Lawmakers weeding through pot bills

Advanced practice registered nurses, who already prescribe prescription drugs, could start certifying patients for medical marijuana under a bill passed out of committee Wednesday.

House Bill 2707, one of roughly 60 bills related to medical marijuana, also permits pot samples to be transported interisland for testing and eliminates penalties for patients who use paraphernalia, such as pipes and vape pens, to take their medicine. Friday is an internal deadline to move bills to the next committee to keep them alive.

The bill loosens the dispensary rules by clarifying that background checks won’t be required for patients, caregivers and government employees entering a marijuana shop, and allows the University of Hawaii to conduct independent lab testing of pakalolo for medical research. The measure overrides Health Department rules prohibiting dispensary sales of cigarettes, patches and aerosol containers used to inhale the drug.

“Momentum is behind improving the medical marijuana program,” said Becky Dansky, legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit advocacy organization that is tracking legislation in Hawaii. “Everyone’s just really focused on fixing the medical marijuana program since they’re hoping to have that up and running by this summer. This is a very new issue for states and it’s happening very quickly.”

Lawmakers are holding a hearing today on another key bill making headway at the Legislature. Senate Bill 2523 would allow marijuana producers to use greenhouses, shade houses and open-air growing centers, currently banned under Health Department rules. Another measure, Senate Bill 3009, would give doctors more discretion to certify patients for medical marijuana.

Hawaii legalized medical cannabis in 2000 but did not provide a way for patients to obtain the drug. Act 241, signed into law last year, authorizes the Department of Health to issue eight dispensary licenses: three on Oahu, two each on Hawaii island and Maui, and one on Kauai. Each licensee will be allowed to operate two production centers and two retail centers for a total of 16 dispensaries statewide, starting as early as July.

Despite the numerous marijuana-related bills, about half of which carried over from last session, legislators are not making any major changes to the medical cannabis program. Bills to decriminalize recreational marijuana use are not moving forward, nor is a bill to issue temporary medical marijuana cards to patients while they wait to get their permanent cards.

“One of the things we pushed for that is not going to happen is temporary certificates for patients. The DOH convinced the Legislature that it’s not necessary, which is very shortsighted. There was a backlog just a few months ago,” said Carl Bergquist, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii. “To not have a mechanism in place to deal with that seems unfortunate.”

The DOH announced Wednesday that it is now able to issue patient registration cards for medical marijuana in a fraction of the time it took a year ago. With the introduction of a new online registry, it takes three to five business days for the department to issue registration cards to patients, down from six to eight weeks when there was a backlog of patients last year. The department expects the number of patients to double to 26,000 from about 13,000 with the opening of dispensaries.

“Without compromising the integrity of our review process or the safety of Hawaii’s people, we brought everything up to speed and improved our processing time so that patients can receive their registration cards faster,” said Scottina Ruis, the Health Department’s medical marijuana registry program coordinator, in a news release. “With the dispensary program targeted to be in operation as early as July 2016, medical marijuana will be more accessible. The online registration process is the first step to help ensure that we are ready for any increase in demand for registration cards.”