In an unexpected slap in the face to local medical marijuana patients, last week the Rhode Island Health Department announced that it had rejected all 15 applicants to open the state’s first medical marijuana compassion center. Officials were originally supposed to reward the first licenses in June, but postponed after a series of delays. Rhode Island’s law calls for at least one, and up to three compassion centers to provide patients with safe access to their medicine.

So why weren’t any applications accepted? Well, because some had too many pages.

Nine applications fell short of the minimum score in the review process and the rest were disqualified for failing to comply with rules for applying.

The health department received eight formal letters of concern. Some letters questioned why an application exceeded the allowable page limit. Others raised issues about zoning requirements, site control, financing issues and residency requirements.

Locals are justifiably outraged, and organized a rally outside the Health Department yesterday to protest the decision.

“This is just horrible,” JoAnne Leppanen, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, told the Providence Journal. “This is such a disappointment that I cannot even tell you. I feel like the patients’ welfare is being lost in a bureaucratic haze.”

Maine took an important step toward enhancing patient access to medical marijuana on Friday, when officials awarded the state’s first operating licenses to six nonprofit dispensaries that will open across the state. Regulated dispensaries were added to Maine’s law in November, after nearly 60% of state voters approved an MPP-drafted initiative that made Maine the third medical marijuana state to allow dispensary licenses, and the first to do so through the ballot.

In related news, New Mexico, which was the first state to license dispensaries, just approved six more medical marijuana producers—bringing the state’s total number of licensed, nonprofit dispensaries to 11.

These establishments—when properly regulated—provide patients in need with safe, reliable and orderly access to their medicine, saving them the effort of growing their own while also sparing them from having to resort to the often dangerous and unpredictable black market.

Elsewhere, Rhode Island has been holding hearings on applicants for dispensary licenses there, while New Jersey and Washington, D.C. are considering similar plans. In Oregon, it seems increasingly likely that state voters will consider adding dispensaries to that state’s law this November.

Last week the Rhode Island state legislature approved a critical piece of legislation designed to protect the confidentiality of physicians who recommend medical marijuana to patients. The bill was introduced after the names of 335 physicians had been leaked to the Providence Journal by a department of health staffer, and several doctors whose identities were disclosed testified that they were no longer comfortable recommending medical marijuana to patients, even when it might be the best course of treatment.

Passage of the bill – which is set to become law – marks the fourth time that Rhode Island has passed positive medical marijuana legislation. In fact, tomorrow, the state will take another critical step in expanding its medical marijuana law further when it holds a public hearing for applicants to open the state’s first nonprofit compassion centers, which will provide qualified patients with safe access to their medicine. Rhode Island has approved opening up to three such centers, and the first licenses are expected to be issued in about a month.

Ongoing efforts to reform marijuana laws in Rhode Island received a huge endorsement today from the state’s largest newspaper. In this editorial, the Providence Journal calls for the decriminalization of marijuana, writing that “[t]he pursuit of nonviolent marijuana users puts enormous strain on the justice system, feeds corruption and wastes taxpayer dollars that could have been used more effectively elsewhere.”

This call for sensible marijuana reform comes just days before public hearings will be held by the state’s Marijuana Prohibition Study Commission, which was set up by the state Senate last year to study the cost of marijuana prohibition in Rhode Island. Last week, a bill to change the penalty for possession of marijuana from up to six months in jail to a civil fine was introduced into the state House, where nearly half of the representatives signed on as co-sponsors.

The House sponsor of Rhode Island’s medical marijuana law, Rep. Thomas Slater, passed away today after a long battle with cancer.  In addition to championing the needs of seriously ill patients who could benefit from medical marijuana, he was the tireless advocate of the needy in his district, from driving elderly constituents to the pharmacy or supermarket to sponsoring legislation for health care for uninsured children and affordable housing. In June, the Providence Journal published a moving profile of this amazing man, which you can read here.

Despite being ravaged by cancer, Rep. Slater continued to trek to the legislature this summer to ensure the passage of a bill to add nonprofit dispensaries, or “compassion centers,” to the The Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act. The initial law allowed patients or their caregivers to grow marijuana, but many testified that they risked violence buying their medicine on the streets. Rep. Slater’s heartfelt efforts paid off: His colleagues in the House unanimously voted to override Gov. Carcieri’s veto of the bill, and they then gave him a standing ovation. Three years earlier, they had voted to name the medical marijuana law in his honor. Only Rep. Slater voted against this gesture.

Rep. Slater will be deeply missed. But his legacy will live on. Thanks to his leadership, more than 500 seriously ill patients in Rhode Island can now use their medicine without fearing arrest. And, by the new year, the state will have registered a nonprofit to provide regulated, safe access to their medicine.