SENATE VOTES TO ALLOW MEDICAL MARIJUANA PERMANENTLY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --State senators voted Thursday to make permanent a
program allowing the chronically ill and their caregivers to possess
and use marijuana for pain relief.

The bill passed 28-5, a margin wide enough to sustain a possible veto
from Republican Gov. Don Carcieri, who vetoed the original bill in
2005. House lawmakers passed an identical measure on Wednesday by a
similarly large margin.

Rhode Island became the eleventh state in the nation last year to
begin a medical marijuana program. It expires on June 30 unless
lawmakers renew it.

Under the program, patients suffering from HIV or AIDS, cancer,
glaucoma, severe nausea, seizures or other debilitating illnesses can
get state permission to possess up to 12 marijuana plants and 2.5
ounces of marijuana in a usable form. That limit is doubled for caregivers.

Rhode Island lawmakers haven't established a legal route for buying
marijuana. Its sale and use remains illegal under federal law.

Sen. Rhoda Perry, a Providence Democrat, named the bill after her
nephew, Edward Hawkins, who died of complications from AIDS and
lymphoma three years ago. His last days were spent coughing and in
dementia, she said. Prescription narcotics didn't dull a pain so bad
he often clenched his teeth.

She said marijuana might have made his last days more bearable.
Health department officials say 577 patients and caregivers are now
enrolled in the program.

"The people who are using marijuana are not using it to get high, but
for alleviating serious pain," Perry told her colleagues.

Republicans including Gov. Carcieri have argued that the program
encourages illegal drug abuse and makes patients susceptible to
arrest and prosecution under federal law.

Special Agent Anthony Pettigrew of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's New England office said federal officials will still
enforce federal drug laws in Rhode Island. But he said the DEA isn't
interested in targeting individual patients.

"I don't know what medical marijuana is but I know what marijuana is,
an illegal drug with no medical use," he said in a written statement.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate must pass the same version of at
least one of the medical marijuana bills before it can advance to the
governor's desk. Carcieri hasn't decided whether he would veto the
bill or let it become law without his signature, said his spokesman, Jeff Neal.