Providence, R.I. -- Now that it has overcome Governor Carcieri’s ongoing attempt to impose a statewide ban on compassion, the Rhode Island General Assembly has some questions to answer about these pot shops.

Will they be mom-and-pop operations, where a customer can carry a half-gallon of milk and a bag of chips to the counter, then order an ounce of primo weed along with scratch tickets?

Or will they be more like branch banks, with a vault and lots of security and an impersonal exchange with a clerk behind a Plexiglass shield who slides out the goods along with an updated account book? Two pounds, four ounces still available?

Visa? Mastercard? American Express?

And will there be a Little Rhody Pack of Grass? Will Rhode Island’s legal marijuana carry a Rhode Island brand — grown here, packaged here and tested here to meet the high sensory standards of the Ocean State Reefer Control Board? And who the heck is going to serve on that stimulating body anyway?

When the House and Senate voted to override the governor’s veto of a bill to set up dispensaries for medical marijuana, it overcame a rock-solid resistance to enlightened thinking. It also told a lot of sufferers that it is possible even within the confounding confi nes of the State House to settle down to some caring, commonsense legislation.

There are people with multiple sclerosis, AIDS, cancer and the debilitating misery of chemotherapy who can now at least foresee the day when the major obstacle to using legal medical marijuana for the relief of serious pain is removed.

People have told me they can’t get through the day without the relief that marijuana provides. But even when it was made legal for medical purposes, there was still the problem of actually getting enough to make a difference. For many, there was still the risk of buying it illegally for legal purposes. Now, the risk could be removed.

Obviously, there are still details to be worked out — location, supply, security, cost. In the meantime, we can sit back and enjoy those comically dusty, outdated, overworked, ill-informed references to marijuana that seem drawn from a very old movie in which a man gets crazier by the puff.

There will be a lot of lame attempts to belittle the marijuana dispensaries because it’s easier than trying to understand the vital difference between drug abuse and the use of a benign plant to relieve serious pain.

Expect to hear frequent references to Cheech and Chong, who have made a career out of goofi ng on the high life. Expect to hear a lot of people trying to say “dude” in a way that is really clever and derisive.

The word “hippie” will enjoy a brief revival, although the last one was seen scrubbing the painted fl owers from his VW bus more than 25 years ago.

We might even hear the governor say, again, that the dispensaries will mean increased use of marijuana and have a negative impact on the children of the state.

Since the dispensaries will deal only with critically ill people carrying doctor’s prescriptions for marijuana, it is diffi cult to understand how they will increase use.

They will only make existing use more risk free.And how, exactly, does a state choosing to relieve the suffering of hundreds of its residents have a negative impact on kids?

When all the smoke has cleared and all the tired jabs are used up, Rhode Island will be left with something good. It will be a place where people can relieve their pain without getting arrested.

Copyright: 2009 The Providence Journal Company

By Cynthia Needham, Journal State House Bureau Source: Providence Journal Providence, R.I. -- Nearly a decade after patient advocates fi rst 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 fi nal 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, confi rmed 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-fi fths 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 nonprofi t 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 Mc- Namara, 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 Copyright: 2009 The Providence Journal Company