“The glaring racial disparities in enforcement of these laws have been going on for too long and must be addressed,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU. “This report is yet another wake-up call about both the overcriminalization of private conduct and the significant racial disparities that permeate our criminal justice system at just about every level.

The report looks at all 50 states done by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch that showed black adults are arrested 2.5 times more often than white adults. In Rhode Island, that ratio is even higher, with 2.9 Black adults arrested for every white adult that is arrested.

Brown said this was “especially troubling” because the report also shows Rhode Island has one of the lowest arrest rates in the nation “per overall population.”

While almost three black Rhode Islanders are arrested for every one white Rhode Islander, there are more than 14 white Rhode Islanders for every one black Rhode Islander. According to the 2010 census, there are 856,000 white Rhode Islanders and only about 60,000 black Rhode Islanders.

Rhode Island has the 21st highest ratio of black-to-white drug arrests in the nation, according to the report. Nearby Vermont has the third highest ratio at 6 to 1 black-to-white drug arrests. Connecticut has the 16th highest average at just over 3 to 1. Massachusetts has the second lowest ratio in the nation at just over 1.5 to 1, second only to California, which is 1.5 to 1.

The national report indicates drugs are the most common reason for arrest made in America and that one of every nine arrests are for drug charges.

“Calling the war on drugs a complete failure that is destroying lives and communities, the report called for decriminalization of personal drug use and possession,” according to a RI ACLU press release. “Instead, the report said, there should be a stronger investment in public health, emphasizing evidence-based prevention; education around the risks of drug use and dependence; and voluntary, affordable treatment and other social services in the community.”

Brown said the new data confirms what the RI ACLU learned when it studied 10 years worth of marijuana arrests in Rhode Island that showed  2.6 to 3.6 black Rhode Islanders were arrested for every white Rhode Islander arrested between 2001 and 2010.

“We hope this report will not only encourage more positive consideration of the marijuana ‘tax and regulate’ bill, but will promote broader efforts by police departments to reconsider how they enforce these particular laws,” said Brown.

Rhode Island continues to take a wait and see approach to legalizing cannabis while Massachusetts voters will decide that question at the ballot this November.

In a July 19 , Chuck Rosenberg, the acting administrator of the DEA, wrote, “On November 30, 2011, your predecessors, The Honorable Lincoln D. Chafee and The Honorable Christine O. Gregoire, petitioned the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to initiate rulemaking proceedings under the rescheduling provisions of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA),” . “Specifically, your predecessors petitioned the DEA to have marijuana and “related items” removed from Schedule I of the CSA and rescheduled as medical cannabis in Schedule II.”

The DEA, it should be noted, disagreed, writing to Raimondo, “Based on the HHS evaluation and all other relevant data, the DEA has concluded that there is no substantial evidence that marijuana should be removed from Schedule I.” It cited three main reasons: “Marijuana has a high potential for abuse. Marijuana has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. Marijuana lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” An editorial in today’s New York Times proves false each of those three reasons. The DEA was also responding to a request from the governor of Washington and a citizen of New Mexico.

While governor of Rhode Island, Chafee signed legislation to decriminalize less than an ounce of marijuana. But he declined to push Rhode Island to become the first state on the East Coast to tax and regulate marijuana. As a presidential candidate earlier this year, there was some reason to believe Chafee was considering campaigning as a pro-pot candidate after he said his position on full federal legalization would “evolve during the campaign.”

Governor Raimondo has taken a similar tack on taxing and legalizing marijuana as Chafee did during his tenure. “I could see Rhode Island eventually getting there, but I’m not going to rush,” she said in March. On medical marijuana, she pushed legislation that added a per-plant tax to patients who don’t grow their own.

According to a spokeswoman for Raimondo, the governor doesn’t plan to pursue the matter with the DEA any further. “This petition was submitted during the prior administration, so the governor does not plan to respond to the letter,” said Marie Aberger, who did not respond to a question asking if Raimondo thinks marijuana should be considered a Schedule 1 drug.

Rhode Island has the highest per capita marijuana users in the nation and a recent poll found 55 percent of Rhode Islanders favor legalization. A different poll found 53 percent of Americans favor legalization.

That’s because House Speaker Nick Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed haven’t allowed a vote on the five-year-old bill that has proven safe and profitable elsewhere, advocates said at a State House event Thursday.

“We believe that by not allowing a vote the speaker and the Senate president are implicitly endorsing the failed status quo,” said Jared Moffat, an organizer for Regulate Rhode Island, the local group calling attention to marijuana legalization’s potential to increase revenue and freedom while decreasing teen use and mass incarceration.

Regulate Rhode Island delivered a petition with more than 1,300 signatures on it to the legislative leaders. And making the case for legalizing marijuana at a subsequent press event were the doctor and lawyer who co-chair the organization.

Andrew Horwitz is a criminal defense attorney and law professor at Roger Williams Univeristy.

Dr. James Crowley is a former president of the Rhode Island Medical Society.

Dear Bishop Tobin,

On May 10, you asserted in a public commentary that all drug use is sinful and immoral. You urged state legislators to reject the legalization of marijuana. As a member of the Protestant clergy, I reach a very different conclusion.

We read the same Bible, worship the same God, and seek to follow the teachings of Jesus. What, then, explains where we differ, and why? You acknowledge that a case, which you do not refute, can be made for the recreational use of alcohol. Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol, yet you do not attempt to justify this double standard.

You then quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life.” You cite the words of Pope Francis two years ago: “Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise.”

The reality is that we live in a drug-using society. Most of us consume some kind of drug on a regular basis: alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, prescription drugs, or marijuana. The question that challenges us both, then, is how to respond to the possibility that drug use can become addictive. Sadly, your understanding of addiction is incomplete and outdated.

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan became its general. His wife Nancy was credited with the famous phrase “Just Say No” as the path to avoiding addiction.

We can be grateful that medical science today has helped us to understand more about the complexities of addiction than we did in the era of Ronald Reagan. In light of current knowledge, the War on Drugs is immoral. “Just Say No” seems simplistic, even fatuous.

Addiction is far less about the properties of an individual drug than the inner pain that causes a user to seek temporary relief. This inner pain is, more often than not, the “gateway” to drug abuse, not any particular substance. That’s why not just drugs, but certain kinds of behavior, can become addictive — gambling, sex, the internet, shopping, and even food.

Most people who experiment with drugs move beyond them. You speak of our youth as ‘immune to reality with their electronics – hoodies on, heads down, ear buds in…” But most of the “zombie youth” you deride will outgrow this behavior. It’s this kind of being out-of- touch that leads to youth not paying attention to adults’ advice in the first place.

In December, I participated in a conference in Providence’s Gloria Dei Cathedral. Police, physicians, and clergy addressed the impact of the War on Drugs. One of the panelists, a former president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, noted that about 10% of those who use drugs run a serious risk of addiction. About half of those will avoid addiction through treatment. It is the remaining 5% we must worry about.

Medical experts are determining that trauma and profound stress are the primary, though certainly not only, causes of addiction. Trauma and stress can take many forms, ranging from sexual abuse to acute loneliness and isolation. Pope Francis is correct when he notes a connection between addiction and extreme poverty.

People struggling with addiction are, most often, neither sinful nor weak, as increasingly outdated moral teachings would have us believe. The phrase “self-medication” is not an accident. Arresting people with an addiction is morally wrong and does nothing to alleviate their underlying pain.

My Christian faith also tells me that punishment and “tough love” are rarely the best way to change behavior. We are most likely to reach others when we respond to them with care, compassion, mercy, respect, and honesty. This is what Jesus did. Condemnation was not his instrument of change.

We are living in the dawn of a new drug policy in this country. It is called harm reduction and is based on the tenets that drugs can never be completely eliminated and that we should help drug users without insisting on abstinence. At least 35 states now have needle exchange programs as a life-saving means of avoiding HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.

In opposing marijuana legalization, you are complicit in the failed and immoral War on Drugs. In Rhode Island, which has already decriminalized marijuana, you are nevertheless supporting fines on poor, most often young people, who can ill afford to pay them, and may face lifetime consequences as a result.

You refer derisively to “benign forms” of marijuana: “cookies, brownies, and mints” in states where it is legal. But isn’t this safer than leaving our youth to sellers in back alleys who sometimes offer toxic, adulterated marijuana, and are happy to provide the harder drugs.

Most importantly, in continuing to focus on marijuana legalization, you are distracting attention and resources from what we both fear most – the dangers of addiction. We share the common purpose of reducing the harm of drugs in our society, but we differ on the means. Your commentary is clever and engaging, but ultimately it is wrong.

Yours in Faith,

Rev. Alexander E. Sharp

Executive Director
Clergy for a New Drug Policy

Climate change

The PPP poll of 1,179 likely Rhode Island primary voters found that 53 percent of Rhode Islanders were “much more likely” to “vote for a candidate who believes the United States must do all it can to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels by embracing measures like solar, wind, and renewable fuels, like biofuels,” and 22 percent “somewhat more likely” to support such a candidate. Only 26 percent of Rhode Islanders don’t want to support a climate champion for elected office with 11 percent “somewhat less likely” to support such a candidate, 7 percent were “much less likely” and 8 percent said it wouldn’t make a difference.

Even a majority of Rhode Island Republicans want to support a climate champion, the PPP poll found. A total of 63 percent of Republicans were more likely to support a candidate who would decrease dependence on fossil fuels, with 37 percent much more likely and 26 percent somewhat more likely. For Republicans, 27 percent were less likely to vote for a candidate who would invest in alternative energy and 10 percent of Democrats.

The PPP survey parsed its climate change question in terms of fossil fuels contributing to terrorism. It asked: “You may have heard about a connection between fossil fuels and terrorism. Even though the US doesn’t buy oil directly from regimes hostile to us and our allies, our demand for oil does drive up world prices, which benefits hostile regimes. Knowing this, would you be much more likely, somewhat more likely, somewhat less likely, or much less likely to vote for a candidate who believes the United States must do all it can to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels by embracing measures like solar, wind, and renewable fuels, like biofuels?”

Cannabis

The Brown poll posed a more straight-forward question about marijuana. “Thinking beyond medical marijuana, do you support or oppose changing the law in Rhode Island to regulate and tax the use of marijuana, similarly to alcohol,” it asked.

Much of Rhode Island does, with 55 percent answering yes. 21 percent strongly support taxing and regulating cannabis and another 34 percent support it. Only 4 percent were neutral, 24 percent oppose the idea and 12 percent strongly oppose ending prohibition. 5 percent said they didn’t know or refused to answer.

Young Rhode Islanders overwhelmingly want marijuana to be legal, with 72 percent of people age 18 to 44 supporting the idea. Older Rhode Islanders were evenly split with 42.9 percent supporting legalization and 42.1 percent opposed. 56.3 percent of people age 45 to 64 support it and 37.7 percent are opposed.

The poll showed people were more likely to support regulating cannabis like alcohol the more education and income they had.

It also showed that white people were both more likely to support and oppose legalization than black people. 55 percent of white people polled said they support legalization and 36 percent were opposed compared with 50 percent of black respondents who support it and 30 percent who are opposed. Conversely black respondents were more than twice as likely as whites to either refuse to answer or remain neutral.

Regulate RI, a coalition working to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana in the state, yesterday made the business case for the idea, ahead the House Judiciary Committee taking public testimony on the bill.

Ray White, chief operating officer of the Thomas C Slater Compassion Center said that he has 60 employees at his business selling medical marijuana. If recreational marijuana were to become legal, he sees the opportunity to employ many more people.

In addition to retail outlets there is the opportunity for marijuana and hemp related research. Austin Davis and Spencer Blier both made the case for Rhode Island being an east coast leader in developing new products, including hemp ropes and boat sails. Along with the development of new products say these entrepreneurs, comes more jobs and more economic growth.

Fred Joyal, who developed and sold a successful business in California, is originally from Rhode Island and is looking to move back here. He is looking for investment opportunities, and feels that Rhode Island could be a leader, but only if our legislature chooses to move before Massachusetts passes similar tax and regulate legislation as a ballot initiative.

This relates to the first mover argument. The first state in New England to tax and regulate marijuana will have a terrific advantage in terms of money to be made from taxes and job creation. If Massachusetts beats Rhode Island to the punch, RI natives will cross the border, sending money and jobs out of state. Meanwhile, any Rhode Islanders who bring the products they buy legally in Massachusetts back to our state risk arrest, costing our state money in terms of policing and court costs.

Rep. Scott A. Slater (D-Dist. 10, Providence) and Sen. Joshua Miller (D-Dist. 28, Cranston, Providence) will host Andrew Freedman, Director of the Governor’s Office of Marijuana Coordination in Colorado, for a presentation and question and answer session on Colorado’s implementation and oversight of the state’s marijuana laws on Tuesday, March 29 at 3 p.m. in Room 101 of the State House.

Mr. Freedman will be discussing the outcomes, challenges and opportunities that regulating marijuana has presented in Colorado.  Representative Slater and Senator Miller have both introduced legislation (2016-H 7752 / 2016-S 2420) that would remove the state’s prohibition on adults using, possessing, and cultivating marijuana for personal use.  Their legislation also establishes a system of regulated marijuana retail distribution to adults 21 and older and imposes taxes at both the wholesale and retail level.

[From a RI State House press release]

In a letter to Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio and other members of the Senate on Tuesday, leaders of the Young Democrats of Rhode Island and Students for Sensible Drug Policy thanked the senators for backing S 2420 because it would “improve Rhode Island’s ability to protect students, retain graduates, attract young professionals and create opportunities for a new generation of entrepreneurs.” The full letter is available below.

S 2420 would make possession of limited amounts of marijuana legal for adults 21 years of age and older, and it would establish a tightly controlled system of licensed marijuana cultivation sites, testing facilities, and retail stores.

“It’s a sensible proposal that is long overdue, and we are proud to stand with you in support of it,” the letter reads. “The time has come for Rhode Island to move forward and leave the antiquated policy of marijuana prohibition behind.”

A poll conducted in April of 2015 found that nearly three out of four voters aged 18 to 34 support regulating and taxing marijuana similarly to alcohol. The full results of the poll can be found here.

Full letter from Rhode Island youth leaders to ranking members of the Rhode Island Senate:

Dear Honorable Members of the Rhode Island Senate,

We are writing on behalf of our organizations and their many members across Rhode Island to express our gratitude for your support of S 2420, the Marijuana, Regulation, Control, and Taxation Act.

The Young Democrats of Rhode Island and Students for Sensible Drug Policy represent a diverse group of young, civically engaged Rhode Islanders who share a commitment to promoting the health, safety, and general welfare of our communities. We strongly support S 2420 because it would dramatically enhance Rhode Island’s ability to protect teens, retain graduates, attract young professionals, and create opportunities for a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Our state’s current policy of marijuana prohibition has caused far more problems than it has solved. It has failed to prevent teens from accessing marijuana. It has disproportionately impacted lower-income communities and communities of color. And rather than eliminating the supply of marijuana, prohibition has forced it into an underground market in which consumers aren’t asked for ID, they don’t know what they’re getting, and they’re often exposed to other, more harmful substances.

S 2420 would replace our state’s underground marijuana economy with a regulated market for adults. Marijuana would be sold by licensed businesses that test their products, label them, and only sell them to adults who provide proof of age. These companies would also create good jobs for Rhode Islanders and generate tens of millions of dollars in new tax revenue to fund vital state programs and services.

It is a sensible proposal that is long overdue, and we are proud to stand with you in support of it. The time has come for Rhode Island to move forward and leave the antiquated policy of marijuana prohibition behind.

Sincerely,

Michael Beauregard
Young Democrats of Rhode Island

Shmuel Barkan
Brown University Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Patrick Shea
University of Rhode Island Students for Sensible Drug Policy

There is no other proposal like it anywhere in the country, and under Raimondo’s proposal marijuana will be the only medicine taxed in this way. Since the proposal has been inserted into the budget, rather than submitted as a bill, there will be no opportunity for the public to comment on the idea in House or Senate committee meetings so the only route opponents can follow to stop this plan is to pressure their Representatives to remove the item from the budget or refuse to pass the budget if the tax is not removed.

Almost more pernicious than the tax, though, are the other provisions included in what amounts to a complete restructuring of the way medical marijuana is done in our state. Those who grow their own marijuana will be forced to comply with a 75 percent reduction, six plants only, drastically reducing the amount of medicine available to patients.

Caregivers, those who grow marijuana for others may only posses 24 plants.

Opponents, such as Responsible Caregivers of Rhode Island, say this will not allow caregivers to provide an adequate amount of medicine for their patients.

Then there is the financial devastation this plans wreaks upon caregivers. Purchase tags are now required for all plants. $150 per plant for patients who grow their own and $350 for each plant raised by caregivers for others. This makes the cost of farming marijuana prohibitive, and many will not be able to afford this. I earlier talked to a veteran who uses marijuana, legally, to keep himself from becoming re-addicted to opioids.

Since cultivating plants is essentially farming, a loss of a crop from infestation or power loss (marijuana is cultivated with grow lights) could mean that a person’s entire investment and crop will be lost. This will be a loss of money and vital medicine. Further, the process of farming marijuana is not an exact science. If the plants yield extra marijuana the law allows a grower to “gift” the excess to those in need. Raimondo has disallowed gifting in her proposal.

You can see Raimondo’s proposed changes to the law starting on page 194 of her proposed budget here. The reasoning behind this proposal is baffling. It is simply cruelty, and in truth, much damage has already been done to a community that uses medical marijuana to treat terrible illnesses and disabilities.

As Jared Moffat, executive director of Regulate RI said at the rally outside the State house today, rather than tax the medical marijuana that patients need, why not tax the use of recreational marijuana as is being done in Colorado with great success?

Steve served in Iraq in 2005. After he was injured, the Army gave him morphine and Oxy for his pain. That started a five year addiction to opioids. After cleaning himself up, Steve relapsed, but soon found that medical marijuana helped him deal with his medical issues without the need for opioids. Governor Gina Raimondo’s proposed tax on medical marijuana frightens Steve.

“22 vets commit suicide every day in this country,” said Steve, “but if they overdose on opioids their deaths are called accidental overdoses.”

This evening Steve will be meeting with fellow veterans to try and figure out how best to defeat Raimondo’s proposal.