MEDICAL MARIJUANA Will Carcieri wield a veto? BY RACHAEL SCARBOROUGH KING AND IAN DONNIS

Despite resounding House and Senate votes in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, a spokesman for Governor Donald L. Carcieri maintains that the governor will veto the legislation. Some observers, though, citing the widespread support, question whether Carcieri may quietly let the measure become law. For his part, the governor has been somewhat ambiguous in comments to the press, professing a "wait and see" approach.

The breadth of support for medical marijuana in Rhode Island can be seen in the large number of legislative cosponsors, including House Minority Leader Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich), a Republican stalwart, and backing from such groups as the Rhode Island Medical Society and the Rhode Island State Nurses Association. "The support is all over the state right now," says state Representative Thomas Slater (D-Providence), the bill’s chief House backer. "There’s great concern about the compassion for those people who are elderly and those people who are on their last legs, so to say." Similarly, Watson says testimony from patients and their family members led many more people to support the bill than in the past.

Slater says the measure, which passed the Senate on a 33-1 margin Tuesday, and previously cleared the House on a 30-0 vote, is "veto-proof" because of these margins, and he expects supporters to contact the governor’s office, asking him not to veto the bill. In a sign of the depth of federal opposition, though, two White House representatives, John Horton and Patrick Royal, have been visiting legislators, encouraging them to oppose the bill and to not push for an override if the governor vetoes the legislation, Watson says.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal says the governor’s objections stem from the recent ruling in which the US Supreme Court found the federal government can prosecute the possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes even in states in which it is legal. "He does not believe that this particular bill contains enough safeguards around the growth and distribution and use of medical marijuana," Neal says. "He is concerned, as is the state police and the chief justice of the family courts, that this law would allow the use of marijuana for non-medicinal purposes to proliferate."

Proponents take a different view. In a statement, Krissy Oechslin, a spokeswoman for the Washington, DC-based Marijuana Policy Project, says, "The recent US Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Raich did not overturn the right of states to pass medical marijuana laws, and no authority has ever declared state medical marijuana laws unconstitutional."