By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The Special Senate Commission to Study the Prohibition of Marijuana is close to winding up its work and expects to vote on a report and recommended legislation at its next meeting.

Chairman Joshua Miller said the commission will be deciding whether to embrace language in bills already introduced in both the Senate and the House or recommend amendments.
Among the questions that are still up in the air are how to deal with repeat violators, whether possession of an ounce or less of marijuana would be considered a probation or parole violation, enough to send someone back to prison to complete a sentence for another crime and how to enforce the collection of fines.
While Miller says there is general consensus on moving the state to a decriminalization model similar to what was adopted by referendum in Massachusetts in 2008 — possession of an ounce or less of marijuana would be a civil infraction, similar to a traffic offense, with a fine and confiscation of the drug, but no criminal penalty — some members of the commission connected to law enforcement  oppose such changes because, in the words of retired State Police Lt. Joseph Osediacz “we're still saying it's OK to smoke the stuff.”
That is disputed by other members of the panel, who seem to constitute a majority, who say use of the drug is not condoned, but the state will not use the criminal justice system to control it.
Central Falls Police Chief Joseph Moran said he has “reservations about the entire process” of loosening the laws on recreational use of marijuana, saying that judges already have the discretion to send arrestees to treatment rather than prison and that arrest records can be expunged down the line.
Their remarks echo the sentiments of State Police Col. Brendan Doherty who, in a letter to Miller said, “My major opposition and consternation withtthe notion that marijuana will be decriminalized is grounded in concern for our youth and the message that such an action would send. I fear that decriminalization will send a bad message to the youth of this state, who are already growing up in an era of contradictory values...While I do not have empirical data that will indicate that the decriminalization of marijuana will increase the demand, thus causing more violent crime, institutional knowledge dictates that it will not decrease the supply and demand.”
Dr. David Lewis of the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies told the panel that about 9 percent of people who use marijuana risk becoming dependent on the drug, less than one-third of those who risk becoming dependent on tobacco (32 percent) and just more than half of those who become dependent on alcohol (15 percent).
The most significant risk of marijuana use, Lewis said, is automobile accidents cause by drivers who are impaired on marijuana. He said there is dose-related impairment in reaction time, information processing, perceptual-motor coordination and an inability to pay attention.
Otherwise, Lewis downplayed the dangers of physical or psychological affects of marijuana on users.
Asked about the health risks of marijuana in relation to alcohol use, Lewis said, “if alcohol were a 10, marijuana would be a 1 or a 2.”
Another expert called in to discuss the budgetary implications of marijuana prohibition, Jeffrey Miron of the Harvard University department of economics, downplayed the monetary benefits of decriminalization, saying that the savings would be “peanuts” and comparing it to “a rounding error.”
But when he estimated that the reduced expenditure would be approximately $11.2 million a year, Miller took exception to his characterization.
“This year, in this state, $11 million is a lot,” Miller told Miron, explaining that, “last year we were looking for a half-million dollars to keep kids in day care...A savings of $200,000 is valuable in this state right now.” The chairman said there would also be a benefit in allowing the cities and towns to keep the money collected in fines for other uses, such as drug education programs in the schools. “We might also want the resources of police time used on more serious crimes,” he added.