If approved, Perry’s bill would allow the state to license one not-for-profit “compassion center” within the next 15 months, and up to two more over the next two years. The centers would be able to grow and supply marijuana to patients with debilitating diseases who are licensed to smoke pot.

Blais, an outspoken opponent of the original medical marijuana bill, proposed an amendment to prohibit patients from smoking marijuana in any motor vehicle, even if the patient were a passenger, or if “children and others are exposed to second hand smoke.”

Blais said the state prohibits cigarette smoking in public places to protect people from secondhand smoke. Marijuana should be no different, he said.

“The drug is in the smoke,” Blais said of marijuana.

But Perry blasted the proposed amendment, saying it was an insult to people with extremely serious diseases.

“We are not dealing with problem teenagers. We are not dealing with hippies from the 1960s,” Perry said. “We are dealing with 376 seriously ill men and women with disabling diseases.”

She was referring to the number of patients licensed to smoke marijuana to alleviate symptoms of their diseases.

Blais’ amendment passed by an 18-16 vote, with one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Juan Pichardo, D-Providence, supporting it. A stunned Perry moved to send the bill back to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which she chairs.

The motion to recommit the bill passed 33-2.

Perry defended her decision to recommit the bill, saying it was “a matter of principle.”

“That amendment is unnecessary and insulting,” Perry said.

Perry said she wanted to strip the amendment from the bill in committee and get it back on to the Senate floor. With the help of Senate leaders, Perry said she hoped to get the bill passed without the Blais amendment.

Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, said the leadership supported the legislation. In retrospect, she said, the leadership should not have supported Blais’ request for an oral amendment, because there was no written form for members to consider and some may have been confused.

“(Perry) has the commitment of the leadership to work on the bill,” Weed said. “It will come back out.”

Sen. June N. Gibbs, R-Middletown, who supports the legislation, voted for Blais’ amendment.

“The amendment didn’t hurt it,” Gibbs said. “I think the amendment made it stronger.”

But Jesse Stout, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, said some patients would be adversely affected by Blais’ amendment. Because it said patients could not subject “children and others” to secondhand smoke, a bed-ridden patient could not smoke in his or her own home if anyone else was in the house.

“There are circumstances when Sen. Blais’ amendment would have placed an undue burden on sick and debilitated people,” Stout said.

Rep. Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence, who has sponsored an identical bill in the House (H7888), said secondhand smoke from marijuana is as not as bad as cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke has numerous carcinogens in it and has been proven to cause cancer, while no study has shown marijuana smoke to be cancer-causing, Slater said.

“When you’re talking about marijuana smoking, you’re not talking about cancer,” Slater said. “You’re talking about helping people with cancer.”

Sen. Walter S. Felag Jr., D-Warren, joined Gibbs and supported Blais’ amendment. Weed and Sen. Charles J. Levesque, D-Portsmouth, voted against it.

The Senate floor vote largely would have been symbolic because the House version of the bill is stuck in the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee. Slater said if the committee is not willing to vote on his bill, he will ask House leaders to establish a legislative commission to study the issue. Even if the House had passed it the legislation, it faced a likely veto by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, who vetoed the original medical marijuana bill.

Send reporter Joe Baker e-mail at [email protected].