Medical marijuana bill passes House'act now to prevent a veto
Published: June 22, 2005
This evening, the Rhode Island House voted 52-10 to stop the criminalization of medical marijuana patients. On June 7, the Senate voted 34-2 to pass a similar medical marijuana bill, and it is expected to approve H.B. 6052 in the very near future, sending the bill to Gov. Donald Carcieri's (R) desk.
With Rhode Island nearing the brink of becoming the 11th medical marijuana state, we need your help today. Gov. Carcieri has pledged to veto the bill. Please e-mail the governor now to urge him to listen to the state medical society, the state nurses association, the vast majority of the public, and to compassion and common sense.
Tell Gov. Carcieri not to veto the Edward O. Hawkins/Thomas Slater Medical Marijuana Act.
After that, please call Gov. Carcieri at 222-2080 and urge him to sign the medical marijuana act into law.
Then, ask your friends to do likewise.
The 10 state medical marijuana laws didn't come into being on their own. They were the result of hard work, brave patients, and grassroots activism. The same will be true of Rhode Island. And now is the time to do all you can to make sure cancer and AIDS patients won't spend their final days in jail.
So please, be creative. You could invite your friends over, and take turns calling Carcieri's office and politely explaining how important H.B. 6052 is to the well-being of Rhode Islanders. Or e-mail karen@mpp.org to see what else you can do at this crucial time.
Gov. Carcieri can act on the bill as soon as it lands on his desk, though he will have six days—not including Sundays—to either sign the bill into law, allow it to become law without his signature, or to veto it. If he vetoes the bill, three-fifths of those present in each chamber would have vote to override the veto for the bill to become law.
Although more than three-fifths of each chamber have already voted for medical marijuana legislation, that doesn't guarantee that they would vote to override a veto. With the bill this close to victory, we must not let it slip away. So please e-mail Gov. Carcieri and ask him to sign this compassionate bill into law, or at least allow it to become law without his signature.
Most officials in his party have already voted for medical marijuana legislation. In the Senate vote on H.B. 6052's companion bill, four of the five Republicans voted for the bill, and the fifth was absent. In the House vote, 11 of the 15 Republicans—including the minority leader—voted for H.B. 6052.
Both bills are named after House sponsor Thomas Slater (D-Providence), who suffers from cancer, and Senate sponsor Rhoda Perry's (D-Providence) nephew, Edward Hawkins, who died of complications related to AIDS last year. Hawkins was too fearful of being arrested or kicked out of his nursing home to use medical marijuana to relieve his pain and wasting.
Thank you for supporting the Marijuana Policy Project. Please pass this on to your friends and family, so that together we can make sure that no Rhode Island patient will have to fear arrest for battling his or her disease.
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