(9.4) Governor Lincoln Chafee is an interesting choice for the Democratic National Convention given his past life as a Republican and current Independent status. Personally I hope he uses every second of his time at the podium talking about what a douchebag Curt Schilling is. However, he will probably take the goddam high road.

Jim Taricani was given a preview copy of the Governor’s remarks and it all sounds very healing and anodyne (TurnTo10 report here). Come on Linc, less noblesse and more ass-kicking! We’ll see.

Governor Chafee is scheduled to speak between 8pm and 9pm. CNN starts coverage at 7pm.

[Additional Note: The Governor did a fine job with his unique perspective. Watch Chafee's speech here. Also, Ian Donnis has posted the text of the speech over at WRNI. And finally, the convention correspondent for RI's Future, John McDaid, discusses Chafee's remarks with the R.I. delegation.]

Medical marijuana advocates rejoice! Maybe Santa can bring a little Christmas Kush to Rhode Islanders in pain and distress. Governor Chafee has joined with Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire in asking federal authorities to reclassify marijuana. The reaction over at NORML,

NORML began the entire legal and political debate about ‘medical marijuana’ in 1972 when it launched a 24-year re-scheduling effort, that is still laboring on all these years.

Therefore to finally witness governors so frustrated with the absurdly mis-scheduled cannabis plant as being dangerous, addictive and possessing no medical utility (wrongly grouped with heroin and LSD) that they are reaching out to the president to fix this clear injustice and warping of science is a clear demonstration that the friction between the federal government’s recalcitrance on accepting medical cannabis (or for that matter ending Cannabis Prohibition in total) and state politicians who can no longer justify towing the fed’s ridiculous ban on physician-prescribed cannabis to sick, dying and sense-threatened medical patients is coming to a dramatic conclusion in a government showdown, one that may bode well for the larger Cannabis Prohibition reforms needed, festering just below the surface of the public’s mass acceptance of medical access to cannabis.

Marijuana — currently on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act — is regarded as more dangerous than Schedule II drugs such as methamphetamine, oxycodone and cocaine. Make sense? The New York Times suggests that the move has “injected new political muscle into the long-running debate on the status of marijuana.” Muscle! Chafee! (Full disclosure: I am a LEAP speaker advocating an end of the war on drugs, all drugs.) Chafee and Gregoire hope to bypass congressional gridlock on this matter with an administrative decision.

Well done Governor Chafee. Stay the course.