BREAKING NEWS: Chafee Halts Compassion Center Openings
Monday, May 02, 2011
Governor Lincoln Chafee announced today that he is blocking the opening of three medical marijuana compassion centers after U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha said they would violate federal law.
Neronha sent a letter notifying Chafee of the potential violation last Friday. Neronha’s office said he did not go public with his position until he had had time to review the three applications that had been approved and get a sense of the scale and scope of the operations.
The Department of Justice has said it will not focus limited resources on doctors and individuals who grow marijuana for themselves or for others as caregivers. “This position was interpreted by some states as giving them latitude to authorize medical marijuana cultivation and distribution programs,” Chafee’s office said.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBut he added that Friday’s letter makes it clear that compassion centers—along with their landlords and financiers—could be “potential targets of federal law enforcement activities.”
“In light of the United States Attorney’s articulated position on closing compassion centers, seizing proceeds and prosecuting business enterprises that market and sell medical marijuana, I have placed a hold on the State’s medical marijuana certificate of registration program,” Chafee said. “During this hiatus, I will be consulting with the governors of other states with similar medical marijuana programs, with federal officials and with the compassion center applicants themselves.”
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