Rhode Island Marches Toward Adult-Use Cannabis Legalization

With the imminent scratch of Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee’s pen, the 19th state to legalize adult-use cannabis will be on the board. Read Associate Editor Tony Lange's story below.

Over the past year, especially, dominoes have begun to fall in state legislatures across the U.S. Rhode Island’s vote adds another notch to the New England region’s rapid growth. The CBT staff tagged Rhode Island with a “Maybe” on our list of states to watch this year; after a last-minute vote got lost in the pre-adjournment shuffle of legislation in the summer of 2021, state lawmakers returned with gusto this year. 

State Sen. Josh Miller invoked Rhode Island’s historical stance on Prohibition while speaking in support of the cannabis bill Tuesday night. This was an astute moment in the debate. 

“A hundred years ago, Rhode Island was one of two states not to ratify the Volstead Act, the 18th Amendment that prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages,” he said. “We may have anticipated that prohibition could do more harm than good, especially to minorities, including Italians, the Irish and the other recently arrived immigrants. Although it may be too late for Rhode Island to be a pioneer with cannabis, it is not too late to do what is right and begin to repair damage caused by prohibition of cannabis.”

The war on drugs and its oppressive impact on many U.S. communities is called to mind often in these legalization debates—and for important reasons. What gets less attention is history itself: the endless march of progress and mistakes, triumphs and setbacks. Cannabis reform is part of American history. It always has been, as incremental and lop-sided as that storyline has been thus far. But that’s changing. And it’s changing fast, again. 

-Eric Sandy, Digital Editor

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Are you interested in learning about what federal cannabis legalization in the United States will mean? We’ll be talking about this possibility and all of the associated implications out in Las Vegas this summer.

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