Governor scraps medical marijuana plan for Rhode Island

State-run medical marijuana dispensaries will not be coming to Rhode Island after Governor Lincoln Chafee scrapped the plan for fear it was illegal under federal law.

Chafee, who had earlier vowed support for the measure, said he decided the state's planned dispensaries could violate superseding federal law and become a target of federal law enforcement efforts.

"Federal injunctions, seizures, forfeitures, arrests and prosecutions will only hurt the patients and caregivers that our law was designed to protect," the governor said in the statement late Thursday.

Before his reversal, Chafee had hoped to implement a 2009 law passed by Rhode Island's General Assembly allowing marijuana distribution through three state-run, so-called "compassion centers."

The measure authorized growing and selling marijuana to patients with debilitating illnesses, such as cancer, AIDS, and glaucoma.

Currently, 16 states and the District of Columbia allow the drug for medical use.

One of them is Montana, where in March federal agents raided state-sanctioned medical marijuana greenhouses and dispensaries in several cities, prompting an outcry from legalized pot suppliers. The busts, the first since Montana legalized marijuana for medical purposes in 2004, appeared to mark a reversal of federal policy set in 2009 that tolerated state-approved dispensaries.

Threatening a similar crackdown in Rhode Island, both the U.S. Department of Justice and Rhode Island's U.S. Attorney, Peter Neronha, this year said commercial operations such as the state-run dispensaries would be potential targets of "vigorous" criminal and civil enforcement efforts by the federal government.

Medical Marijuana The most egregious outcome of marijuana prohibition is that many sick people cannot legally access the medicine that works best for them. For many seriously ill people, medical marijuana is the only medicine that relieves their pain and suffering, or treats symptoms of their medical condition, without debilitating side effects. Marijuana prohibition has also thwarted research within the United States to uncover the best and most effective uses for marijuana as a medicine.

The Drug Policy Alliance is committed to increasing the number of states with medical marijuana laws, supporting and improving existing state medical marijuana programs, and ending the federal ban on medical marijuana.

Dropping the dispensary plan means that patients in Rhode Island will have to continue to grow their own marijuana, buy the drug illegally from "street" dealers, or acquire it from over 2,500 licensed caregivers in the state. Many have said they would prefer to use dispensaries for a convenient, safe, regulated option for quality marijuana.

Medical marijuana advocates decried Chafee's decision.