PROVIDENCE, R.I. � A community forum at Brown University Tuesday night on regulating and taxing marijuana was opened with a statistic contending that more African-American men are in prison, jail or on...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. � A community forum at Brown University Tuesday night on regulating and taxing marijuana was opened with a statistic contending that more African-American men are in prison, jail or on parole or probation than were enslaved in 1850.

The forum, organized by Regulate Rhode Island, a statewide coalition of citizens and organizations dedicated to �ending the failed policy of marijuana prohibition and replacing it with a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol,� brought together two panels of four to discuss legalizing marijuana in Rhode Island.

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One panelist, state Sen. Joshua Miller, whose district includes part of Cranston and Providence, is the primary sponsor of the Marijuana Regulation, Control, and Taxation Act. He said his motivation is steering people away from overdosing on opiates, which he said claim as many lives as a plane crashing at T.F. Green Airport every year. So far this year in Rhode Island, 188 people have died from accidental drug overdoses.

A brief history of prejudice and prohibition was provided by Dr. David C. Lewis, founder of Brown University�s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. He traced prohibitions from opium to alcohol to marijuana to prejudices against Asians, Mexicans and African-Americans.

�There�s a racist element in all of this,� said panelist James Vincent, president of the Providence branch of the NAACP. �I find it unacceptable.�

Another panelist was Mason Tvert, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project and co-director of the 2012 Amendment 64 campaign in Colorado.

When moderator Jared Moffat, who is director of Regulate Rhode Island, asked him how things are going now that marijuana is legal for recreational users in Colorado, he joked by answering with the words, �fire and brimstone.� The audience of about 90 people in the List Art Building laughed.

Actually, it�s �quite nice� in Colorado, Tvert said, because marijuana is regulated, packaged, labeled and tested. There are 18,000 badged marijuana business employees in Colorado, as well as people who work in such businesses as creating point-of-sale displays and installing wiring for grow operations.

�The sky hasn�t fallen,� he said. �Unemployment rates dropped and dropout rates are down.�

Miller said another reason he supports legalized marijuana is because he�s an advocate of gun control. �Gun violence is related to drug dealing,� he said.

When asked to provide details of Rhode Island�s proposed marijuana legislation, he said most of the details would be subject to compromise.

He said he proposes keeping edibles and drinkables out of the mix for a Rhode Island law, and said people should consider that Rhode Island has a potential market of 30 million people within 150 miles.

Tax expert Pat Oglesby, the former chief tax counsel for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and founder of the Center for New Revenue, said marijuana should be taxed by weight, not by price, because he expects the price to come down as production is industrialized.

Legalizing marijuana in Rhode Island is opposed by Col. Steven G. O�Donnell, superintendent of state police, who was not at the forum. He wrote in an April 8 Providence Journal op-ed piece that legalization will send a clear message to Rhode Island�s youth that marijuana use is acceptable, while research shows that drug use during teenage years can do lasting harm to cognition and memory.

O�Donnell argued that drug cartels would undercut the price of drugs sold on the open market and said that marijuana use seriously impairs judgment and motor coordination, contributing significantly to the risk of injury or death while operating a vehicle. Data from several studies suggest that marijuana use more than doubles a driver�s risk of being in an accident, he wrote. He urged that the state �move slowly, knowingly and deliberately.�