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Veto override legalizes medi cannabis in RI |
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Rhode Island became the 11th State to legalize medical marijuana on
Jan. 3, and the first legislature to do so by overriding a governor’s
veto.
Eight States have done so through voter initiative. Rhode Island is the
first State to legalize the medical use of cannabis since the US
Supreme Court’s Gonzales v. Raich decision authorized ongoing raids and
arrests of patients by federal drug agents. The law allows up to 12
plants and 2.5 ounces (70 grams). The House voted 59-13, with one
abstention, to override the governor’s veto of the bill passed the day
after the Raich ruling.
The vote seems to be part of a regional trend, with Maine having
legalized medical cannabis some time ago. Now Massachusetts State Sen.
Robert Hedlund, R-Weymouth has co-sponsored a bill to allow qualified
patients to grow and use small amounts of medical marijuana. In
November 2004, voters in five South Shore towns near Boston supported
allowing seriously ill people to grow and use cannabis, with a doctor’s
permission. In the same election, voters in four parishes passed a
resolution calling for possession of one ounce or less of cannabis to
be treated as a civil, not criminal, offense.
British scientists prevail against recrim plan
Members of a top drug advisory panel who wrote a secret report to the
home secretary on cannabis threatened to resign if the government
reclassified the drug to class B. They were concerned that the UK had
considered upgrading cannabis legal penalties and said that would be in
direct contradiction to the findings of their unpublished report.
Cannabis has been in the less serious class since Jan. 29, 2004.
Lord Victor Adebowale, director of the drug
treatment charity Turning Point and member of the Advisory Council on
Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), had said: “I am increasingly concerned about
the politicization of this — the playing to the gallery.” He said it
would be “very serious” for the Home Secretary Charles Clarke to ignore
the council’s advice. “These are some of the best pharmacologists in
the country with worldwide reputations,” he said.
Clarke had been quoted as saying, “I’m very
struck by the advocacy of a number of people who have been proposers of
the reclassification of cannabis that they were wrong.” The scientific
community was able to prevail in the end.
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Volume Two 
