CO Patients Considering Moving to RI, Need Info Please!

GanjaMystic

New Member
What's up everyone? I'm a medical patient currently residing in Colorado. I'm seriously considering moving to RI with my girlfriend (also a patient) and our daughter. I have spent the past several days researching and thoroughly reading through the RI MMJ laws, but I still have some confusion in a few areas and some questions. I was hoping some patients/caregivers/growers in RI might be able to help me out.

1) Here in CO, patients can possess up to 6 plants (3 mature, 3 immature) and up to 2 ounces of usable marijuana at any given time. However, doctors can recommend more plants and/or ounces, allowing patients to raise an affirmative defense in cases of prosecution. In general, police respect these doctor recommendations and do no arrest patients who stay within their doctor-recommended limits. My girlfriend and I each have a recommendation from our doctor for 24 plants (12 mature, 12 immature) and 8 ounces of usable marijuana, an amount consistent with our usage and needs. If we moved to RI, would our doctor recommendations still allow us to possess up to 8 ounces, or would we have to stay within the default RI limit of 2.5 ounces?

2) Here in CO, under the new Amendment 64, anyone 21 years of age or older can possess up to 1 ounce of usable marijuana. However, anyone over 21 can also grow up to 6 plants (3 mature, 3 immature) and can possess all "of the marijuana produced by the plants on the premises where the plants were grown". In other words, the law in CO recognizes that the amount of dried bud that an individual plant can produce is highly variable and somewhat unpredictable, so it allows a person over 21 to possess all of the bud his/her plants produce, even if the amount produced exceeds the normal limit of 1 ounce. How does this work in RI, where a patient can have up to 12 mature flowering plants, but can only possess up to 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana? In my experience growing, even a single plant, started from seed and flowered immediately upon reaching sexual maturity, can produce well over 2.5 ounces of dried bud. What is a patient in RI supposed to do if his/her plant(s) produce(s) over 2.5 ounces? I read in the Hawkins-Slater Act that a patient can legally sell bud to a compassion center and/or give it away for free to other patients, but is this referring to overages? Because it seems like it says a patient can't ever have more than 2.5 ounces no matter what, which doesn't make sense to me. Let's say, for example, I harvest just one plant and hang it up to dry. After the plant is dried and processed, I weigh the bud and discover the plant has produced 6 ounces. Am I instantly in violation of RI MMJ laws? If my house happened to be raided at that moment, would I be arrested and charged for possessing more than 2.5 ounces, even though I only harvested one plant and had no idea that it would end up yielding more than 2.5 ounces until it was already dried and weighed? What am I legally supposed/allowed to do with the excess bud? Am I legally protected as long as it's still on the premises on which it was grown? Can I save it for myself for future need? Am I allowed to transport it and sell it to a compassion center, 2.5 ounces at a time? Am I supposed to just destroy it immediately? Do I have a certain amount of time in which to look for a needy patient to give it to? This is an extremely confusing and worrisome aspect of the law to me, as the strains I grow routinely yield more than 2.5 ounces per plant.

3) I require a steady supply of medicine, but I typically only harvest once every 2 months. Can I harvest all 12 of my plants at once, every 2 months, set aside a 2 month supply to last me until the next harvest, store it in a locked container, and then just allot myself 2.5 ounces at a time? Or are we pretty much obligated to stagger plants in flower, allowing for more frequent, single-plant harvests? And again, what am I supposed to do if I only harvest one plant at a time but still end up with more than 2.5 ounces once it's dried?

4) Lastly, who decides when a harvested plant becomes 'usable marijuana'? The text of the Hawkins-Slater Act defines 'usable marijuana' as "the dried leaves and flowers of the marijuana plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof," but it doesn't define the word 'dried'. Who decides whether or not the herb is completely 'dried' and therefore at its final weight? For example, let's say I have 2.5 ounces of totally dry medicine in a jar and then harvest a plant to begin drying it, anticipating that the plant will be dry just as I am running out of medicine from the jar. What if my house happened to be raided while I still had medicine in the jar, plus a halfway-dried harvest. What, if anything, would prevent police from calling the halfway-dried medicine 'usable marijuana', putting me over the 2.5 ounce limit? This gets even more confusing and worrisome if curing is taken into consideration. In order for cannabis to be healthy to smoke medicinally, it must be fully cured. Therefore, dried (but not yet cured) bud, although defined as 'usable marijuana' in the text of the law, is not actually usable to medical patients. Curing herb can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2+ months depending on the strain, so how am I supposed to ensure that I have a constant supply of fully cured medicine without going over the 2.5 ounce limit? For example, let's say I require 2.5 ounces of medicine per month to treat my chronic pain. And let's say I have a strain that I can get to yield about 2.5 ounces per plant if I flower it small, so I plan on harvesting one plant and putting one new plant into flower each month. Let's say the strain takes exactly 2 months to flower, half a month to dry, and another half a month to cure. So after the first 2 months, I harvest my first plant. One month later, the medicine from the first plant is fully dried and cured, and it's time to harvest the second plant. I harvest the second plant, and half a month later it is fully dried and ready to start curing. However, I still have half of the medicine from the first plant left. So now I have 1.25 ounces of cured medicine plus 2.5 ounces of dried but still uncured bud. Only the 1.25 ounces of cured medicine is actually usable to me as a medical patient, but the 2.5 ounces of uncured bud is dried and therefore considered to be 'usable marijuana' as well, thus putting me over the 2.5 ounce limit. How is this situation possibly supposed to be avoided?

We are seriously thinking about moving to RI because the rent is more affordable than here in CO, we miss the ocean and the beach and the east coast in general, and because it's the medical state that allows home cultivation closest to our family in the Southeast. We're also excited at the idea of exploring New England since both of us have only been there a few times before.

However, before making the decision to move, we definitely want to make sure we are going to be able to continue to grow and possess/use enough medical cannabis, extracts, concentrates, and edibles to adequately and legally treat our conditions, just as we have been here in CO, and that we have a legal means of getting rid of the excess medicine and hopefully at least recouping our expenses. We definitely do not want to be at risk of being arrested and having our daughter taken from us. That would be an absolute nightmare, obviously. It seems like the RI laws have been written really well and are very reasonable except for the apparent rigidity of the 2.5 ounce rule. I'm just a little worried about that because, as I said, the strains I grow typically yield significantly more than 2.5 ounces from a single plant, and I'm unsure from reading the laws if I'd be allowed to have more with a doctor's recommendation or, if not, what exactly I would be legally able/obligated to do with the excess. I certainly would hate to have to destroy it. That would make me very sad , and would feel like a huge waste of perfectly good high-quality organic medicine that I put a lot of love, time, energy, and money into growing...

Any information/help/advice will be greatly appreciated, preferably from patients/caregivers/growers who actually live in RI and are very familiar with the law.

Give thanks! Bless up!

~ Mystic
 
I am a patient & caregiver in RI, so I will try and answer your question as best as I can. However, please be advised that I am NOT a lawyer NOR law enforcement officer, so do not take the info provided below as what will hold up in a court of law....

1) No -- the recommendation that you have for 8 oz will not matter in RI. The limit is the limit.

2) what determines "usable" marijuana is the difference between flower vs. seed/stem/stalks/fan leaves. It doesn't matter if it is dried or being cured. It you cut it, it will count. As far as your excess, you COULD sell it to a compassion center BUT I'm pretty sure that they will have to report the transaction on a 1099-MISC, so if you want your info being sent to the IRS, that is something to keep in mind. And I don't know if they only accept medicine from those who have assigned them as one of their caregivers. I do know that all medicine is sent out to get tested, so if your meds don't past the test, then they will not proceed with buying it from you. Some people have been getting rid of their excess on craigslist (and ONLY dealing with other registered patients/caregivers). You cannot "sell" it, but you are allowed to ask for a "donation" that would allow you to recoup the cost of your electricity/nutes/etc. used in order to produce the medicine.

3) if you were to harvest all at once, then you would DEFINITELY have to get rid of your excess QUICK, FAST, PRONTO, and in a HURRY. I also live with my patient, and we use a perpetual harvest system in order to stay under the limit.

One "gray" area right now seems to be the issue of edibles. If you were to take some of your excess and make butter or some type of tincture, the law (as it stands right now) doesn't seem to "count" this because it cannot be determined how many ounces went into making that product. And be please be advised that RI is in the process of DECREASING the usable limit on MMJ since it is proposing to go for full legalization (I think the issue will be on the ballot this November).

Now if you were to move and become a caregiver for another person, then your usable limit will increase, but you cannot have a maximum of more than 24 plants (it USED to be that a caregiver could have 12 plants for each patient, with a max limit of 5 patients, but that law changed right before the dispensaries opened).

Another thing to keep in mind that the law is also in the process of being changed so that LANDLORDS can REFUSE to rent to anyone who is a registered patient/caregiver because they don't want the liability for fires/property damage. So while rent may be cheaper, it can be difficult to find/be able to stay in an apartment here if your landlord knows that you are growing on the premises. Obviously, it's not something you would advertise, but what if the landlord has to do any maintenance?

I need to double check this but I'm pretty sure that the caregiver is allowed to hold up to 2.5oz for his/her patient, so with the two of you in same household, you could have 2.5oz for you and then 2.5 for your wife, and she can hold 2.5 for her, and then 2.5 for you, so that would give you a total of 10oz. If you have another caregiver in a different household, then that caregiver could also have 2.5oz for you, and then 2.5 for your wife (if she made him his caregiver), so that gives you another 5 oz, making a total of 15 oz.

As far as issues with your daughter being taken away by the state, I certainly cannot speak on that because none of my children live in the same household as me.
 
It seems that the best way to stay under the radar is to not do anything that would bring attention to your household (I can't tell you how many times I've been walking through the neighborhood and can identify the apartments that would arouse suspicion, so if you're cautious enough and don't draw attention to yourself, then you should be fine.) My patient's other caregiver was taking care of 5 patients and a "nosy" neighbor called the police because of the smell. Even with multiple carbon filters, it is hard to contain the scent of certain strains. Anywho, when the police showed up, he had the medical IDs on his wall, the police counted, and saw that he wasn't over the limit, so they left.

And again, if the state approves full legalization in November, it could possibly impact the MMJ program by not only decreasing the usable limit, but also the number of plants that can be grown at home (they keep putting more restrictions on growers as if to drive everyone to assign the compassion center as a caregiver, and their prices (right now) are not reasonable if you are on a fixed income. And there are only TWO centers to serve the ENTIRE state (not like other states where a large city may have 5 or 6 dispensaries). And now that they are growing medicine on their own premises, I am not sure if they are still accepting meds from caregivers.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
 
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