Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, left, talks with Sen. Walter Felag Jr., D-Warren, during discussion on the Senate floor on Perry’s bill, which would allow medical marijuana dispensaries.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — For the second year, the full state Senate has approved a bill to allow licensed dispensaries — known as “compassion centers” — to sell marijuana to the hundreds of people in Rhode Island who have been prescribed the drug for medicinal purposes.

The bill now goes to the House, where a committee is slated to vote on a matching bill on Thursday.

State law already allows doctors to prescribe marijuana for use by people with severe, chronic and debilitating illnesses, such as cancer, Hepatitis C and HIV. There are currently 681 people registered to do so with the Department of Health.

But that law, adopted in 2006, does not provide a legal avenue for any of these registered patients — or their 581 registered caregivers — to obtain the drug, even though one Warwick man has publicly acknowledged taking part in a group, known as the Rhode Island Compassion Club, that has grown and supplied the drug to “hundreds” of people over the last three years with a permit from the state Division of Taxation that is currently under review.

A spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri’s office confirmed last night that the permit application filed by Kirk Manter on behalf of the Compassion Club “did list his intention to sell medicinal marijuana.” Spokeswoman Amy Kempe, said: “We believe it was an administrative mix-up … and I would like to stress that this gentleman cannot be selling marijuana [in] a retail environment because it is illegal under the state statute.”

It was against this backdrop that the Senate voted 35 to 2 on Wednesday in favor of the bill to license up to three marijuana dispensaries, after the sponsor — Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence — told colleagues the list of supporters, which includes both the Rhode Island Medical Society and the Rhode Island Council of Churches, has grown over time while it appeared to her that the state police had dropped their opposition.

The vote was immediately hailed by the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition as a victory for seriously ill patients who, in many cases, “are too sick to grow their own medicine, and don’t have a trusted friend or family member to appoint as a caregiver.”

Coalition spokesman Jesse Stout said the bill would make Rhode Island the second state to license and regulate “nonprofit compassion centers,” after New Mexico, which started licensing producers last month. And he said the Obama administration’s pledge not to raid such facilities ends “concerns about federal interference in Rhode Island.”

But Carcieri vetoed the bill last year, and Kempe said the state police remain “opposed to this legislation as it weakens the laws governing, and public perception, of [an] illicit drug.” Kempe said they also have “serious concerns with how the compassion centers would be set up and regulated.”

Those concerns were echoed by the two senators who voted nay: Michael Pinga, D-West Warwick, and Paul Jabour, D-Providence.

Pinga said the customers would be easy marks for thieves. Beyond that, he wondered: “How are you going to control the trafficking? What if they become traffickers themselves? I am not saying all of them, but I mean, now they have it legally. What if they sell it to their friends?”

Added Jabour: “I am sure there are actual people out there that see the passage of this bill, although well-intended, as an opportunity for some economic gain and profit.”

One 55-year-old Narragansett man has already filed papers with the secretary of state to reserve the corporate name: “Compassion Center RI.”

In an interview on Wednesday, incorporator David Phaneuf said he is not a patient or medical professional, but rather a businessman who has had “various management positions within Home Depot, US Remodeling, and At Home Services,” who sees passage of the bill as both a business opportunity and chance to provide “safe access to medical cannabis for registered patients.”

kgregg@projo.com