Two days after Rhode Island became the 11th state to legalize marijuana for medical use, attorney and state Rep. Joseph H. Scott said, he got a call from a client interested in forming a company called R.I. Medical Marijuana Corp.
On Jan. 3, the Exeter Republican had been on the winning side of a 58-to-13 vote to override Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s veto of the marijuana law. At the request of his client, whom Scott declined to identify, he registered the corporation with the secretary of state’s office.
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Apparently, it hadn’t taken long for the law to spark the old entrepreneurial spirit in at least one Rhode Islander. And though R.I. Medical Marijuana Corp. exists in name only, and the new law doesn’t authorize businesses to grow or sell marijuana, Scott and his colleagues demonstrated earlier this year that laws have a way of changing.
The marijuana law allows patients with serious illnesses – such as cancer, glaucoma, AIDS and multiple sclerosis – to carry up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and grow as many as 12 marijuana plants.
With their doctor’s approval, patients will be able to register with the R.I. Department of Health and receive identification cards that enable them to take advantage of the medical marijuana law. Maria Wah-Fitta, a spokeswoman for the department, said it plans to begin issuing cards to qualified patients on April 1.
The law doesn’t provide for a legal way to obtain marijuana; patients could presumably get it from a drug dealer or grow it on their own. But advocates say the new law will encourage people to open medical marijuana shops.
“First, it would take a willing participant, which you are probably going to have many of in Rhode Island,” said Ben, manager of Alternative Relief Co-op in San Francisco. He declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation from federal authorities; marijuana is still illegal under federal law, regardless of its use.
Alternative Relief Co-op, a nonprofit, is one of 37 so-called medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco. Licensed at the county level, California dispensaries sell small amounts of marijuana in smokable form, in baked goods and in liquid infusions to qualified patients.
Ben said the missions of the dispensaries vary significantly, however. Some, such as Alternative Relief, operate like pharmacies, where patients buy pre-measured and packaged marijuana. Others, he said, are social centers where – unlike Alternative Relief – patients are allowed to hang out and smoke marijuana.
Take the Vapor Room, a San Francisco dispensary that boasts a “lively atmosphere” where patients play chess, lounge on couches and get pointers from the staff on rolling joints, according to the American Alliance for Medical Cannabis Web site.
“[Dispensaries] are going to be varying in Rhode Island,” Ben said. “Some are going to want to open up legitimate dispensaries, and others are going to see an opportunity for mass profit.”
Though dispensaries have existed in California for several years, the state passed a law in 2003 that implicitly sanctioned the operations, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
Even in California, however, those who operate dispensaries risk criminal prosecution for breaking federal laws that prohibit the distribution, manufacture and use of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has raided dispensaries in the state and arrested employees, DEA spokesman Anthony Pettigrew confirmed.
“Number one, there’s no such thing as medical marijuana [under federal law],” said Pettigrew, who works in the DEA’s regional office in Boston. “DEA has never targeted the sick and dying. [But] we are going to target drug-trafficking organizations.”
According to the DEA, marijuana is widely used and available in large supplies in Rhode Island. The majority of marijuana in the state is grown in Mexico and smuggled to the state via commercial airlines. Some is grown locally. And Canadian imports make up the balance of the state’s marijuana supply.
Right now, there are no proposals at the state or municipal level to sanction dispensaries here. Though unsure why his client established R.I. Medical Marijuana Corp., Scott speculated that the man could someday profit from selling the corporate title.
“If the federal government or the state eventually said that this can be done under a controlled situation, it behooves someone to buy the name from him,” Scott said. “That’s what I think.”
