PROVIDENCE -- A year after passing permanent medical marijuana legislation, lawmakers say it's time to establish a safe and legal means for patients to obtain the drug.

Right now, qualifying patients may grow marijuana, but since the state provides no access to the drug, they often resort to buying it on the street.

Legislators and doctors call that scenario an unwanted weak link in an otherwise successful law. They've heard too many stories like that of Warwick's Buddy Coolen, 29, a medical marijuana user who three months ago was robbed at gunpoint by the drug dealer while trying to buy marijuana to treat his debilitating gastrointestinal condition.

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Marijuana can get silly. Sure, it can do damage when it becomes a constant alternative to reality. But in too many ways it has become a slapstick prop, causing people in uniform to run around and around until they fall down. Or run into each other. And that's without smoking it.

The funniest movie about marijuana is Reefer Madness. It features an actor who sucks madly on a joint, then turns into a crazed killer.

That image is decades old and comically out of touch. But it is one that some people cling to even today in trying to give marijuana a place in the war on drugs that is totally unjustified.

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A recent court decision in California highlights the ongoing dilemma faced by medical users of marijuana. Former Air Force mechanic Gary Ross sued after the telecommunications company he was working for fired him over use of the drug, even though he possessed a doctor's recommendation. Mr. Ross had been using marijuana under the state's 12-year-old Compassionate Use Act to ease chronic pain from a back injury. He did not seek to use the drug on the job but rather on his own time.

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When do the police have a right to look between your buttocks to see if there are drugs hidden there?

A federal appeals court addressed that question this week in overturning a ruling that said a Woonsocket police officer lacked the reasonable suspicion required to check for drugs between Kenny Barnes' buttocks.

Barnes, 28, of Woonsocket, is charged with possessing crack cocaine with the intent to distribute. Barnes was strip searched after his arrest, and when the police told him he had to undergo a visual cavity search, he "reached behind his back and removed a bag containing cocaine base from between his buttocks," according to the decision. (Crack cocaine is a form of cocaine base.)

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PROVIDENCE -- Civil-rights leaders and politicians made a last ditch effort yesterday to get the General Assembly to override Governor Carcieri's veto and abolish the state's minimum mandatory drug sentencing laws.

The big question remains: Will the issue be presented for an override at Tuesday's special session of the General Assembly?

House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, said yesterday that the leadership had not committed to an agenda for the special session. Translation: It's anyone's guess whether the issue of minimum mandatory drug sentencing will be heard next week.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I.-When 17-year-old Dennys George was arrested this summer, allegedly for carrying 10 grams of crack cocaine, he was taken handcuffed and shackled to the state prison's high-security wing-not a juvenile facility.

George said he was strip-searched and spent the night in a cell with another teen. Though he didn't have contact with older inmates, he wouldn't shower because he was afraid of being near them.

"They told me, 'You're going to spend some time with the big boys,'" George said, recounting a talk with police. "I was so stressed, I didn't even know what was going to happen to me."

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On Monday, Sept. 24, members from a diverse group of local organizations, including RIC students and alumni, gathered in front of the State House to speak out against Governor Donald L. Carcieri's recent vetoes on several bills; encouraging the legislature to set a date for a special override session. Those present included members from the ACLU, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), Marriage Equality RI, Ocean State Action, SEIU Local 1199 and United Nurses & Allied Professionals as well as members from the Rhode Island College and Brown chapters of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).

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My name is no longer Mommy or simple Kel.

My name is Kelly who suffers from fibromyalga, Multiple Sclerosis and pain from hell.

It is hard to wake up and put a smile on my face.

When at times my world is a very dark place.

My husband and children can light up my life....

I do my best I can to be a wonderful mother and loving wife.

My illnesses are known as the beast within...

However smoking marijuana helps me fight the battle to win.

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The old life of Kelly Powers began to slip away two years ago.

Her husband had bought her a new motorcycle for her 31st birthday, but during the vision test for her license, Powers realized something was wrong.

She'd been getting chronic headaches and was clumsy at times. She had trouble holding a bottle for her infant daughter. Then her hands couldn't seem to hold her baby.

It was multiple sclerosis. Within a year, the disease was claiming enough of her body that she had to give up her daycare business and retreat to her bed.

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Michael D. Cutler's Aug. 6 column, "An opportunity for Edwards to lead," is a well thought-out article. However, I believe a politician's position on the drug war is a leading indicator of his character, or lack thereof.

This would be a good shot for John Edwards to at least talk about the war over here vs. the war over there. Well, this will not happen because we have a panel of cowards on the Democratic as well as the Republican side.

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The original Prohibition - of alcoholic beverages - was an abysmal failure, and the sequel is worse. America is hungry for honest politicians ("An opportunity for Edwards to lead," by Michael D. Cutler, Commentary, Aug. 6) to oppose the so-called war on drugs.

Other political leaders who fit the description are Ohio's Dennis Kucinich and Texas's Ron Paul. At the very minimum America must re-legalize cannabis and regulate it like alcohol. Murder rates decreased for 10 years after the repeal of the original Prohibition and there's reason to believe ending the sequel will have similar effects.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

BROOKLINE -- SEN. JOHN EDWARDS'S chances of passing Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination seem slim and none at the moment. Edwards must get a more compelling plan to lift America and demonstrate leadership, or his campaign is doomed.

Clinton and Obama will not be out-spent, out-organized or out-messaged, unless Edwards seizes voter interest on an issue with the impact of the Iraq War. Re-declaring war on poverty will not pass his competitors, and declaring peace in Iraq is not a distinction.

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It is apparent Gov. Donald Carcieri still believes the federal government's lies regarding cannabis. Here in Oregon there are over 2,500 doctors who have written recommendations for patients to use cannabis as medicine.

In saying he does not support the bill because it "violates federal law and ignores the drug-approval process as established by the Food and Drug Administration," your governor ignores the needs of citizens living with a health-care system that is failing millions.

Described in 1988 by a Drug Enforcement Administration administrative-law judge, Francis Young, as "one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man," cannabis has been demonized for over seven decades. Its prohibition was founded with no scientific basis and relied on the bigoted fantasies of a career prohibition bureaucrat named Harry Anslinger.

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PROVIDENCE - Standing firm on his veto threat despite an almost certain override in both chambers of the General Assembly, Gov. Donald Carcieri Monday rejected legislation to make Rhode Island's medical marijuana law permanent.

In identical veto messages to House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano, Carcieri said: "If enacted, this legislation will enable qualified persons to acquire, possess, cultivate, manufacture, use, deliver, transfer or transport marijuana or paraphernalia relating to the consumption of marijuana" for problems ranging from cancer to unspecified pain.

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PROVIDENCE - As expected, Governor Carcieri yesterday vetoed medical marijuana legislation. And Democratic House leader Gordon Fox said he believes state lawmakers will override that veto.

"I support efforts to provide effective pain management to persons suffering from debilitating conditions, but not in a way that violates federal law and ignores the drug approval process as established by the Food and Drug Administration," Carcieri, a Republican, said in his veto message.

He said the legislation "could potentially subject Rhode Islanders to federal prosecution, while significantly complicating the responsibilities of state and local law enforcement officials."

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PROVIDENCE -- Pamela Bailey sat quietly on the wooden bench inside State House Room 212 as the politicians approved the bill named for her son.

She would say later that she was grateful, but that she didn't need a state law to remember her firstborn.

"We didn't have to have it in the limelight. He'll always be with me," she said of Edward O. Hawkins, whose name will forever appear on the title of the state's medical marijuana law. It was Bailey's sister, Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, who suggested the name.

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PROVIDENCE -- The Senate voted yesterday to reappoint Patricia Martinez to head the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, an agency facing millions in projected cuts next year as Governor Carcieri tries to rein in social spending.

The chamber unanimously endorsed Martinez as the $127,501-a-year director of the agency with 789 authorized employees and a $293-million budget this year. She has held the director's position since her appointment in 2005.

The DCYF is facing substantial cuts in the coming year. Facing hundreds of millions in projected deficits, the governor has proposed reducing the department's budget by 26 percent, to $215 million.

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PROVIDENCE - Following in the footsteps of Wednesday's House vote, the Senate approved legislation Thursday to make the state's medical marijuana law permanent.

The vote was 28-5, far exceeding the three-fifths vote required to survive the veto Gov. Donald Carcieri says is likely to come. The law that protects from arrest or prosecution patients who suffer from a debilitating medical condition as certified by a physician and one or two "caregivers" who help them procure, grow or use the drug, was passed over the governor's veto in January, 2006, it is set to expire on June 30 unless a so-called "sunset clause" is eliminated. The now-identical measures that passed the House and Senate this week do just that. Under General Assembly procedure, the House bill will now go to the Senate for passage and the Senate bill will go to the House.

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PROVIDENCE - Following the lead of the House of Representatives, the Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Thursday that would make permanent the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The Senate vote was 28-5, a plurality that easily surpassed the 60 percent threshold needed to overturn an expected veto by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri. All four Newport County senators voted for the bill.

In 2005, the General Assembly passed legislation legalizing the doctor-prescribed use of marijuana for patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis or AIDS. The patient could possess up to 5 ounces of useable marijuana or grow up to 12 marijuana plants. The patient also could have up to two qualified "caregivers" who could help the patient buy marijuana.

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This certainly is a blue state.

Only somewhere so liberal - or progressive, whichever one prefers - as Rhode Island could a legislature buck the political wisdom that traditionally says being soft on drugs is bad in every scenario. There's something very bold about a General Assembly that would put aside decades of scare-mongering propaganda and acknowledge marijuana - - long demonized as a scourge of the youth and unmotivated - might actually have legitimate and supportable uses.

So we'll pass along our kudos to the General Assembly for making permanent its legalization of medical marijuana for certain patients suffering pain that can't truly be mitigated in any other way. That the common recreational use of the drug has attached to it such a pervasive stigma as to make even doctors reluctant to acknowledge its medical benefits is simply sad; that legislators could look past the stigma is wholeheartedly encouraging.

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