CENTER APPLICANT SEEKS OPINION

PROVIDENCE -- The director of a proposed medical-marijuana
distribution center has filed a petition with the state Health
Department seeking a judgment on whether health-care practitioners can
be affiliated with the operation of the drug-selling businesses.

David C. Hughes, the point man behind Community Care Health and
Wellness Inc., a would-be compassion center in Coventry or West
Warwick, submitted the three-page petition on Sept. 27, with Dr. David
Gifford, the state's health director.

In part, Hughes said he wonders whether a physician, nurse
practitioner or physician's assistant would face disciplinary action
by the Health Department's professional licensing board for owning or
working for a compassion center that sells medical marijuana.

"To clarify, we are not questioning the clinical evaluation of a
patient, diagnosis and ultimate recommendation for medical marijuana
by a health-care practitioner during the normal course of professional
practice," Hughes wrote. "We are questioning a practitioner with
prescriptive privileges owning, operating, or receiving renumeration
from an organization that dispenses medical marijuana to patients and
derives revenue through the dispensing of a product on the
recommendation of a health-care provider with prescriptive
privileges."

Annemarie Beardsworth, spokeswoman for the Health Department, said
health officials have yet to rule on the petition. Hughes said he was
hoping he would have had an answer by now. "I thought it would have
been sooner, honestly," he said. "I went in initially thinking there
is no way. This is a conflict."

Hughes, a pharmacist, said that he would like to know in the event he
is granted one of three possible licenses to open a compassion center
in the state. He plans on hiring a physician to work for his center
and bring aboard others to serve in an advisory capacity.

In his petition, Hughes said that 15 of the initial applicants to open
the state's first compassion center had licensed physicians affiliated
with them.

It's unclear how many of those original 15 have submitted applications
for consideration a second time. On Friday, the Health Department
announced that 21 applicants have submitted proposals to open
compassion centers. The names of the applicants have not been released.

The compassion centers will provide marijuana for the 2,156
chronically ill patients now registered in the program that has
experienced rapid growth. Health officials say that about 75 patients
apply for medical-marijuana cards each week.

Dr. Todd E. Handel, a physiatrist who owns The Handel Center, a
pain-management treatment center, is not one of them. He was among the
15 who submitted the first proposals and he had planned on
distributing medical marijuana from his medical offices.

Now, he has had a change of heart. He is not among the 21 applicants
seeking a license.

The department is expected to take several weeks to review the
submissions and determine whether everything was completed correctly.
Once an application is deemed complete, the Health Department will
post it online for public review.

The Health Department plans on making a final decision to allow up to
three compassion centers to open in the spring.