Rhode Island
Bills to de-stigmatize language in state law on alcohol addiction progress in R.I. General Assembly • Rhode Island Current
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What do you call someone who “who habitually lacks self-control as to the use of alcoholic beverages”?
They’re an “alcoholic,” according to Rhode Island General Law.
But the state’s statutory language surrounding alcohol use and treatment could soon change thanks to the recent passage of bills in both chambers of the General Assembly.
“We don’t talk that way anymore. We don’t think that way anymore. Yet it’s still codified into our statute,” said Rep. Jennifer Boylan, a Barrington Democrat, during a March 5 hearing of the House Committee on Health and Human Services.
The bill she introduced that night, H7736, saw successful passage May 7 during a House floor vote. On Thursday, May 9, the Senate unanimously passed Bill S2087 by Sen. Joshua Miller, a Cranston Democrat. The twin bills allow revision of how state law defines alcohol disorders and their treatment.
“These statutes have not been approached for revision in over 40 years,” Miller said on the Senate floor. “There are many flaws in it, including commitment to public hospitals where the actual commitment doesn’t exist, the beds do not exist. And the language is embarrassing to the departments and those involved as providers.”
Both bills direct the Rhode Island Department of Health and the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities (BHDDH) and Hospitals to coordinate proposed revisions that would align the state’s law books with best practices by Jan. 1, 2025.
Miller previously worked on the Governor’s Overdose Commission and has sponsored other bills relating to substance use in the past. This is Boylan’s first bill relating to substance use.
“I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t know anyone who has this problem (alcohol use disorder),” Boylan said in a recent phone interview. “It’s a problem that a lot of people struggle with, and I think our statutes should be updated to be more modernized.”
Person-first language
Many doctors and advocates consider terms like “alcoholic” stigmatizing and loaded. Both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest using “person with alcohol use disorder” in keeping with a person-first approach to language use.
The notion of self-control as the main motivating factor in one’s drinking is contrary to clinical understanding, which sees alcohol use disorder as a more complex pattern.
“Yes, there is an element of choice when a person first starts drinking. For some people, however, a mix of genetic and environmental factors facilitates a transition, often without full recognition, to increasingly heavier drinking,” according to a core resource document from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
It’s a problem that a lot of people struggle with, and I think our statutes should be updated to be more modernized.
– Rep. Jennifer Boylan, a Barrington Democrat
Now the bills have to pass in opposite chambers, said Larry Berman, a House spokesperson, in an email: “In other words, the House now has to pass Sen. Miller’s bill and the Senate now has to pass Rep. Boylan’s bill. Once each bill passes in both chambers, they will be transmitted to the Governor.”
Boylan said on the phone that she’s “very hopeful” the bill will land on the governor’s desk this year. And on the Senate floor, Miller said the simultaneous OK is an improvement over previous years. In the 2023 legislative session, Miller’s bill secured Senate approval. But its momentum ended when it was referred to the House Committee on Health and Human Services.
“I’ve had this bill for several years without any action on it on the House side,” Miller said. “The House passed it a few days ago, which will be a great relief to those involved in deciding in June what passes and doesn’t pass, [who] won’t have to hear from me about ‘Why didn’t this bill pass?’ Because it’s so simple and so important.”
The identical bills add only six sentences to existing statutes. Miller’s bill generated no discussion on the Senate floor. In the House, Minority Leader Mike Chippendale wondered if Boylan’s legislation would also change other instances of outdated language buried in state law.
“There are other sections in the law…where we use the term ‘habitual drunkard,’” Chippendale said. “I think obviously that sounds a little bit more offensive than ‘alcoholic.’”
Laws on taverns, cookshops and oyster houses, for example, lump together “Drunkards, wastrels, and minors” as prohibited from entry into these businesses. Business owners face possible fines if they count among their customers “any common drunkard or person addicted to the intemperate use of spirituous or intoxicating liquors.” The section was first written in 1896 and most recently updated a century later in 1996.
“Would this also change that or would that be something that we perhaps overlooked and will change later?” Chippendale asked Rep. Susan Donovan, who chairs the House Committee on Health and Human Services and presented Boylan’s bill.
“I’d have to refer to counsel. I would hope that it would change all of those terms,” Donovan said.
Last year, Gov. Dan McKee signed into law legislation sponsored by Sen. Jonathan Acosta that replaced terms like “mentally retarded,” “alcoholic,” and “drug abuser” with less stigmatizing language. That legislation targeted different sections of state law, however. Boylan said her bill hones in on a very specific section of state law.
Because circumstances can change
Beth Lamarre, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, wrote via email how stigmatizing words like “alcoholic” can hold “a negative connotation, because of how alcoholism/alcohol use disorder has been viewed throughout time.”
“It also spotlights the issue, as though it is that person’s only characteristic,” Lamarre said. “Describing someone as having an alcohol use disorder, on the other hand, describes a circumstance or a situation, one that can be changed.”
Other states have also begun to read the fine print surrounding spirits. “It’s hard to say how many states have replaced their language entirely, but we have noticed more states using AUD (alcohol use disorder) in current legislation,” said Karmen Hanson, a senior fellow in the National Conference of State Legislatures’ health program, via email.
Legislatures where similar legislation has been introduced include Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands, but Hanson noted “that’s not a reflection of everything that may be out there.”
Global opinions differ on people-first language, although what words are used also owes much to the disability being described. England’s national health agency, for example, prefers “disabled people” to “people with a disability” — a choice underlined by an argument that society makes barriers for people with disabilities, rather than the disabilities themselves. This alternative, known as identity-first language, is also common among autistic and deaf people in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Regardless of what language one uses, disability advocates seem to agree that the overall idea is ensuring people feel comfortable speaking up about their struggles.
“Words matter, and how we talk about someone’s health (including and especially behavioral health) can make the difference in whether they feel supported in getting the treatment and help they need,” Lamarre said.
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Rhode Island
Coach bringing NBA trophy to Rhode Island
![Coach bringing NBA trophy to Rhode Island Coach bringing NBA trophy to Rhode Island](https://turnto10.com/resources/media2/16x9/1612/986/0x29/90/75e3145a-5f81-4c1f-a8d8-e12a129a5085-JM3.png)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — The coach of the NBA champion Boston Celtics is bringing the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Ocean State.
According to a tweet from Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, Coach Joe Mazzulla will be at the State House on Tuesday morning at 10:00.
Mazzulla, a Johnston native, was a standout playing basketball for Bishop Hendricken High School, where he graduated in 2006.
The Celtics won their 18th NBA title by beating the Dallas Mavericks, four games to one in the championship round.
The win came at home in Boston’s TD Garden, on June 17 – or 6/17, in the heart of the 617 area code.
Rhode Island
Taylor Swift in RI; Atlantic Mills sale; rebuilding Republicans: Top stories this week
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Drone pilot Marc Bontemps captures video of Providence skyline
Bontemps, known for his aerial photos and videos on the Instagram account captured.by.marc, shares his craft with columnist Mark Patinkin.
captured.by.marc
Here are some of The Providence Journal’s most-read stories for the week of Aug. 25, supported by your subscriptions.
Here are the week’s top reads on providencejournal.com:
WESTERLY – Rhode Island’s most famous part-time resident spent time this week at her Watch Hill home, along with her football star boyfriend, at least according to People magazine and TMZ.
Both outlets report that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce – along with pals Patrick and Brittany Mahomes, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper – were in Rhode Island this week, as the singer takes a break from her Eras tour, which resumes in October, and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end prepares for his Sept. 5 season opener against the Ravens.
Read on for more details on the celebrity sightings around Swift’s Watch Hill mansion, dubbed the “Holiday House.”
Entertainment: Taylor Swift is in Rhode Island this weekend (and she brought some famous friends with her)
PROVIDENCE − The owner of the Atlantic Mills in Olneyville has put the giant mill building up for sale after backing out of a deal with the city and the Providence Redevelopment Agency to buy the sprawling property.
Those who work in the building say they are worried about being kicked out of one of the cheapest manufacturing, warehouse and office spaces in the city, which could mean the end of business for some of them.
Unlike downtown Providence, where offices have remained empty since the pandemic, the Atlantic Mills is almost full, with an estimated 88% of its occupiable space leased. Tenant businesses say that alternative spaces elsewhere in the city are far too expensive and lack the sense of community they prize at their current location.
“We call this a hidden gem,” said tenant Mike McNulty, who runs a woodshop there.
Real estate: ‘Hidden gem’: Pending sale of Atlantic Mills leaves tenants worried about their future
All summer long, American Mussel Harvesters’ 8-acre oyster farm south of the Jamestown Bridge sat idle.
The problem wasn’t the oysters. It was the 90-minute voyage to get there. And Adam Silkes, who oversees the operation, just couldn’t justify burning all that time and fuel.
Until a few years ago, American Mussel Harvesters kept its boats at a marina near the company’s Quonset headquarters, so shellfish only had a five-minute trip from dock to cooler. Then, according to Silkes, the cost of dock space more than doubled.
“It’s reaching crisis proportions, honestly,” said Bob Rheault, executive director of both the Ocean State Aquaculture Association and East Coast Shellfish Growers Association. If you can’t access your farm, he said, “it’s a death knell.”
Read the full story to learn what’s causing the shortage of affordable dock space, and what solutions are being proposed to protect the state’s aquaculture industry.
Local news: Rising prices leave oyster farmers, quahoggers searching for places to dock their boats
“It just makes sense to be a Republican in Rhode Island!” proclaims a whiteboard in the unassuming headquarters of the Rhode Island GOP.
GOP chairman Joe Powers, who came up with the slogan, argues that people are “sick and tired” after almost 90 years of Democratic rule. But when asked about the main obstacles that he faces when trying to enlist candidates, he answers bluntly: “Being a Republican in Rhode Island.”
Rhode Island voters have gone nearly two decades without electing a Republican to any of the state’s top offices or to Congress. And GOP members are shut out of many of the positions that typically serve as a pipeline to political advancement.
Political Scene explores how Powers and the state GOP’s new executive director, 22-year-old Aidan Carey, are trying to build the party’s bench and chip away at Democrats’ supermajority.
Political Scene: Is there a path for Republicans in RI? Inside the party’s effort to build its bench.
Journal columnist Mark Patinkin was scrolling through Instagram one day when he came across a post with stunning aerial nighttime footage of Providence, backed by classical music.
Curious about the person behind the page captured.by.marc, he tracked down Marc Bontemps, a Montreal native now living in Providence who wanted to show off the beauty of his adopted city. Bontemps became a licensed drone pilot, capturing images ranging from WaterFire to tugboats on Narragansett Bay, and he displayed his craft while being interviewed on Providence’s pedestrian bridge.
Mark Patinkin: Drone pilot’s videos hold Providence in the highest regard. How he works his aerial magic
To read the full stories, go to providencejournal.com. Find out how to subscribe here.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island state police make multiple arrests in single night – Newport Dispatch
![Rhode Island state police make multiple arrests in single night – Newport Dispatch Rhode Island state police make multiple arrests in single night – Newport Dispatch](https://www.newportdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Sirens-8.jpg)
NORTH KINGSTOWN — Rhode Island State Police arrested four individuals on various charges during a series of traffic stops and warrant executions on Nov. 15.
At 4:45 p.m., troopers arrested Noel Morales, 52, of Meriden, Connecticut, as a fugitive from justice on a third-degree assault charge from Connecticut.
Morales was apprehended during a traffic stop on Route 95 in Exeter.
William Zuercher, 64, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, was arrested at 8:58 p.m. for driving under the influence and refusing a chemical test after being stopped on Route 95 in Exeter.
Zuercher was arraigned and released to a responsible adult.
At 10:20 p.m., Richard Adorno, 43, of Providence, Rhode Island, was arrested on a warrant for domestic violence simple assault during a traffic stop in Warwick.
He was later transferred to Providence police custody.
Derek Iraheta, 45, of West Warwick, Rhode Island, was arrested at 1:51 a.m. on Nov. 16 on warrants for domestic violence simple assault and failure to relinquish a telephone.
Iraheta was stopped on Route 95 in East Greenwich and later turned over to Warwick police.
All arrests were processed at the Hope Valley Barracks.
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