LOCAL MARIJUANA-GROWING CLASS TO START THIS MONTH

When medical marijuana became legal in Rhode Island in June 2007, Luis
Hernandez figured it would only be a matter of time until a school
teaching proper growing techniques sprang up. As he watched years go
by, nobody took action, and he decided to take matters into his own
hands. His school, the New England School of Alternative Horticultural
Studies, will conduct its first class Sept. 25 in Barrington.

"There's a right way to do it, and there's a wrong way to do it,"
Hernandez said of the process. "Here's how you do it safely without
electrocuting yourself, without burning the house down - and if you
really want to get good results."

Hernandez has studied the process for over seven years in California,
where medical marijuana has been legal since 1996. He spent those
years "going back and forth (between) working with legal caregivers
and loaning and trading. That's something I have a personal interest
in," he said. The school, he said, is the perfect way to blend his
passion and his skills.

Rhode Island's medical marijuana law currently allows caregivers to
have up to 12 plants in their possession, or 2.5 ounces of "usable"
marijuana. Medical marijuana is regulated on a state-by-state basis,
and Hernandez said Rhode Island has some of the most stringent laws.

"I've been into the subject matter for quite a number of years now,
but obviously there's the question of legality. ... There are a lot of
folks like myself who (learned) a lot from books before you could do
anything live," said Hernandez. And even now that medical marijuana
has been legalized in Rhode Island, he added, "I can see how easy it
would be to fall into a situation where you would be breaking the law."

He cited cloning - a process in which exact replicas of an ideal plant
are created - as an example. "A lot of times, clones don't come out
100 percent," he explained. "Maybe all five of them will root, and
maybe they'll all die." Generally, he said, growers should make twice
as many clones as they need - but if they don't take into account
their legal limit, they can run into trouble. "A clone may not be
rooted and, for you, not really be a plant, but if the law comes in,
he won't be able to tell the difference," he said.

Another challenge for Hernandez has been the legality of teaching
someone who may not have a caregiver's license from the state. A
caregiver is anyone over 18 who is willing to help a patient for whom
a doctor has recommended medical marijuana, he said. "We are working
with lawyers to make sure we don't break the law - after all, one of
the classes is how to stay within the law."

It is this legal awareness, as well as the physical process of
growing, that Hernandez is aiming to teach in the two-day classes his
school will offer.

Rhode Island's law does not mention the legality of medical marijuana
schools one way or another. For this reason, State Senator David
Bates, R-Barrington and Bristol, though he had not heard of
Hernandez's school, said, "I would tread very, very carefully with
it."

So far, Hernandez said, there has been a "huge amount" of interest -
more than 50 percent of the tickets for his first class, which he will
teach, have already been sold, and he is working on putting together a
schedule for the next few months, for a variety of locations.

As for the curriculum, Hernandez chose not to visit similar schools
located on the west coast. "The last thing I want to do is go to some
other school and be looked at as someone who went somewhere and
learned something and basically regurgitated it all over again," he
said. Depending on how smoothly the class runs, he plans to change the
curriculum. "It depends on the student body - who's going to show up?
We may be able to breeze through a lot of things and we may not. We
may even find that we don't get through all the material in one
weekend," he said.

Hernandez envisions a school not just where people can learn how to
properly grow marijuana, but also where he can educate the community
about the idea of medical marijuana - "where city officials who will
eventually be cast with the job of making laws for the community can
come to be a little more informed about what they should be addressing
in policy." Ultimately, he said, "I want the school to be a place
where people can come and learn in an unbiased" environment.

Hernandez said he understands the argument that there are people who
will abuse the drug's medical aspect in order to get marijuana. But
there are "really debilitated folks who need this," he said. The "true
question," he said, is whether it is "worth it to keep it out of the
hands of those who are going to do it recreationally but take it away
from people who need it."

"This is the first time we've heard of this," said Annemarie
Beardsworth, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health. "From
the Health Department's point of view, our one concern is that
accurate information is presented, not only about what the law permits
in terms of growing (marijuana) but about the rules and regulations
for caregivers and patients."