Senate panels pass dispensary bill

The push to allow for medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii — some 15 years after state leaders permitted medical use of the drug — continues to advance through the Legislature, with key lawmakers in support saying they hope to give the state’s nearly 13,000 medical pot patients access to such outlets by early 2016.

On Wednesday the state Senate Health and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs committees unanimously voted to approve House Bill 321, which would create a framework to permit medical pot dispensaries across the islands.

The senators made their own amendments based on concerns they’re hearing from state health and public safety officials. Notably, according to their committee report, the senators deleted a House provision that said at least 26 dispensary licenses would be available.

In recent hearings Sen. Josh Green (D, Naa­lehu-Kai­lua-Kona) has said he wants to "stand up" a program as soon as possible, giving the state’s medical marijuana patients initial access to a smaller number of dispensaries and then expanding the program if the demand is there.

The move comes as some pro-dispensary lawmakers have expressed confidence that this could be the year that a framework finally becomes law.

Launching the statewide program with a "modest" number of dispensaries, perhaps in the low teens, could allow licensed operators to be approved in the fall and dispensaries opened in all counties in the first 90 days of 2016, Green said. If state leaders try to launch the program with a larger batch of dispensaries all at once, it could delay their opening by several years, he added.

House and Senate members will have to hash out the idea in conference, should the measure continue to advance. The Senate Judiciary and Ways and Means committees are slated to consider it next.

Gov. David Ige has also expressed support for giving qualified users legal access to the drug. Ige did not vote to approve the original 2000 act allowing medical marijuana use when he was a lawmaker because it didn’t offer such a mechanism for providing the drug to patients.

Currently it’s up to all of the state’s marijuana patients to grow their own supply.

Dispensary supporters say it’s unrealistic to expect sick and elderly patients to be able to cultivate the drug on their own. However, opponents, including Rep. Marcus Oshiro (D, Wahiawa-Whitmore-Poamoho), have pointed to state public safety numbers that found fewer than 3 percent of patients were unable to obtain medical marijuana.

Green and supporters say they don’t believe those numbers are accurate and that there’s a strong statewide demand for dispensaries.

At a hearing Friday, Kai­muki resident Maria Eloisa Reyes and her son, 19-year-old Kalani Reyes, told senators they’re "out of options" for treating Kalani’s lifelong severe epilepsy. They said they’d like for Kalani to try medical marijuana but that they don’t have legal access to the drug and they wouldn’t know how to properly cultivate it themselves.

Local law enforcement and public safety officials have repeatedly testified against the proposal, expressing concerns that the program could be abused by fraudulent users, who aren’t patients, and that dispensaries could lead to more crime and consume more of the police’s already limited resources.

Sen. Will Espero (D, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point), a staunch dispensary supporter, argued at Friday’s hearing that without those outlets many patients are currently acquiring pot that’s "grown illegally, sold illegally and distributed illegally."

Hawaii’s unique existence as an island state could also create unique complications on the matter. State Deputy Attorney General Jill Naga­mine strongly recommended to senators Friday that they include a ban on interisland travel with medical marijuana. However, such a ban could potentially exclude medical pot patients on Lanai and Molo­kai under a program with limited dispensaries per county if there are no such outlets available on those islands.

"That might be an exception that we have to pursue between that particular county," Green said Wednesday. "That has to be worked out."