Top 11 of 2011: High Hopes

Top 11 of 2011: High Hopes

What a long, strange trip it's been.

The fate of Compassion Centers, state-licensed locations for the distribution of medical marijuana, has risen, fallen, risen, and fallen again.

Legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2009 paved the way for Rhode Island to join 14 other states that permit medical marijuana (and 6 others that allow dispensaries). The RI Department of Health issued a

request for proposals for Compassion Center licenses, but the first round of applications was unanimously dismissed by HEALTH in September of 2010. A clearer set of expectations was released again, and in March this year, three organizations gained permission to open medical marijuana dispensaries.

The centers, planned for Portsmouth, Warwick and Providence, planned to offer medical marijuana to the state's estimated 3,271 patients registered with the health department.

But in September of this year, Governor Lincoln Chafee set the movement back to square one. "Unfortunately," Chafee said in a statement, "Rhode Island's compassion center law is illegal under paramount federal law." The governor added that based on advice that large-scale commercial operations such as Rhode Island's compassion centers would be "potential targets of 'vigorous' criminal and civil enforcement efforts by the federal government," snuffing out the plan was the right thing to do.

The bottom line? Adios, compassion centers. For now.