Despite an all-out political push reinforced by some of the best-known lobbyists in the state, an effort to establish state-regulated dispensaries to distribute marijuana to legally registered patients in Hawaii remains in limbo.
The measure stalled during last-minute negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers Friday and appeared to be dead, but was later revived in a last-minute procedural maneuver.
Senators said they wanted to reopen the issue, and lawmakers could revisit the bill Monday if there is enough support in the House.
"It’s such an unusual circumstance that we’re trying to figure out the best way to do it," said Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English.
Nearly 15 years after state lawmakers approved the prescription and use of medical marijuana, patients still have no legal way of purchasing cannabis. They are in effect required to grow their own supply, and many are believed to rely instead on the black market to obtain their medicinal pot.
In a heated exchange Friday afternoon, House Health Chairwoman Della Au Belatti told Senate Health Chairman Josh Green they had narrowed the issues down to one. She said the "only and last point remaining" was how the operators of Hawaii’s potentially lucrative dispensaries would be selected.
The Senate proposed that dispensary operators be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, while the House argued for a merit-based selection process.
Green (D, Kona-Kau) said what the House was calling "merit-based" actually amounted to undefined "behind-closed-doors decision making that has utterly no connection to what would be right or wrong." He said first-come, first-served is an objective, clear way to select dispensary operators.
After restating her arguments on the issue, Belatti (D, Moiliili-Makiki-Tantalus) told Green that "the House cannot accept the Senate’s position, and I’m sorry, but this bill is deferred." She then pounded the gavel angrily and walked quickly out of a second-floor hearing room in the state Capitol, signaling the measure is dead for the year.
"The patients just got screwed again," said Teri Heede, a 60-year-old medical marijuana patient who lobbied for the bill. Heede said she used marijuana because it helps her cope with her multiple sclerosis.
"We have very sick people in this community, and several people that I know of who just died this year, and they can’t grow their own medication," Heede said. "Black market is not the way to go for patients."
