Pubdate: Sun, 24 Jul 2011
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2011 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Author: Bob Kerr
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

THE GOVERNOR NEEDS TO DO THE JERSEY THING

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, gave approval last week 
for the opening of six marijuana dispensaries. Christie, a former 
U.S. Attorney, said he made the decision despite never receiving 
assurances from the Justice Department that those working in the 
dispensaries would be exempt from prosecution.

Christie said that opening the dispensaries is a risk he is taking as 
governor. He said the need to provide compassionate pain relief to 
citizens of the state outweighs the risk.

Imagine that - compassion over caution.

So why can't Rhode Island have a governor like that?

Actually, JoAnne Leppanen, the executive director of the Rhode Island 
Patient Advocacy Coalition, thought it did.

"If there's a governor you wanted to have during this time, he seemed 
like the one," she said.

But so far, he isn't the one. Governor Chafee continues to delay 
issuing the licenses for the three dispensaries approved for Rhode 
Island. It is the flip side of the Jersey experience. Compassionate 
pain relief is apparently not a priority in Rhode Island.

"Doesn't he understand?" asks Leppanen. "Every day he holds up the 
licenses people are suffering."

Hers is the largest medical-marijuana advocacy group in the state. 
She said the passage of the law legalizing medical marijuana provided 
a real lift to people who count on it to ease the pain from such 
diseases as AIDS and multiple sclerosis and the draining.misery of 
chemotherapy. But, she said, those same people are discouraged by the 
governor's delay.

"Some people aren't getting it," said Leppanen. "Some are paying a 
fortune. Some are putting themselves in risky situations.

"Overall, most patients in the program are under-medicated."

She said that some of the 2,300 caregivers licensed to grow marijuana 
for medical use have been generous in sharing what they can. But they 
are stretched thin.

She has met with the governor and his chief legal counsel, Claire Richards.

"They say the same thing. It's illegal under federal law."

And Peter F. Neronha, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, has not given 
Chafee any assurance that people working in the dispensaries will not 
be prosecuted.

Busting a legally licensed state business and forcing some people 
into illegal activity would seem a very strange thing for a U.S. 
Attorney to do. But apparently it could happen.

It's so damndepressing that after finally taking a sane and healthy 
approach to marijuana and opening up its pain-relieving promise to 
the sick, the state has gotten hung up on this kind of needless legal 
uncertainty. Some bold and caring action such as we've seen in New 
Jersey would be welcome.

In the meantime, the people approved for medical marijuana are left 
to wonder if they will ever be able to buy it in the kind of place 
where there will actually be some controls on what they're getting 
and what they're paying.

I know a few. One has multiple sclerosis and tells me she truly 
cannot get through the day without the relief from pain the marijuana 
gives her.

It works. It makes good things possible by making pain manageable.

It is perhaps the best reason Rhode Island will ever have to be just 
like New Jersey.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom