Rhode Island changed its medical marijuana rules last year to let out-of-staters buy pot. And suddenly, 6,500 Rhode Islanders 'moved' to California.
PROVIDENCE — Last year when lawmakers allowed Rhode Island’s three medical marijuana dispensaries to sell to out-of-staters, at least 6,500 Ocean Staters up and moved to California.
Well, that was the address they listed anyway on their shiny new patient cards.
Rather than comply with Rhode Island rules -- pay for their card’s annual renewal, visit a doctor every six months for continued permission to use the drug, and be entered into a database -- local patients looked to the Golden State, where getting the required purchasing card took five minutes online, including a doctor’s consultation.
That practice is now in jeopardy, however, as Rhode Island's departments of health and business regulation are proposing any out-of-state patient now also present a valid ID from the same state to prove residency.
The proposed rule change drew criticism from patients and representatives of two dispensaries at a public hearing Friday at Rhode Island College, where more than 100 people gathered to comment on new draft regulations for the state’s medical marijuana program.
They said Rhode Island’s regulations are already too arduous and costly for local patients, seem more designed to reap profits for the state than care for the sick, and will push some of Rhode Island’s 18,000 patients to the black market or over the line in Massachusetts, where pot is legal.
“We need to stop making people jump through hoops,” said Jeff Pietrefesa, the retail manager of the Greenleaf Compassion Center, in Portsmouth, where 38 percent of the dispensary’s business now comes from out-of-state customers.
Alexa Coffey, a medical marijuana user from Portsmouth, told regulators that she decided to get a California card because “it was easier to afford ... I make no money and have a lot of medical bills to pay.”
Revoking her California card, which can cost about $50, or about two-thirds less than an initial card from Rhode Island, “would change my whole world,” she said. It would force her to buy the drug on the black market or in Massachusetts retail marijuana stores.
Regulators also heard from some of the state’s 53 licensed cultivators -- and a would-be dispensary operator -- concerning state plans to hold a random lottery for six new planned dispensary licenses.
Alex Lavin, representing Growth Industries, a Warwick company that has applied for a cultivation license but has yet to be licensed, said it was a “scary proposal” for the state to hold a random lottery for the potentially lucrative dispensary licenses unless applicants have shown “merit.”
Lavin said his company has built the state’s “first pharmaceutical-grade cultivation facility” that will be -- if licensed -- capable of providing “safe and effective medicines to those who are in need.”
Rick McAuliffe, a lobbyist representing a group of cultivators, said rather than a random lottery, the new dispensary licenses should be awarded on a point system where companies with experience growing marijuana, such as his clients, should be rated above other, less-experienced applicants.
Norman Birenbaum, the state’s top medical marijuana regulator, said current state regulations already have a host of specific requirements in place that any dispensary license applicant will have to meet before becoming eligible for the lottery.
“So it is not as if someone who is unqualified or unable to satisfy the rules and regs would be able to receive” a dispensary license, he said.
The proposed regulations would limit the new dispensaries to retail stores only, unless the winners of those new licenses are already existing cultivators.
And while any lottery is still months away, there are indications the whole plan for the new dispensaries, as regulators see it, could be in for some tough sledding.
First, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello voiced some unspecified concerns last month about the proposed regulations. And on Friday came a statement from Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio saying that "the language in the statute is plain that new compassion centers [or dispensaries] are allowed to cultivate their product as well as purchase it."
Ruggerio said the new planned dispensaries "are being charged the same annual licensing fee [$500,000]as the three existing centers, which are allowed to cultivate. We look to the administration for a better understanding of their justification for limiting the cultivation provision. We are hopeful that this inconsistency with the law will be addressed as a result of the ongoing public comment period.”
After the hearing, Birenbaum said, “This was great public feedback. It’s very important to know how proposed regulations impact patients in the state.”
But Birenbaum, who is leaving to take a job in New York, said it’s also important to understand that if people “want wide, broad access” to marijuana that is likely a question for lawmakers to decide in the form of recreational use of the drug and beyond the strict limitations of the medical program.
“We have a medical program here that is very specific in its limits and application process. And if you are a Rhode Island resident you are subject to those state laws.”
The Department of Business Regulation is taking public comment on the new rules thru Dec. 21. Anyone interested in submitting comments can contact Erica Ferrelli, policy and economic analyst, 1511 Pontiac Ave., Bldg 681, Cranston, RI 02920. Her email: erica.ferrelli@dbr.ri.gov
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