SENATOR BELIEVES THERE'S SUPPORT FOR MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Rhode Islanders who have a prescription from their doctors may soon
be able to possess marijuana for medical use without worrying about
the state enforcing current controlled substance laws. Senator Rhoda
Perry of Providence introduced the Medical Marijuana Act legislation
to the Rhode Island General Assembly last week and said yesterday
there is majority support in the House and she expects growing support
in the Senate to carry the bill through to the governor1s desk.

Fifty out of the 75 House members have already expressed support for
the bill and 18 of the 38 senators have also favored it, she said.

Perry and the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition (RIPAC) said a
recent Zogby poll indicated that 69 percent of Rhode Islanders polled
said they would favor the measure, which would remove penalties for
possession and use of marijuana by people with multiple sclerosis,
cancer and AIDS to relieve either those conditions themselves or the
side effects of medications and chemotherapy associated with the
treatment of those conditions.

Seriously ill people should not fear arrest for using a doctor
recommended medication, said Nathaniel Lepp, the executive director
of RIPAC.

With the tremendous amount of support this bill has, both within the
General Assembly and in Rhode Island1s medical community, said Lepp,
people with limited amounts of marijuana with the approval of their
doctor and the Rhode Island Health Department will have nothing to
fear from Rhode Island law enforcement agencies.

Lepp said that the Rhode Island Medical Society, the State Nurses
Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, United Nurses and Allied
Professionals and the American Association for Family Physicians have
already endorsed the bill.

This act would protect patients with debilitating medical conditions,
and their physicians and primary caregivers, from arrest and
prosecution, criminal and other penalties, and property forfeiture if
such patients engage in the medical use of marijuana, according to
the Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Act.

The act will allow certified patients or caregivers to possess up to
12 marijuana plants and 2.5 ounces of marijuana.

One thing the bill does not address is how the patient will acquire
the marijuana. There is no mechanism in the bill to facilitate that at
this point. Even though, according to the bill, 99 percent of
marijuana arrests are made on the state and local level, marijuana
possession, cultivation and use for any reason is still prohibited by
federal law.

"We are encouraging patients to cultivate their own marijuana," said
Lepp. "They are pretty much on their own about how they get the seeds."

The General Assembly is in recess this week and the House and Senate
bills have not been numbered or sent to committee yet.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington have already passed similar laws, and legislators will most
likely examine the effect and popularity of those laws before the
bills move out of the Assembly, according to advocates, but Perry said
she is optimistic that Senate support will be stronger after
legislators have a chance to study the bill.