RHODE TRIP

How A Small, Heavily Catholic State Became Poised To Legalize Medical
Marijuana -- And What It Means For The Rest Of Us

Coming less than 24 hours after the US Supreme Court supported the federal
government's right to prosecute sick people who use marijuana to control
their discomfort, the Rhode Island Senate's emphatic June 7 vote in support
of medical marijuana may have come as a surprise -- to everyone but Rhode
Islanders.

On the surface, the tremendous 34-2 bipartisan support shown for the
medical-marijuana bill was curious. After all, Rhode Island is a heavily
Catholic state where, despite an independent streak and an overwhelmingly
Democratic General Assembly, most legislators are social conservatives, and
the popular Republican governor, Donald L. Carcieri, strongly opposes the
very concept. Then again, in the smallest of states, where everyone, it
seems, knows someone who might benefit from medical marijuana to treat
cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, or some other debilitating illness, the
bill's passage makes perfect sense.

Take the case of State Representative Thomas C. Slater (D-Providence), a
30-year veteran of the Marine Corps Reserves, who describes himself as a
strong opponent of recreational marijuana use and looks as if he would feel
at home in a VFW Hall. Although he has supported medical marijuana in the
past, Slater, 64, became a highly visible proponent -- the lead sponsor in
the House this session -- after studying up on the subject. The issue
touches close to home for him, since he has been treated for cancer, and
the disease has affected a number of people in his family. While Slater
says he would not use medical marijuana should it become legal (and
recognizes that its main benefit may be psychological for some people), his
advocacy -- in which he steadily framed the issue as one of compassion --
steeled the resolve of some wavering colleagues. With the widespread
incidence of cancer, AIDS, and other illnesses, he says, "people are well
aware of how devastating these diseases can be. People out there in the
community have a friend who is sick, have a relative who is sick, and they
want relief for that person."

Adds Representative Raymond J. Sullivan Jr. (D-Coventry), "When you sit
across the table from someone who tells you they only have seven, eight, or
nine months to live, and say that this is the only thing that can help them
get through the day -- whether it be eating or relaxing their muscles,
whatever issue that might be -- I don't know how we can look that person in
the eye and tell them that we're going to treat them like a criminal. It
just doesn't make sense to me. This is not about legalizing marijuana. It's
not about increasing taxes. It's about easing the suffering of people who
are in the last stage of their life or dealing with serious illnesses."

Of course, there's no single explanation for how the issue of medical
marijuana, which had foundered in the Rhode Island General Assembly since
the late '90s, suddenly attracted such a groundswell of broad legislative
support across partisan lines. True, the bill's success is due, at least in
part, to the campaign waged year after year by proponents such as Senator
Rhoda Perry (D-Providence). The main Senate sponsor, Perry offered poignant
testimony of how her nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, suffered before dying from
AIDS at age 41 last year. But while Perry is an unabashed liberal, support
in recent years from groups such as the Rhode Island Medical Society and
the Rhode Island State Nurses Association, as well as from AIDS Project
Rhode Island and the local chapter of the ACLU, reflects just how
mainstream medical marijuana has become -- something borne out by
referendums and a variety of polls in conservative states. The Marijuana
Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, DC--based advocacy group, also focused
a beefed-up political campaign on Rhode Island, using a lobbyist, as well
as phone banks and television commercials targeting Carcieri's stated
opposition to medical marijuana.

Ultimately, though, the greatest factor seems to lie on the flip side of
Rhode Island's distinctive civic intimacy, which has fostered the Ocean
State's justly deserved reputation for political corruption. Put another
way, in this tiny state of just over one million people, the personal tends
to become political a lot faster than it does anywhere else.

So when related legislation passed the last hurdle in the Senate on June 28
- -- quickly, without discussion, and on a 33-1 vote -- it was as though it
were the blandest and most pedestrian of bills, in spite of Governor
Carcieri's veto the very next day.

Not Fade Away

Rhode Island's medical-marijuana bill would protect doctors, patients, and
caregivers from state prosecution if a state-certified physician finds that
marijuana might aid a Rhode Island resident suffering from a "chronic or
debilitating" medical condition. It does not outline a source for the
marijuana, meaning that patients with state-issued registration cards would
be expected to obtain it illegally, although they would be able to possess
up to 12 plants or 2.5 ounces of "usable marijuana" at a time. In an
amendment that bolstered legislative support, the initiative would cease on
June 30, 2007, unless legislators voted to continue it.

None of that appeases opponents, who see the US Supreme Court's June 6
ruling in Gonzalez v. Raich, allowing the federal government to ban medical
marijuana, as definitive. In a statement issued that same day, John
Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the decision "marks the end of
medical marijuana as a political issue. Our nation has the highest
standards and most sophisticated institutions in the world for determining
the safety and effectiveness of medication. Our national medical system
relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion. To date, science
and research have not determined that smoking a crude plant is safe or
effective. We have a responsibility to ensure that the medicine Americans
receive from their doctors is effective, safe, and free from the pro-drug
politics that are being promoted under the guise of medicine."

Proponents, however -- who point to numerous studies in support of medical
marijuana's benefits -- hail what's happening in Rhode Island as a clear
rebuke to federal assertions that the states' legalization of medical
marijuana has been rendered moot. As the MPP pointed out in a statement
last week, "The recent US Supreme Court decision in Gonzalez v. Raich did
not overturn the right of states to pass medical marijuana laws, and no
authority has ever declared state medical marijuana laws unconstitutional."
Asked why the Office of National Drug Control Policy dispatched two
representatives, John Horton and Patrick Royal, to lobby Rhode Island
legislators against overriding Carcieri's veto, Bruce Mirken, the MPP's
director of communications, says, "It says they realize they're about be
caught lying.... They've been pretty decisively proven wrong, and if it
[medical marijuana] becomes law in Rhode Island, it will be a fairly large
national story, and I think they're desperate to avoid that."

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal says the governor's opposition to medical
marijuana stems from his belief that insufficient controls exist for the
production and distribution of the drug, as well as the related concern
that "illegal marijuana use could proliferate throughout the state, and
that marijuana could become much more accessible on the streets." The Rhode
Island State Police and the chief judge of the Rhode Island Family Court
also oppose the measure. Referring to the MPP-coordinated lobbying effort,
Neal says, "I think there's certainly a strategy to pick off states one by
one -- to select a state, to drive the debate there, and to use that as
the thin end of the wedge to force a broader national conversation on the
subject."

The governor has also pointed to the Supreme Court's ruling in explaining
his opposition to legalizing medical marijuana in Rhode Island. Critics,
however, say Carcieri was less concerned about diverging from national
mandates when he allowed a measure legalizing prescription-drug imports
from Canada to become law in 2004, despite a warning from the US Food and
Drug Administration that federal law would trump it.

For many, the case for medical marijuana also resonates with the larger
question of how illegal drugs remain widely available despite the billions
of tax dollars spent by the federal government in the war on drugs,
especially with regard to youth.

Suggestions that medical marijuana will make the drug more available to
children are "a load of bull," says Rhonda O'Donnell, a 42-year-old
Warwick woman who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. "I think
the federal government should have a lot more on their minds and their
plates, like terrorism, rather than coming after people who use it for a
medical purpose." Although the former nurse remains unsure whether
marijuana would alleviate the stiffness and burning pain in her legs, she
holds out hope that others would benefit. O'Donnell, who appears in a
television ad urging public support for medical marijuana, attributes
heightened legislative backing this time around to feedback from
constituents. "I do believe it was the people [driving change], which is
how the system is supposed to work," she says.

Democrats expect White House lobbying to have little effect on legislative
support for the medical-marijuana legislation. In fact, the Senate overrode
Carcieri's veto, 28-6, on June 30, and support is likely to remain
similarly strong when the House takes up the measure, probably within a few
weeks.

Although the governor and other critics express concern about increased
illegal marijuana use, most observers consider it unlikely that legalizing
medical marijuana would bring a tide of users to Rhode Island (the
introduction of medical marijuana in Maine about five years ago seems to
have had little adverse effect).

And while state-sanctioned patients would have to obtain their marijuana
from an illegal source, they appear unlikely to face federal prosecution.
Anthony Pettigrew, the US Drug Enforcement Administration's spokesman in
New England, doesn't even recognize the concept of medical marijuana
because, he says, "It is not medicine. It has no proven medical value."
Federal studies show that more teens enter treatment centers each year for
marijuana, he notes, than for all other drugs combined. That said,
Pettigrew adds, "The DEA has never targeted the sick and dying, but rather
criminals [involved] in drug cultivation and trafficking. We'll target
major trafficking organizations and take them apart."

Rhode Islanders have a fairly tolerant attitude toward marijuana use. The
revelation a few years ago that US Senator Lincoln Chafee had smoked pot as
a young man caused little more than a blip. A recent study by the US
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found a high
frequency of marijuana use in the southern part of the state. In the wake
of the Gonzalez decision, even the Republican-friendly editorial page of
the Providence Journal called on Congress to enact a national law allowing
doctors to prescribe marijuana.

Although 10 states have legalized medical marijuana -- Alaska, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington
-- moving similar initiatives forward remains a challenge even in a place
with as liberal a reputation as Massachusetts (all but two of these states,
Vermont and Hawaii, enacted their laws through ballot initiatives). A bill
introduced by Senator Thomas McGee (D-Lynn) got a good response during a
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early June, says Whitney A. Taylor,
executive director of the nonprofit Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts.
Still, the outlook remains far from clear. For an advocate like Taylor, who
saw how marijuana enabled her cancer-ridden stepfather to interact with his
family over dinner during the period before his death, the ongoing
disparity between public and political support is vexing. The challenge,
she says, remains: "How do we implement laws and get it to work within the
system?"

The MPP is pursuing organizing efforts in several other states, including
New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and to a lesser extent, Illinois and
Minnesota. Medical marijuana may remain an uphill battle, but it's far
from settled. "I think this issue is not going to die," says Marc Genest, a
professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island. "I think
this issue is like gay rights, where advocates, by continuing to bring the
matter up, they surmount all obstacles and eventually become accepted."

The Mouse That Roared

What are the lessons of Rhode Island? Advocates invariably return to the
importance of grassroots organizing and the message of compassion. Mirken
touts the need to work closely with people in the community, "and you have
to be sure to be thoughtful and factual, and prepared to deal with,
frankly, the nonsense that comes from the other side. I don't think
there's any magic formula here. I think it helps to have the truth on your
side, but you have to do your homework."

The larger message, Mirken says, "is that the public is several steps ahead
of Congress and the White House, at least in terms of being willing to look
at drug policy in a pragmatic, common-sense way. A lot of people who don't
like drug abuse and who would like to see the misuse of drugs curbed are
willing to look at things with an open mind, and say that if someone with
cancer or MS can get a little bit of relief from marijuana, there's no
reason that they ought to be casualties in the war on drugs."

The Finest Kind

New England gets high

Percentage of people over age 12 who have used marijuana within the past
month, by region, in the six New England states. (Compare to a national
average of 5.1 percent.)

Connecticut (state average: 5.7 %)

* Eastern: 6.4 %

* North Central: 5.7 %

* Northwestern: 5.1 %

* South Central: 6.1 %

* Southwestern: 5.2 %

Maine (state average: 6.7 %)

* Southern Coast: 7.7 %

* Western Mountains + Mid-Coast: 6.8 %

* Northern + Down East: 5.3 %

Massachusetts (state average: 9.1 %)

* Boston: 12.2 %

* Central: 9 %

* Metrowest: 8.5 %

* Northeast: 8 %

* Southeast: 9.5 %

* Western: 8.8 %

New Hampshire (state average: 6.3 %)

* Central: 5.7 %

* Northern: 6.8 %

* Southern: 6.5 %

Rhode Island (state average: 7.2 %)

* Bristol and Newport Counties 5.9 %

* Kent County: 6.3 %

* South County: 9 %

* Providence County: 7.4 %

Vermont (state average: 7.8%)

* Champlain Valley: 9.4

* Rural Northeast: 6.9

* Rural Southeast: 6.4

* Rural Southwest: 7.2

Source: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's
National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released last month.