LAWMAKERS SAY CHAFEE WANTS TO AVOID FEDERAL ACTION

PROVIDENCE - Two state legislators met with Governor Chafee on
Tuesday for an update on the state's plans to license three
compassion centers to sell marijuana to patients in the state
medical-marijuana program.

Sen. Rhoda E. Perry and Rep. Scott A. Slater, both Providence
Democrats, emerged from Chafee's office following a 15-minute
meeting in the State House. They felt that Chafee was supportive
of the program to provide medical marijuana to those suffering from
chronic pain and other illnesses, but the governor wants to make
sure that the state doesn't make a wrong move and subject the
dispensary owners and investors to federal prosecution.

Slater and Perry want to get clarification on the risks from Sen.
Sheldon Whitehouse.

"We don't know anything," Perry said."We really need to get
more information from the senator."

The legislators met with Chafee for the first time since Peter F. Neronha,
U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, sent a letter to the governor's office on
April 27, saying that he might prosecute or take civil action against the
centers and anyone affiliated with them. Neronha's letter came just a few
weeks after the state Department of Health announced that it had selected
three dispensaries to sell medical marijuana in the state.

In response to Neronha's threat, Chafee "placed a hold" on the dispensary
program.

Similar missives were issued in several of the other 15 states that permit
medical marijuana and have established, or are considering establishing
dispensaries.

Among them are Maine and Vermont.

In early April, the first dispensary on the East Coast opened in Frenchville,
Maine, in a raised-ranch house near the Canadian border. Two others were
scheduled to open last week in Auburn and Ellsworth, Maine. A woman who
answered the telephone at the Remedy Compassion Center in Auburn said
that the business was open to patients "registered in the Department of
Health and Human Services" medical-marijuana program.

She referred other questions to the owner, Tim. He did not return two
phone messages.

In Vermont, the state House of Representatives and Senate have approved
legislation that will allow the opening of four dispensaries.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, who sponsored a similar bill in the Senate last year, is
expected to sign it, despite a letter from Tristram J. Coffin, the
U.S. Attorney
in Vermont, who sent a letter to lawmakers that was almost identical to the
one Neronha sent to Chafee. Coffin said the dispensaries are drug-trafficking
enterprises and would be subject to federal prosecution.

Claire Richards, Chafee's chief legal counsel, has been the governor's point
person on the medical-marijuana dispensaries. She has had several
conversations with Neronha, and she participated in a conference call with
governors attending the National Governors Association in North Carolina.

She said that she is especially concerned about a federal prosecutor in
Washington who has threatened to prosecute state workers involved in
the regulation of the state's marijuana-dispensary program. She also
said that at least one private dispensary in Montana is suing the federal
government for raiding its establishment.

Montana's program, unlike Rhode Island's, is not regulated by the
state.

Richards said that she has also met with Seth Bock, owner of the Greenleaf
Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, and Terence Fracassa, legal
counsel for the Summit Medical Compassion Center in Warwick. They were
two of the three applicants selected to run dispensaries in Rhode Island.

The other was the Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center in Providence,
named after Representative Slater's late father. He, along with Perry,
championed the legalization of medical marijuana in Rhode Island. In 2009,
Perry sponsored legislation that allowed the state to open up to three
medical-marijuana dispensaries, also known as compassion centers.

Richards also has met with JoAnne Lepannen, executive director of the
Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, an organization that works
hand-in-hand with the medical-marijuana program and its patients.

Slater and Perry said that they hope to have a second meeting with Chafee
in two weeks.

"I think there's a lot of misinformation out there," Slater said. "[Chafee]
wants to see what the other states are doing."