Council hears pot report

In the first of a series of planned presentations to city and town councils across the state, Assistant Attorney General Joee Lindbeck on Monday provided the Johnston Town Council with a comprehensive view of the state of marijuana in Rhode Island.

In response to growing concerns on how to effectively regulate medical marijuana and potentially legalized marijuana, the Attorney General’s office has developed a presentation that examines areas of concern, lays out the existing laws and regulations, then provides examples of experiences from states that have various forms of legalized marijuana.

While Attorney General Peter Kilmartin is opposed to proposals that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state, his office is prepared to give the presentation to any city or town that has an interest in learning more about the current and potential future marijuana landscape and its impact on their municipalities.

“It is to educate and to hopefully answer some questions that we have heard from various municipalities. The Attorney General supports the medical marijuana program, he does believe that it needs to have strict regulations to ensure that patients are properly served and protected, but also to ensure that there are no bad actors that use various loopholes in the laws and regulations to divert marijuana to the black market,” said Amy Kempe, the AG’s public information officer.

The presentation by Lindbeck informed the Council that decisions regarding marijuana reside in local legislative bodies like theirs.

“Right now, we have a decriminalized market in Rhode Island, it’s a traffic citation basically, $150 for an ounce or less of marijuana, and we also have medical marijuana. The intent of the General Assembly in passing that was to have an adequately regulated market which we don’t believe we have right now,” said Lindbeck. “Right now we have five license holders that can have marijuana patients, caregivers, cultivators, authorized purchasers and compassion centers. Of note to you all are patients and caregivers because they’re growing at least 12 mature marijuana plants in your community right now. We have about 16,000 license holders in the state. The minimum amount they can have is 12 mature plants, which produces almost a pound of marijuana per plant in your communities.”

Lindbeck stated that Rhode Island currently has the largest plant count in the country, along with three other states, while highlighting the fact that eight states don’t allow plant possession. Current state regulations allow growers one location for plants, but that those locations are currently not subject to inspection by the town.

“They can also grow together as a cooperative, which increases their plant counts. So in a commercial setting it can be 48 mature plants and in a residential setting it can be 24 mature plants, and your town is not inspecting them to no fault of your own,” said Lindbeck. “Cooperatives are supposed to be inspected by your city in a commercial setting and by affidavit in residential, but I can guarantee you that no one is banging at your coop’s door for inspections, and that law has been in effect for two years.”

Lindbeck stated that Johnston was actually a groundbreaker in marijuana regulation, as it was the first community that had an ordinance that  created zoning for compassion centers, calling that directive “huge.”

Lindbeck informed the council about ongoing concerns from growing operations from use of grow lamps, dehumidification and water filtration systems, pesticides, and massive amounts of energy coming into residential and non residential settings to accommodate operations.

“People go to any risk to make their grow work because it’s worth so much money,” she said. “One internal grow is like having 30 additional refrigerators in your home, and we’re not having anyone inspect them just for our neighborhood safety.”

The council was also informed that there have been at least five fires and four recent  butane hash oil explosions, with a death reported in South Kingstown. Lindbeck’s presentation also addressed residual crimes that may accompany grow operations.

“These grows are very vulnerable to breaking and entries because of the money that’s involved and the money that’s stored there. We’ve had two homicides, two cases of self defense, and three suicides and we’ve had a vast amount of new breaking and enterings happen in our neighborhoods,” she said.  “Then we have the people that are taking advantage of the program to make money.”

While recent polls show a majority of Rhode Islander approve of recreational marijuana, Kempe acknowledged that there is much to debate on the issue. She states that her office worked with counterparts in various states, including Colorado where the plant is legalized, and spoke with task forces, state police, and Denver’s prosecuting agency to get more information. Of particular concern for her office is use amongst children, including accidental ingestion, and regulation of the fast growing edible marijuana market.

“We know youth impacts went up, our teenagers 12-18 are the third highest in the country using marijuana, we’re the 8th highest in teenagers using marijuana in our high schools,” said Lindbeck. “We know that one out of 6 become addicted to marijuana. More concerning is the modern marijuana, it’s not 4 percent THC [the active psychotropic found in Marijuana] anymore it’s 15 percent and now we have concentrates.”

Lindbeck also attributed the increase in Mexican heroin because “no one wants Mexican dirt weed anymore.”  She also advised that towns will have to deal with public consumption, nuisance odors, lounges, bars, billboards, banking and employment, where employers may have to go out of state to find employees to pass a drug test.

“The question we leave to you is that if it’s inevitable, what can you do as a council and as a town? We think that you should be able to say no if you want to. Last year’s bill had a preemption clause into it taking all the decisions away from you, and we don’t think that’s the way it should be we think that this town and every town should get a voice in this,” she said.