to is against giving people who are
chronically ill any substance that can help them," he said before the
hearing. McNamara said his concerns were the safety of the drug, and
"instituting proper controls" on its use.

The bill would make Rhode Island the 11th state to protect patients, their
caregivers and doctors from arrest under state drug laws if a doctor
certifies, to the state Health Department, that a patient has a
debilitating condition -- such as cancer, glaucoma, nausea, or AIDS -- that
could be helped through marijuana.

The state would issue the patient and his or her caregiver registration
cards that would authorize the possession of up to 12 plants or 2.5 ounces
of "usable marijuana" at any time. The bill does not address where the
marijuana would come from.

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the bill in early April,
and tonight is expected to pass it to the full Senate for a floor vote.

Chairman Michael McCaffrey, D-Warwick, said there would be several changes
proposed before its approval, including language to "tighten up" Health
Department controls.

The House sponsor, Rep. Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence, said he had been
told the Senate planned to increase the minimum age for a sanctioned
caregiver from 18 to 21, and increase the time the Department of Health has
to review an application, among other tweaks.

Slater said he was discussing other potential changes in the House
committee, including reducing the amount of marijuana allowed at any given
time and requiring the Health Department to distribute the drug.

In a March 2004 poll for the Marijuana Policy Project, Zogby International
asked Rhode Island residents whether they would support a bill "that would
allow people with cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses to use and grow
their own marijuana for medical purposes, as long as their physician
approves." The response was 69 percent in favor, 26 percent opposed, and 5
percent unsure.

Still, Governor Carcieri's administration yesterday opposed the change. In
a letter to the committee, Dr. David Gifford, director of the Department of
Health, noted the bill does not address how people would get the drug, and
said asking the state to regulate it "is problematic."

Gifford also wrote that the "principle active ingredient" in marijuana --
THC -- is available in pill form, and contended smoking marijuana plants
"does not appear to be superior" as a treatment. (The patients who
testified strongly disagreed, saying many people found the pill ineffective.)

The bill also drew opposition from the state police and from Rhode Island
Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, who sent lobbyist David
Tassoni to express concern that legalizing medical marijuana could make the
drug more accessible generally and undo the court's work to crack down on
marijuana use among young people.

Tassoni suggested the bill needed serious "tweaking."

Lt. LeRoy Rose, of the Rhode Island State Police, said the bill did not
define what constituted a "debilitating disease" and suggested legalizing
marijuana could potentially increase the state's already high number of
drug and alcohol fatalities.

Also, he said, if someone licensed to use marijuana is in a car accident
and under the influence of the drug, the bill protects them from
prosecution -- a protection not afforded someone who has become drowsy from
a prescribed painkiller.

Slater, the House sponsor, knows the pain cancer can cause. His father,
uncle and brother died of the disease; of six siblings, four -- including
him -- have been cancer patients. Slater was diagnosed two years ago with
breast cancer, which spread to his lungs; he begins radiation therapy this
summer for an unrelated diagnosis of prostate cancer.

He said his own experience has made him more compassionate about the issue,
though, "I'm not that sick that I think I would need [marijuana]" now.

"People who really need it are those on their final days who can't eat,
can't keep anything down," he said, or who are in constant pain. Rep.
Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, spoke of losing a brother to cancer,
and more recently, a cousin. His brother, he said, wasted away from an
athletic 220 pounds to less than 100 pounds before his death.

The bill, he said, is "not about illicit use of marijuana in the streets .
. . This is compassion in its greatest form."

Among the groups supporting the measure are the Rhode Island Medical
Society, the Rhode Island State Nurses Association, the Rhode Island
Academy of Family Physicians, the American Bar Association, and AIDS
Project Rhode Island.

Patients such as Debra Nievera, of Coventry, who said she suffers from
rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and Crohn's disease, urged the bill's
passage. Nievera, a slender woman with long curly hair, told the committee
that traditional treatments haven't provided relief for her pain, so "I am
seeking alternatives that will somehow allow me to lead a normal life."

"Take a good look at me," she said. "Do I look like somebody who should be
arrested or thrown in jail because I choose to use medical marijuana to
help me with my pain?"

The committee also heard from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., stockbroker Irvin
Rosenfeld, who said he is one of a handful of surviving patients who
legally receive marijuana through a federal program.

Rosenfeld said he joined the program in 1982 and is regularly shipped 300
cigarettes at a time in a tin. By his account, he smokes up to a dozen
marijuana cigarettes a day to successfully alleviate the pain from a
condition that causes him to sprout painful tumors on the ends of his bones.

The program was discontinued a decade later, and the federal government has
not shown a willingness to address the issue since, Rosenfeld said, leaving
it up to the states to act.