By Tom Angell
I don’t normally write articles using a first-person narrative here, but the story I’m about to report can’t be told any other way. It’s about how my mom led the charge to legalize marijuana in our home state of Rhode Island and then became the state’s first legal patient. It’s about how her efforts inspired the enactment of a law that has since helped thousands of other patients.
And, this story is about how in the course of the everyday legislative tracking and newsgathering I do for Marijuana.com and for my nonprofit Marijuana Majority, I discovered that someone was trying to steal my mom’s honor as Rhode Island’s first legal patient, and how my friends and I scrambled to rectify the situation.
First, some background:
My mom, Rhonda O’Donnell, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. The pain, fatigue and vision and coordination problems caused by the condition soon led to her having to give up the nursing career she loved so much and through which she was able to help so many others.
Fast forward to 2003, when, through my role as a leader of my college’s chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), I met Cheryl Miller, another MS patient who found relief with medical cannabis. Hearing her story motivated me to talk with my mom about whether marijuana might ease some of her symptoms.
She spoke with her neurologist, looked at some of the scientific research, listened to the stories of other MS patients and quickly concluded that she wanted to give it a try. There was only one problem: Rhode Island didn’t have a medical marijuana program. And my mom, goody-two-shoes that she is, didn’t want to risk breaking the law.
So we had some work to do. We needed to change the law in Rhode Island.
We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we were determined. So we, along with other activists from throughout the state, convinced the national advocacy organization Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) to support an effort to lobby state lawmakers to pass legislation protecting patients who need medical cannabis.
MPP funded a nonprofit we formed, the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition (RIPAC), and they hired a top-notch team of Providence-based lobbyists who had the necessary experience and relationships to push legislation in the Capitol.
My mom regularly testified at State House hearings, did media interviews and repeatedly personally called upon (some might say harassed) state lawmakers to do the right thing. She was even featured in TV commercials pushing to get the law passed. She was, by all accounts, the face of the effort.
She also told the story about how my grandfather, who died of cancer years before I was even born, used medical marijuana to ease the symptoms of chemotherapy decades earlier.
It took a few legislative sessions, and we had to deal with multiple vetoes by a hostile governor, but in 2006 we finally got the bill enacted. Lawmakers couldn’t help but be moved by the stories told by my mom and other patients who just wanted to be able to find a little relief without being criminalized for it.
My mom then proudly became the state’s first legal medical marijuana patient, eagerly hand-delivering her application to the state Department of Health.
Her story was even featured in a Showtime documentary, which portrayed her on camera using medical marijuana legally for the first time.
Along the way my mom also lobbied members of Congress to vote to protect state medical marijuana laws from federal interference. She changed the mind of our local congressman, who initially voted against our movement’s amendments but who then ended up coming around to our side and has since been a consistent supporter.
Fast forward to this month, when I was doing my morning scan of state marijuana legislation. I came across a just-introduced Rhode Island Senate resolution honoring a man I’d never heard of as being the state’s first legal medical marijuana patient.
Whoah!
While I’m sure that the fellow MS patient, William Cotton, finds legitimate and much-needed relief from medical cannabis, I just could not sit idly by while my mom’s designation as the true first patient was stolen from her. And I had to act quickly, since the resolution was fast-tracked and put on the Senate consent calendar for that very evening.
I immediately called my lobbyist friends in Providence, who of course remembered and respected my mom’s work over the years. Together, we reached out to the resolution’s sponsors, and to the local media, and quickly got the measure withdrawn from the calendar.
But that’s not even the best part.
A friendly state lawmaker, Rep. Scott Slater, then agreed to introduce a House resolution recognizing my mom as the state’s first legal medical marijuana patient and thanking her for all her hard work in the years leading up to the enactment of a law that has since helped thousands of other patients.
Rep. Slater happens to be the son of former Rep. Tom Slater, the original sponsor of the medical marijuana bill. Unfortunately the elder Rep. Slater passed away from cancer in 2009, but thankfully his son is continuing the fight to modernize the state’s cannabis laws by, for example, sponsoring bills to fully legalize marijuana and to add new qualifying conditions to the state’s existing medical program. (One of Rhode Island’s three medical marijuana compassion centers is named after the late Rep. Slater.)
On Thursday night, the House unanimously passed my mom’s resolution after a moving speech from Rep. Slater.
“Mrs. O’Donnell has long remained a true advocate that has never sought public acclaim or recognition for her work, but rather is content in the knowledge that her magnanimous efforts have led to the improvement in the quality of life for countless Rhode Islanders,” the measure reads. “This House of Representatives of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations hereby recognizes and honors Rhonda O’Donnell on being the very first medical marijuana patient in the state, and a woman who remains a true role model and inspiration for those dealing with pain and suffering.”
This experience has been a strange but beautiful confluence of events for me. Working together with my mom over a decade ago to enact a law that has since benefited so many people allowed me to combine my personal passions, my career and my family, and it has been one of the greatest and most rewarding experiences of my life.
Seeing the faulty Senate resolution pop up on my computer screen a few weeks ago was initially infuriating and stressful, but it led to a great outcome: My mom getting the recognition that she is due, but never asked for, for all of her hard work.
And it was a much-needed reminder for me to reflect upon and learn from our past victories while we continue to work hard to achieve more wins for patients who still don’t have legal access where they live.
