PROVIDENCE –– The Senate approved legislation yesterday that would create “compassion centers” where chronically ill patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program could openly purchase the drug.

Despite the 29-to-6 vote, the bill faces opposition in the House of Representatives and is not expected to become law this year.

“I would really have to have a sock over my head if I didn’t know that,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence. The legislation is named in part for her nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, who died of complications from AIDS and cancer.

“What I think is important is to show movement,” Perry said of yesterday’s vote. “I think getting it out of a chamber is movement. It’s showing that there is a level of understanding and a level of acceptance.”

The General Assembly last year made permanent a law that allowed the state to offer a medical marijuana program to chronically ill patients. But lawmakers did not offer a legal means for patients to obtain the drug, which is considered illegal by the federal government even when prescribed.

“It was sort of the unasked question,” said House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox. “Do you send someone that may be suffering from cancer or whatnot out into the streets to procure it? I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good solution. I think the natural extension of that is that we provide some sort of safe place to obtain it for those who are legally authorized.”

But Fox couldn’t explain the widespread assumption that the House would block it from becoming law.

“I’m not saying that the leadership’s going to support it,” he said. “I’d like to read the bill. I haven’t looked at what the bill does.”

The legislation would create licensed marijuana dispensaries, or “compassion centers,” that would legally grow and sell the drug at affordable prices to the 359 patients in the state’s program. The centers would be regulated by the state Health Department.

At least 12 states have laws allowing use of medical marijuana. But policies governing dispensaries are more fractured and several states have stumbled trying to pass legislation for distribution centers.

Part of the problem is that federal law still bans marijuana use, even for medical purposes. Dozens of dispensaries in California (one of two states that allows them) have been raided by the federal government, something medical marijuana supporters say they don’t want to see happen in Rhode Island.

speoples@projo.com