Setback to medical-marijuana clinic bill

A plan to create nonprofit clinics where patients in the state’s medical marijuana program may legally purchase the drug is on its way back to the drawing board after a last-minute amendment banned patients from using marijuana near children or while driving.

Sen. Leo R. Blais, R-Coventry, called his revision an important step in keeping children safe.

But bill sponsor Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, said it was insulting to seriously ill people who depend on medical marijuana to keep chronic pain at bay.

“I think it is a grievous insult to sick, debilitated and fragile patients and potential patients in the state of Rhode Island that we as a body would not think that they would be concerned about secondhand smoke with their children or anyone else’s children,” she said.

At Perry’s request, lawmakers sent the bill back to committee in hopes of repealing the amendment.

The original 2006 law that legalized medical marijuana in this state is named in part for Perry’s nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, who died of complications from AIDS and cancer.

Perry and others say they now realize that the initial law did not go far enough. It’s now legal for qualifying patients to smoke marijuana, but they still don’t have a safe avenue for purchasing the drug, meaning they must either grow it themselves or buy it on the street. Creating so-called compassion centers would close that loophole, they say.

Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, said Perry has the support of the leadership and she expects the legislation to come back to the floor for a vote.

House leaders have been less willing to commit to such compassion centers. The House version of the bill is not expected to be voted out of committee. Sponsor Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence (whose name is also on the original bill), said he would be satisfied if the Assembly at least establishes a commission to study the possibility, with an eye toward passing the legislation next year.

— Cynthia Needham

Mandatory minimums

House lawmakers easily passed a bill that, if signed into law, would offer a sweeping repeal of mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug crimes.

In a 53-to-12 vote with almost no discussion, legislators OK’d a change that supporters say restores discretion to the sentencing process, allowing judges to weigh individual circumstances before deciding how long to imprison an offender.

Opponents, including the state police, have said the strict sentencing guidelines offer a critical tool in the state’s war on drugs. They submit that judges already have ample discretion in relying heavily on the practice of suspended sentencing.

The Senate passed an identical bill earlier this month, but Assembly procedure requires each side to OK the other chamber’s version of the bill before it goes to the governor’s desk for a signature.

The question now becomes whether Governor Carcieri will veto the measure, as he did after lawmakers passed it last session. A Carcieri spokesman was not immediately available for comment late yesterday.

— Cynthia Needham

Probation violators

In a long list of bills that passed last night, House legislators also approved a proposal that would substantially alter consequences for those who violate the terms of their probation by getting into trouble with the law again.

Current law states that someone who violates probation must be immediately sent back to prison and kept there regardless of whether the new charge is ultimately dropped, or found to be baseless.

The bill, sponsored by David Segal, D-Providence, and approved yesterday, would automatically exonerate offenders who see their charges dropped or otherwise cleared.

An identical proposal passed the House last year, but failed to gain support in the Senate. This session, Perry has introduced similar legislation on the Senate side, which has been referred to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing.

— Cynthia Needham

Backing the popular vote

Rhode Island would join a national compact to require that the presidential candidate with the most popular votes would win the White House, under legislation approved last night by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Under the bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Connors, D-Cumberland, Rhode Island would enter a compact to require that the electoral college system used to choose American presidents switch to electing presidents by popular vote. The measure was approved on an 8-to-1 committee vote.

“If you get the most votes, you should win an election,” said Christopher Pearson, a Vermont state representative who has lobbied around New England for the legislation and was at the State House yesterday.

The compact idea seeks to bypass the electoral college by getting legislatures, one by one, to enter their states into an interstate compact under which states would agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

The compact would take effect only when enough states had joined to elect a president — that is, when states equaling at least 270 electoral votes, the amount needed to claim the presidency, agreed.

The lone vote in committee against the idea came from Sen. Leo Blais, R-Coventry. “In a popular vote, Rhode Island loses its strength because we are a small state,” said Blais. “The electoral college system was set up by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to protect small states, just as the Constitution protects the small states by giving each state two senators.”

The measure now goes to the full Senate. Identical legislation has been introduced in the House, where it is in the House Finance Committee.

— Scott MacKay