CONFERENCE IN WARWICK OFFERS TUTORIAL ON MARIJUANA

WARWICK -- The crowd gathered in the grand ballroom at the Crowne
Plaza Hotel Saturday envisioned a world in which tests could be done
in Rhode Island to determine the potency of marijuana and whether it
was grown organically. It pictured businesses popping up to help
growers yield fruitful crops, and consumers buying their product
without fear of arrest or being stigmatized.

About 45 marijuana growers, users and other interested people gathered
at the hotel for the first-ever grow clinic sponsored by High Times, a
magazine devoted to marijuana, and its legalization. In a room
permeated by the sweet scent of the leafy drug, the crowd devoured
tips about cultivation, cooking and consumption. The mission: to learn
how to grow the best and biggest plants.

"They gave us plant limits, let's grow monster plants," said Danny
Danko, a speaker and writer at the magazine.

Danko was referring to the 2006 law creating a medical marijuana
program in Rhode Island. It allows "caregivers" to grow up to 24
plants for patients permitted by law to smoke cannabis to help cope
with ailments such as chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, multiple
sclerosis and nausea. More than 2,150 patients and 1,750 caregivers
are now enrolled in the program, which is sanctioned by the state
Department of Health.

Those participating in Saturday's clinic ranged in age from late 20s
to 50 and up. They came from Maryland, Vermont, Connecticut and
Massachusetts, as well as Rhode Island. Some carried briefcases; most
bore notebooks they filled from the daylong session.

They brought with them varying desires, too, from wanting to push
medical marijuana laws in their own states to learning more about new
strains of the drug that had less intoxicating effects. They asked
questions on point, and each paid $190 to attend.

A senior cultivation editor at the New York-based publication, Danko
entitled his talk "More Root, More Fruit: Growing Medical Marijuana in
the Era of Plant Limits." A resounding message was to stay legal, and
not put themselves at risk by growing too many plants or widely
spreading the word about their harvest, worth $300 to $600 an ounce on
the black market.

"There are people who prey on us," Danko said. "They're out there, and
they're out there if it's legal or not."

Rhode Island was praised for its progressiveness, but Danko noted that
there are more patients than caregivers can handle. He held out
California as a successful medical marijuana state, with "more
dispensaries than Starbucks." "The world can see that responsible use
of cannabis is fine and the world didn't fall apart," he said.

His tips for growing flourishing plants included ventilation to pump
hot air out, plenty of light, water and the appropriate nutrients. He
recommended five-gallon plastic buckets as excellent containers. And
he called for patience. "Let them go the distance," he said.

He taught the crowd how to make hashish and marijuana butter for
cooking and marveled at the plant's curative properties and potential.
"There's so much about this plant that we don't know yet."

R. Renee Elfering, a caregiver who is growing plants for five
patients, said she signed up to learn more about strains of the plant
that are high in cannabidiol, known to relieve convulsions,
inflammation, anxiety, and nausea, as well as inhibit cancer cell
growth. Based in Barrington, her business, Providence's Finest, makes
cookies, granola, tinctures, oils and butter for patients who have
multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, and fibromyalgia.

"I don't think cannabis is the answer for everyone, but I definitely
think it could help a lot of people," Elfering, 38, said. She and her
husband moved to Rhode Island from Ohio last year because it had
legalized medical marijuana. She had discovered seven years earlier
that smoking it relieved the symptoms of her irritable bowel syndrome
and insomnia.

Dr. Karen Munkacy said she traveled to the clinic from Newton, Mass.,
after learning through medical literature about marijuana's benefits.
"It helps a tremendous number of people in states where it is legal,"
she said. An anesthesiologist and pain management doctor, Munkacy
lamented that was not the case in her state.

"I would like to be able to [prescribe it], but I cannot," said
Munkacy, adding that she does not use the drug. Fourteen states and
Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana.

One man came from Maryland to hear firsthand about Rhode Island. He
planned to advocate for laws in his own state, but declined to give
his name out of fear there would be legal consequences.

Dana Johnson, a patient and caregiver in Rhode Island, criticized the
state Department of Health's rejection of all 15 applicants to open
the state's first compassion center for medical-marijuana patients to
buy the drug. "There's just so many people who just can't get
medicine," said Johnson, 56, a Vietnam vet. "People are dying. They
are not getting their medicine."

Johnson, who uses marijuana to fight pain, would not identify where he
lives because he feared he might get targeted by police, he said.

Still, Allen St. Pierre called the enacting of medical marijuana laws
a Pyrrhic victory. Until the drug is legalized altogether, people who
test positive still run the risk of losing children in custody
battles, being fired from their jobs, and being knocked off lists for
donated organs, said St. Pierre, executive director for the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"There is so much more work to be done," he said.