PROVIDENCE – Gov. Donald L. Carcieri has vetoed the legislation passed by both houses of the General Assembly that would create and regulate nonprofit marijuana-dispensing “compassion centers” in the state.

The centers are designed to make the controlled substance available to patients certified by their doctors for medicinal use of the drug. Currently, while certified patients are allowed to possess marijuana, there is no legal way to obtain it. In addition, the federal government continues to prohibit the growing and sale of marijuana, putting the state at odds with federal law. Since being named attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. has said that the government would not pursue medical marijuana possession. But Carcieri noted in a letter he sent to the legislature along with his veto, that despite these assurances, individual growers and compassion centers still would be “at risk for prosecution by the federal government.”

The legislation passed the state Senate by a 31-to-2 margin and the House by a 63-to-5 vote. But the governor, in other comments on the veto, said that “allowing the manufacture and sale of federally illegal drugs would send the wrong message to our children and would place them at risk.”

The General Assembly has not scheduled a vote to override the veto.