Medical Marijuana Bills Introduced in Senate, House Legislation Enjoys Extensive Bipartisan Support PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND -- Medical marijuana bills were introduced simultaneously in the Rhode Island Senate and House by a bipartisan coalition. SB 710 and its companion House bill would permit seriously ill patients to use and possess medical marijuana with their doctors' approval, without fear of arrest or imprisonment. Sen. Rhoda Perry (D-3rd Senate District) and Rep. Thomas Slater (D-10th House District) are the lead sponsors for the Senate and House bills, which have drawn 18 and 50 cosponsors, respectively. The bill has drawn endorsements from the Rhode Island Medical Society, Rhode Island State Nurses Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, United Nurses and Allied professionals, Rhode Island ACLU, and more than 100 Rhode Island physicians. A Zogby poll of Rhode Island voters in March 2004 showed 69% support for legislation allowing seriously ill patients "to use and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes, so long as their physician approves." "As someone who could benefit from medical marijuana, I hope this is the year the legislature makes the compassionate choice and protects patients like me," said Rhonda O'Donnell, a nurse who suffers from multiple sclerosis and testified in favor of medical marijuana legislation last year. O'Donnell's doctor has recommended that she trymarijuana, but she fears arrest if she uses it before the bill is passed. "People with debilitating illnesses should not be deprived of a medicine that can help them." Ten states currently have effective medical marijuana laws protecting patients and their caregivers from arrest and imprisonment: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Vermont's medical marijuana law passed through its legislature in May 2004, while Montanans approved their law via ballot initiative on November 2, 2004. "Two states from opposing sides of the political spectrum -- Vermont and Montana -- have passed medical marijuana laws in the past year," said Neal Levine, director of state policies for MPP. "The bipartisan support for medical marijuana is stronger than ever before.We know that Rhode Islanders overwhelmingly approve of medical marijuana, and we fully expect to put a bill on the governor's desk this year." With more than 17,000 members and 150,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is imprisonment. For more information, see http://www.MarijuanaPolicy.org. Link to article: http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr20050218.html
By Jim Baron Source: Pawtucket Times Providence -- A bill that would allow people with degenerative illnesses to use marijuana to help relieve their suffering has 50 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 18 in the Senate, leading supporters to believe this is the year it could win passage. Sen. Rhoda Perry, who has introduced the measure in each of the last five years, said, "we have indications it is going to pass. We've gotten some strong feelings that it is not looked on with such negativity as it has in the past." Rep. Thomas Slater, who introduced the House bill said the 50 signatures indicate "more than enough" support to pass in that chamber, but said the concern is on the Senate side, which he said, "has a much more conservative viewpoint" than the House. It takes 20 votes to pass legislation in the Senate, two more than the number of co-signers to Perry's bill. "The public perception is that medical marijuana should be available to those who need it," Slater told The Times Wednesday. The Providence lawmaker said his own two-year battle with cancer has swayed his opinion on the issue. "If you asked me 10 years ago if I would have put in the bill, I don't think I would have." Perry said her nephew, Edward Hawkins, died of AIDS a year ago last month. Although marijuana could have been made available to him, she said, "he absolutely refused because he was so afraid of being arrested and thrown out of the nursing home he was in. "It could have provided him with such incredible but simple comfort." Using marijuana, Perry said, could allow patients like her nephew to stay off other drugs such as morphine "so they can better relate to their families in their last days." Hawkins was on so much morphine in his last weeks, she said, that it was difficult or impossible for him to have conversations. Asked how she would answer critics who say efforts to legalize medical marijuana are a Trojan horse to push for the legalization of recreational drug use, Perry said, "I would like them to go into the homes of men and women dying in the last stages of AIDS, or who have severe glaucoma or different types of cancer. It's not only what the patient is feeling, but the families around the patients. For people to live their lives while they are in the dying process is an amazingly positive event." Under the legislation, if a patient gets a prescription from his or her doctor to use marijuana medically the patient and his or her primary caregiver -- a person over 18 who has agreed to assist the patient -- would be issued "registry identification cards" from the Department of Health that would protect them from arrest, prosecution or civil penalties. A patient would not be allowed to possess more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana or 12 marijuana plants at any time. Marijuana is a controlled substance under federal law and a change in the state law would not protect patients or caregivers from arrest or prosecution by federal authorities, who have conducted raids and made arrests in states where medical marijuana is legal. Among the states that currently allow medical marijuana are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In the past two years, according to the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, more than 100 Rhode Island doctors have endorsed medical marijuana, as have the R.I. Medical Society, the R.I. State Nurses Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, United Nurses and Allied Professionals, the American Association of Family Physicians and the R.I. chapter of the ACLU. Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, said that group will be working closely with the bills supporters in Rhode Island to win passage. Mirken said the reason most of the states with medical marijuana laws are in the western part of the country is that most of the laws have been passed through ballot initiatives rather than state legislatures. "Public support for this is huge," Mirken said. "It is easier to get a popular vote" than it is to get politicians to support the issue. Even those who support medical marijuana, Mirken said, do not understand how much support it has among their fellow citizens. "We have a majority that is convinced they are in the minority." When Rhode Islanders were polled on whether they support allowing the medical use of marijuana, Mirken said, 69 percent said they favored it with 26 percent saying they didn't. But when those same people were asked if they think a majority of people in the state support it, 26.5 percent said yes and 55.9 percent said no. Source: Pawtucket Times (RI) Author: Jim Baron Published: February 24, 2005 Copyright: 2005 The Pawtucket Times Contact: editor@pawtuckettimes.com Website: http://www.pawtuckettimes.com Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20282.shtml
By Joe Kernan Source: Warwick Beacon 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 governor's 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 Island's 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. Complete Title: Senator Believes There's Support for Medical Use of Marijuana Source: Warwick Beacon (RI) Author: Joe Kernan Published: February 24, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Warwick Beacon Contact: info@warwickonline.com Website: http://www.warwickonline.com/ Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20283.shtml
By Christopher Butler Source: Warwick Beacon The recent introduction of medical marijuana bills by of 60 percent of the Rhode Island General Assembly gives me great hope. As an advocate for people living with HIV and AIDS and as executive director of the oldest AIDS organization in Rhode Island, I have seen how important this bill is. AIDS Project Rhode Island is just one of many groups and medical experts supporting this sensible, humane legislation. We are joined by the Rhode Island Medical Society, the Rhode Island State Nurses Association and Dr. Kenneth Mayer, head of the Brown University AIDS Program, among many others. It simply makes no sense to subject people living with HIV/AIDS – or other devastating illnesses like cancer or multiple sclerosis – to arrest and jail for trying to relieve some of the suffering caused by their condition. And the evidence is clear that medical marijuana provides real relief. For people living with HIV/AIDS, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite – often caused by the harsh drugs used to keep the virus in check – are so serious they can literally be life threatening. A study published in December 2003 in the “Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes†found that these drug side effects are the leading reason that people with AIDS discontinue anti-HIV treatment. Marijuana relieves nausea and vomiting, making it possible for some patients to stay on the medicines that keep them alive. This January, the “Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes†published a study showing that patients suffering nausea from their AIDS drug cocktails stay on their therapy more consistently when using marijuana. There is no real doubt that marijuana helps some for whom conventional anti-nausea drugs fail. In a 1999 study commissioned by the White House, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences reported, “Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana.†Since then, the evidence has continued to mount. In a study conducted at San Francisco General Hospital, patients on AIDS treatment who used medical marijuana gained more weight than those receiving a placebo. And, in contrast to the false claims sometimes made by medical marijuana opponents, the study found no sign that marijuana caused any harm to the patients' immune systems. Indeed, those on medical marijuana actually gained critical immune system cells. Further research at the same institution suggests that marijuana can also ease the misery caused by peripheral neuropathy, another painful complication sometimes caused by HIV or the drugs used to treat it. In November 2003, the American Academy of HIV Medicine declared, “When appropriately prescribed and monitored, marijuana/cannabis can provide immeasurable benefits for the health and well-being of our patients.†Officials from the White House drug czar's office sometimes claim that medical marijuana is unnecessary because a prescription pill is available containing THC, one of marijuana's active components. But our clients regularly tell us that this pill, called Marinol, has major problems. When you're nauseated, keeping a pill down may be impossible. Those who do manage to take Marinol often report that it is less effective than marijuana, and, because they have less control over the dose, that it makes them too “high†to function. Cost is another issue. My organization provides assistance with prescription drug costs, but at up to $500 per month the cost of Marinol quickly burns through the limited subsidies we can provide. Our clients wonder why they should use up that aid on this expensive pill when they can get better relief from a plant they can grow in their back yard. There is only one reason: Under Rhode Island law, that plant can land them in jail, and that's just crazy. Medical care decisions should be between doctors and patients. Compassion and common sense demand that Rhode Island's legislature pass the medical marijuana bill without delay. Christopher Butler is executive director of AIDS Project Rhode Island. Source: Warwick Beacon (RI) Author: Christopher Butler Published: March 03, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Warwick Beacon Contact: info@warwickonline.com Website: http://www.warwickonline.com/ Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20316.shtml