Medical Marijuana Proponents Predict Big Increase in Users

New data from the state Department of Health confirms Hawaii County has nearly twice as many medical marijuana patients as Oahu, with about 11 percent living in Pahoa alone.

On June 30, there were 6,101 patients residing on Hawaii Island, comprising 42 percent of the 14,492 patients statewide. The island has about 13 percent of the state's total population.

Pahoa, with an estimated 14,565 residents in 2014, had 702 of those patients. Meanwhile, Hilo - with roughly three times the population as Pahoa - had 637 patients. Kona had 705 and Oahu had 3,408 patients.

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Afederal appeals court gave medical marijuana advocates what seemed like a big win this week with a unanimous ruling that the federal government cannot prosecute people who grow and distribute medicinal cannabis if they comply with state laws.

The decision affirms a mandate from Congress that barred the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 and 2015 from bringing cases against legitimate pot shops in states that have medical marijuana laws. It makes clear that if operators are meticulously following the rules, they shouldn't have to worry about the feds coming after them.

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I'm writing in response to Mr. McClure's letter to the editor on July 31 regarding Colorado's experience with legalized marijuana.

It must have been a shock for him to return to Denver after almost 30 years and find that the place had changed.

My husband and I moved from Denver to Waikoloa Village 20 years ago but have been visiting almost every year since to see family and friends.

Yes, Denver has changed over the years, but it happened long before the legalization of marijuana three years ago. The population of the Denver Metro area increased by 50 percent between 1980 and 2000. At the risk of stereotyping, traffic really started to get bad in the 1980s when the city received an influx of Californians who brought their driving habits of honking as soon as the light turns green and running red lights regularly with them. And more people means more cars and more traffic on the roads.

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Recently, our state fitted nine favored companies with licenses to cultivate and provide medical marijuana to the sick, which will generate millions of dollars in profits.

If we are going to legalize medical marijuana in Hawaii, the community should benefit from the profits.

Why not team with the state Department of Agriculture to form a medical marijuana agency that would help minimize patients' expenses?

Tony Gonzalez Waianae

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Many Doctors Are Adopting a Risk-Averse Attitude and Want to Wait Until Dispensaries Are Established

Health care providers have been slow to embrace the medical marijuana industry even though July 15 was the legal opening date for the state's first dispensaries. The number of doctors certifying medical cannabis patients only climbed slightly over the past six months. There were 88 physicians who certified 14,492 patients as of June 30, up from 79 doctors and 13,150 patients on Dec. 31, according to the state Health Department.

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On July 7, Gov. David Ige signed into law what might prove to be the most important piece of economic legislation in the past 50 years. Hawaii now enjoys the best hemp law in the nation.

We who have been active in bringing back hemp to agriculture believe that generations will still be saying mahalo to those who worked, some for decades, to get this law passed. Now it's time to implement it.

The hemp industry is growing 1,000 percent per year in the U.S., despite the "research only" provision for hemp in federal law. No place is more ready to lead hemp's resurgence than the Aloha State. Our year-round cultivation climate, small farmer infrastructure, and bottom line need for a regenerative agriculture economy means we have all the pieces of the puzzle.

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DOH Says Inspections Still To Be Completed

LIHUE - The more than 1,600 registered medical marijuana patients on Kauai may not be getting their medicine at a licensed dispensary in July.

Department of Health officials said facility inspections of the state eight licensees have yet to take place. That means dispensaries won't be ready to open a retail establishment by July 15, the earliest date legislators allowed them to start selling medicine to registered patients.

"The Department of Health is unable to predict the progress by each licensee because there are a number of requirements that are outside of our department's control," said Janice Okubo, DOH spokeswoman.

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Legislators Field Marijuana Questions at Meeting in Pahoa

Hawaii's medical marijuana dispensary law isn't perfect - far from it - - but it's a start, and the state needs to begin somewhere.

That's how lawmakers characterized the up-and-coming dispensary system Thursday evening to a fired up crowd in Pahoa, many who pointed out what they called flaws in the way the law was written.

"What we came up with, I don't choose to defend, I think it's extremely imperfect," state Sen. Russell Ruderman, D-Puna, told the nearly 100 attendees, which appeared to include several patients and marijuana users. "But it's a step, and we're going to keep taking steps. I think five years from now, the situation is going to look dramatically different than it does now. Meanwhile, it's like walking through mud - you can't run, you gotta keep moving forward."

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The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition.

Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker, said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country.

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The Hawaii Legislature's fixation on marijuana as a medical cure-all is starting to resemble a remake of the Cheech and Chong classic, "Up in Smoke."

As lawmakers meticulously tweaked the medical marijuana law that could see local dispensaries selling pot within months, more pressing medical concerns - failing state hospitals, doctor shortages, bullying insurers - got little relief in the 2016 session.

The Legislature grudgingly threw cash-strapped Wahiawa General Hospital a $2.5 million Band-Aid only because the district's senator was in a position to hold up the entire state budget without it.

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So, proposed new laws might make it legal for cannabis dispensaries to grow pakalolo in sunlight, and nurses might be able to certify pot patients. Whoopee! Why not just decriminalize Hawaii's biggest cash crop, and tax dispensaries and growers, like grocery stores and farmers? End of story! Why is that so hard for the politicians to understand? It's about time government stops trying to protect people from themselves!

Fred Fogel

Volcano

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With Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Coming Soon, the Debate Shifts to Decriminalizing Some Drugs

Thirteen years after Hawaii legalized medical marijuana, the state is finally forging ahead with licensing marijuana dispensaries, issuing licenses to eight applicants on Friday. As it has in other states, that policy shift could usher in a new era of social norms. Back in 1973, Oregon was the first state to decriminalize small amounts of cannibas for recreational use. Four decades later, Oregon voters said yes to legalizing marijuana, as Colorado and Washington had already done in 2012. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized marijuana possession.

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HONOLULU (AP) - With less than a week to go before the state is scheduled to announce the names of its first medical marijuana dispensary owners, lawmakers are considering a bill to clarify gaps in the dispensary law passed last year.

State lawmakers discussed a bill during a hearing Monday that would clear up tax problems and give certain nurses the ability to recommend medical marijuana for patients. It also would allow for interisland transport of medical marijuana for laboratory testing and make rules for what kind of marijuana products could be sold in dispensaries.

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Once a decade, the United Nations organizes a meeting where every country in the world comes together to figure out what to do about drugs - and up to now, they've always pledged to wage a relentless war, to fight until the planet is "drug-free." They've consistently affirmed U.N. treaties written in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly by the United States, which require every country to arrest and imprison their way out of drug-related problems.

But at this year's meeting in New York City later this month, several countries are going to declare: This approach has been a disaster. We can't do this anymore. Enough.

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It seems more than a little disingenious for some to be heaping blame on the state Department of Health (DOH) over the medical-marijuana licensure deadline, now moved back two weeks, from Friday to April 29.

After all, it took the state Legislature some 15 years after OK'ing medical marijuana use before it finally approved a pot-dispensaries law last year. Huge potential for money-making could be at stake, not to mention keiki and public safety.

The DOH did misstep when it initially tried to keep the licensee selection panel secret, but delaying an arbitrary final deadline by two weeks isn't as egregious as some imply.

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Some Fear Dispensaries Will Limit Access and Be Cost-Prohibitive

Crippling stress, extreme pain and bad arthritis - for 72-year-old Subhadra Corcoran, cannabis is essentially the only fix.

The Kona resident has used the drug medicinally for decades. For the past 10 years, she's been a patient in Hawaii's medical marijuana program.

But later this year, when the state's first dispensaries can legally begin operating, Corcoran isn't planning to use them.

"I can't afford to buy pot," said Corcoran, who said she currently gets weed through a caregiver on the island. "I'm 72-years-old, disabled and living off Social Security ... if they had $10 (for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana), I would. If they would make it affordable and my insurance would cover, of course I would. But that's not going to happen."

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The county settled a lawsuit with a Puna man who claims police illegally confiscated the medical marijuana growing on his Fern Acres property almost four years ago.

The settlement with Brad Snow and three others was for a total of $4,800. Snow filed suit in May 2014, claiming his property was improperly raided during a marijuana eradication sweep June 14, 2012, even though the plaintiffs had medical marijuana cards and were in compliance with the law.

"The value of six months of marijuana growing in your backyard; they take it, and they don't give you anything for it," Snow said Tuesday. "They don't arrest you. They don't charge you. They just come and take your stuff. I did not have too many plants. I did not have too much marijuana."

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A House Resolution Requests a Study of Portugal, Which Stopped Prosecuting Users

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives want to study whether it would be feasible or wise to decriminalize possession of small quantities of illicit drugs for personal use in Hawaii.

House lawmakers Tuesday passed House Concurrent Resolution 127, which requests that the state Legislative Reference Bureau study the experience of Portugal. That European nation officially abolished all criminal penalties for possession of drugs for personal use in 2001.

Portugal still prosecutes major drug traffickers, but has made possession of small amounts of drugs an administrative violation that is handled without any criminal prosecutions. People who are caught with small quantities of drugs may be fined, referred to drug treatment or required to do community service.

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Not only did your newspaper make a rush to judgment (front page headlines above the fold on March 19) the local small and big box pharmacies have followed your lead and refuse to fill his prescriptions.

I would like to know if this is a conspiracy or mere coincidence. On March 22 Dr. Arrington wrote a prescription to me for an opiate for which I feel very thankful and fortunate to have been made available for the last 25 years due to a very painful debilitating progressive disease that will continue to painfully progress until I draw my last breath.

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State Lawmakers Ask DOH to Research That Question

HONOLULU (AP) - State lawmakers are asking how much marijuana a driver can safely consume before getting behind the wheel of a car.

It's an issue they want to tackle now that the state is setting up medical marijuana dispensaries. So, Rep. Cindy Evans, D-North Kona, North Kohala and South Kohala, and 15 other lawmakers introduced a resolution asking the state Department of Health to study whether a person can safely drive while under the influence.

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