FEDS MIGHT SNUFF OUT DISPENSARIES

Some say Rhode Island is looking in the wrong places for new jobs and
suspect state officials are pursuing a frat-based economy centered on
video games, gambling and marijuana.

But you don't have to be former House Minority Leader Bob Watson to
see that the drive to open three medical-marijuana dispensaries in
Rhode Island has merit.

And the federal government doesn't need Navy SEAL Team 6 to hunt down
the fact that Rhode Island has been planning to open those
dispensaries for a couple of years now.

Yet on April 29, U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha sent Governor Chafee
a letter threatening to prosecute civilly and/or criminally those
involved in the three planned medical-marijuana dispensaries. After
receiving the letter, Chafee "placed a hold" on the dispensary program.

At this point, Neronha's letter seems more than a bit tardy.

The letter comes after more than 150 people turned out for a daylong
public hearing in February, voicing both support and opposition to 18
applications under consideration by the Health Department.

The letter comes after the dispensary application process attracted
big money and big names, including those of former URI and NBA
basketball player Cuttino Mobley and former state Democratic Chairman
William J. Lynch.

And the letter comes after Chafee factored $1.35 million in
medical-marijuana revenue into his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal,
including $802,659 from a 6-percent sales tax and $556,092 from a
4-percent surcharge on gross monthly dispensary sales.

So why is the state only now getting a "heads up" from the U.S.
Attorney's Office?

Spokesman Jim Martin said the state didn't announce its dispensary
selections until March 15, and the U.S. Attorney's Office then needed
time to review the applications and consult with Department of
Justice officials in Washington, D.C.

"Until we had opportunity to know specifically the scale and scope of
these tentatively approved grows, it would have been difficult for us
to provide any information," he said. He noted Neronha did send the
letter before the state issued certificates of registration to the
dispensaries.

But isn't Neronha's message a departure from - or an outright
reversal of - the message the Department of Justice delivered in 2009?

In a 2009 memo, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden said
prosecutors should continue pursuing "significant traffickers of
illegal drugs, including marijuana," but as a general rule, they
shouldn't focus scarce federal resources "on individuals whose
actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state
laws providing for the medical use of marijuana," such as those "with
cancer or other serious illnesses."

The memo goes on to say that "this guidance regarding resource
allocation does not 'legalize' marijuana" and complying with a state
law doesn't provide a legal defense for violating a federal drug law.
But at the time, Attorney General Eric Holder told the Associated
Press: "The policy is to go after those people who violate both
federal and state law."

Well, the proposed Rhode Island dispensaries would provide a
centralized, state-regulated way for people with cancer and other
serious illnesses to get marijuana, consistent with state law.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the
American Civil Liberties Union, said, "One can't read the Ogden memo
without coming to the conclusion that these dispensaries fit right
within the protection that the memo provides."

But Martin said the federal government is not changing its tune.

"The DOJ [Department of Justice] position has been clear and
consistent that we will not focus our resources on individual
patients that have cancer, serious diseases, debilitating diseases.
That's not what this office does," he said. "It's been very clearly
articulated that the serious drug traffickers are the ones we have
problems with, and when we looked at the scale and scope of these
operations and the tentatively approved grows, that's where the
concerns began to arise."

He acknowledged the dispensaries would be nonprofits, but he said
they expect to take in substantial amounts of money within a short
amount of time: For instance, one expects to net $16.5 million by its
third year of operation.

At a State House rally, Dr. Seth Bock, chief executive officer of the
proposed Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center, in Portsmouth, said,
"We are not drug cartels hiding behind a veil of state law."

The ACLU's Brown said, "These dispensaries have gone through a
lengthy, thorough and detailed vetting process by the state
Department of Health, and the suggestion that Health Department is
assisting drug traffickers by approving these dispensaries is absurd."

Vanderbilt Law School Prof. Robert A. Mikos, who studies federalism
and drug law policy, said the "non-enforcement policy" announced in
2009 was very limited, but the Obama administration "invited people
to praise the change" and now it might be backing away from that
change to head off full-scale legalization efforts. U.S. attorneys
have written letters similar to Neronha's in California, Colorado and Montana.

JoAnne Leppanen, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient
Advocacy Coalition, said Rhode Island wouldn't be like "the Wild
West," where some states impose loose regulations and seem to have as
many marijuana dispensaries as Starbucks shops. She said Rhode Island
would have a limited, accountable system to serve people who in
previous years might have lectured their children about marijuana but
now find it's the only thing that helps them deal with afflictions
like cancer, AIDS or Crohn's disease.

"We just want to work this out," Leppanen said. Let's hope there's a way.