PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday preventing the town of Smithfield from enforcing a recent amendment to its zoning ordinance that restricted the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana. In his decision, Superior Court Associate Justice Richard A. Licht questioned whether local communities had the power to regulate "small-scale" medical marijuana cultivation under its zoning authority, which traditionally has been used to determine land use. In April, the Smithfield Town Council passed an ordinance that limits licensed medical marijuana patients to two mature plants and two seedlings, and only at a patient's primary residence. Rhode Island law specifically allows for the cultivation of 12 mature plants and outlines where medical marijuana can be grown. [continues 422 words]
CRANSTON -- A group of health officials and law enforcement representatives came together yesterday to raise awareness of a drug plague that they say has so far spared much of New England but will come. The spread of methamphetamine use and addiction has ravaged other parts of the country, said U.S. Attorney Robert Corrente. In Hawaii, for instance, methamphetamine addiction has surpassed alcohol abuse, he said. We want "to get out in front of the problem and be prepared when the problem is here," Corrente said. [continues 420 words]
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island -- In the shade of a maple tree, Martin Leprowski lays out the pictures he took in Colombia last month. They show mothers holding children with rashes on their backs and red boils on their feet. The United States is responsible for these injuries, Leprowski claims, through its $1.3-billion drug fumigation plan in Colombia. The herbicide spraying, aimed at destroying Colombia's cocaine and heroin trades, is poisoning people, he says, and running them off their land. [continues 601 words]
Both Rhode Island senators, who just returned from the South American nation, are upbeat that the $1.3-billion aid package is making a difference in cutting cocaine production. Rhode Island's two U.S. senators say they're confident a $1.3-billion aid package to Colombia is fighting the drug trade as intended and might help to resolve the decades-old civil war between the government and guerrilla groups. Both Democrat Sen. Jack Reed and Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee returned recently from separate trips to the South American country, where intensifying violence has spawned a new exodus of refugees to places such as Rhode Island, with large Colombian populations. [continues 744 words]
"We'll know in a year from now where we are in terms of success or failure," says Buddy Croft, coordinator of the Family and Juvenile Drug Court, an alternative to traditional means of dealing with youth crime. PROVIDENCE -- The 14-year-old boy who admitted to selling marijuana on school grounds six months ago was back in Family Court yesterday and was handed the most unusual of judicial paperwork: An engraved citation of accomplishment from the chief judge and a greeting card signed by drug counselors. "Life is full of new beginnings," the card read. "I hope that this is one of your happiest and most successful." [continues 948 words]
