Rep. Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence, a longtime championship of the legislation and is fighting his own battle against cancer, said he is relieved the measure passed.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Nearly a decade after patient advocates first pressed for full-scale legalization of marijuana for medical use, Rhode Island on Tuesday became only the second state to establish state-licensed dispensaries to sell the drug to the critically ill.

Senate lawmakers gave final approval to the House and Senate versions of the legislation, sending it to the governor’s desk with enough votes to override a veto, if necessary.

Governor Carcieri, a longtime critic of medical marijuana, confirmed in a brief interview Tuesday that he will “do the same thing I’ve done with it in the past.” A year ago he vetoed a compromise plan to study the concept, saying it would “move Rhode Island further down the path of weakening the laws governing — and public perception of — illicit drugs.”

But Senate lawmakers approved the legislation in an easy 31-2 vote Tuesday, days after the House approved the same plans in a 63-5 vote. Both tallies are well beyond the three-fifths majority needed to override a veto.

Senate sponsor Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, predicts that if required, the Assembly will override a gubernatorial veto before the session ends later this month.

“That’s one of the reasons that we [passed] it as fast as we did it,” Perry said. “We still have a few weeks left here … I just can’t imagine the leadership wouldn’t have the will to override a veto.”

In 2006, lawmakers permanently legalized medical marijuana after a pilot program. Yet the bill contained what some called a loophole: though it was legal for the 600 patients enrolled in the marijuana program, the state provided no means for them to obtain the drug, forcing most to grow it or to buy it on the street.

“The principal problem that our patients had was their fear of dealing with the illegal market, and in some cases there were some reports of rough people they had to deal with and they were very frightened,” Perry said.

State-licensed dispensaries, or “compassion centers,” as supporters dubbed them, offer a safe and regulated alternative. The Rhode Island legislation calls for licensing as many as three dispensaries in the coming years and run by individuals or nonprofit organizations that apply.

In impassioned testimony this spring, frail patients squinted in pain as they told lawmakers of being beaten up or robbed as they tried to purchase marijuana from street-level drug dealers. Being sick is hard enough, they said, and not knowing where the next dose of medicine might come from is worse.

One by one in recent years, skeptical lawmakers came to support the idea of state authorized dispensaries.

“Our intent was never to send people out to deal with drug dealers,” Rep. Joseph McNamara, D-Warwick, chairman of the House Health Education and Welfare committee and a one-time critic turned advocate, has said.

The new administration in Washington also helped. A year ago, Rhode Island lawmakers expressed concern about a spate of federal raids on dispensaries in California, where centers are not state-regulated. This winter, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signaled that the Obama administration will no longer tolerate such raids.

Rep. Thomas C. Slater, the Providence Democrat for whom the bill is named in part, had few words Tuesday as he watched passage of the law he’s worked on for nearly decade, even as he has battled against his own advanced cancer.

“Just relieved,” he said. “Relieved for people in pain.”

With reports from Steve Peoples, Journal State House Bureau

cneedham@projo.com