THE CANNABIS QUESTION

Once again, Rhode Island is wading into muddy waters. In May the
General Assembly approved a law mandating that the health department
establish privately run medical cannabis dispensaries; the first is
scheduled to open next year. Rhode Island would be only the third
state to enact such a law, and it has a chance to improve on
California's wild and unregulated system and New Mexico's tightly
constrained delivery-only network. But the new program has some
crucial flaws that the Assembly must admit and rectify.

In theory, the dispensaries should be an improvement over the state's
current marijuana regime. Under a law passed four years ago, state
residents with certain serious medical conditions can obtain legal
authorization to grow cannabis for their personal use. The draconian
federal marijuana prohibition prevents the Food and Drug
Administration from conclusively verifying the real medical benefit of
the substance, but many patients suffering from wracking diseases as
well as allergies to painkillers have found it to be their only option
for relief. Nevertheless, cultivation is not a simple or abuse-proof
process. Many honest users with chronic pain have severe difficulties
growing the plants. And some dishonest registrants turn their
privilege into a business venture, selling their produce to
recreational smokers. A cannabis dispensary -- carefully established,
overseen and guarded -- would make the dealers easier to target and
take a burden off of the suffering citizens who need the drug.

But police officials have raised concerns that the bill makes no
provision for protecting the dispensary from robbery and preventing
sales to casual users. Historically, anxiety about cannabis
distribution has often been rooted in hysterical misconceptions about
the substance's effects and selfish political and economic conniving.
But in this case, police concerns about dispensary security and
protocols focus on the crux of the issue: the well-being of patients
who depend on daily access to the drug. Dispensaries that
surreptitiously flout the rules by selling to non-patients or phony
patients risk shortages for legitimate users. And lax surveillance of
the facilities could encourage burglary -- a very real threat in a
state with nearly 13 percent unemployment -- which would provide a
bonanza to local criminals and cut off patients' much-needed supplies.
The bill also fails to provide funding to the health department for
the establishment process and includes no mandate for oversight by
medical professionals, a crucial element of a properly run dispensary
program.

Setting up dispensaries sloppily may be worse than not setting them up
at all. It could encourage crime, endanger patients' supplies and
discourage other states interested in similar ventures. The Assembly
should admit its errors in the first bill and expeditiously design and
pass legislation requiring close supervision by medical professionals
and granting the health and police departments the funding they need
to carefully establish and protect the dispensaries. This will not be
easy. The state is saddled with a staggering deficit of nearly $62
million, and the Assembly has already had to override the veto of
Governor Donald Carcieri '65 to pass the original medical cannabis
statute as well as the dispensary law. Nevertheless, the Assembly must
take responsibility for what it has set in motion and do the hard work
necessary to make the dispensaries a boon to Rhode Island and an
example to other states.