SENATE COMMISSION TO STUDY MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION

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.