Senate sponsors of the bill include leading lawmakers, including the Senate president, majority leader, and judiciary committee chairman. "We believe this bill is about compassion for those with serious illness and those who are on the precipice of dying," said Senate sponsor Rhoda Perry (D-Providence).

Legislative hearings on the bill included testimony from cancer patients who said that marijuana helped ease their pain and other symptoms. David Lewis, former director of the Center on Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University, said that while most doctors don't dispute such assertions, concern remains about a drug that must be smoked and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

National groups like the Drug-Free Schools Coalition and Drug-Free Kids: America's Challenge wrote in opposition to the bill. And Sen. Leo Blais (R-Coventry), a pharmacist, said, "We need to be crystal clear that this initiative is an initiative to legalize marijuana. The exemptions in the statute are large enough to drive a tank through." He added that marijuana has "no accepted medical value."

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