Hawaii is financially literate, mostly

Hawaii was one of four states that earned an A-minus on this year’s National Report Card on Adult Financial Literacy, published this week by the Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy.

This was a composite score that folded in a lot of different scores. Hawaii people do well on student loan use and retirement readiness in the assessment, but fall short in personal finance knowledge and housing credit. It’s time to sharpen up the rest of the tools in the toolbox.

Legal medical marijuana just over the horizon

Barring launch-related setbacks, it appears that Hawaii’s medical marijuana patients will get the chance to make their first legal purchases in the islands (4 ounces every 15 days) by mid-2017 — nearly 17 years after the state created a registry. For patients contending with cancers and various other ailments and conditions, that’s a long time to wait.

Here’s hoping for expeditious clearing of remaining hurdles, including a test-drive of a regulatory seed-to-sale online tracking system.