Growing and smoking your own medicinal marijuana is nearly a reality in Hawai`i. The state’s Department of Public Safety slated a public hearing in Honolulu for Nov. 22 on its proposed administrative rules for implementing the recently enacted law on
Growing and smoking your own medicinal marijuana is nearly a reality in
Hawai`i.
The state’s Department of Public Safety slated a public hearing in
Honolulu for Nov. 22 on its proposed administrative rules for implementing the
recently enacted law on medical use of marijuana. Officials said citizen input
would help determine if modifications are needed to the proposed rules, which
focus on how qualified persons may register to use marijuana for medical
purposes.
Governor Ben Cayetano, a vigorous supporter of medicinal
marijuana, signed the practice into law in June after it won approval in the
Legislature.
Hawai`i is the seventh state to pass a law or voter initiative
permitting the medicinal use of marijuana.
According to state officials,
Hawaii’s plan most resembles Oregon’s and is the first to be passed by state
lawmakers and not approved by voter initiatives.
In Oregon and Hawai`i, the
patient or his or her authorized caregiver must grow the marijuana
themselves.
Oregon’s law went into effect in December 1998.
Keith
Kamita, a Hawai`i narcotics enforcement official, said Hawai`’s law isn’t
merely similar to Oregon’s statute. “It’s going to be exactly like Oregon,” he
said.
Patients will be issued a registration card listing their name, their
physician and their primary caregiver. In Oregon, if they are stopped by
police, “they just show the certificate and they are let go. It’s the same
here,” he said.
Kamita said that despite marijuana possession being a
federal misdemeanor or felony, local officers are being advised to refer
questions to the state Department of Narcotics.
And what will the state
say?
Under state law, the person stopped is authorized to possess the
marijuana. “We won’t refer them (local cops) to the feds,” Kamita
said.
Recently on the Big Island, the Hawai`i County Police returned a
$265,000 federal drug enforcement grant because of possible fallout from a
federally funded marijuana eradication program which had been in effect for
more than two decades.
Federal officials on Oahu have been diverting
queries on the new law to federal Drug Enforcement Agency offices in
Washington, D.C.
Marijuana is a federally scheduled drug and under federal
law cannot be prescribed.
Honolulu-based U.S. attorney Steve Alm told the
Associated Press that the state’s legalization of marijuana “doesn’t change
federal law.”
This spring, when the bill was in the state Senate, it was
strongly opposed by local law enforcement agencies and the Hawaii Medical
Association, among others.
Medical opposition here and in other states is
primarily based on the lack of data proving pot’s effectiveness. According to
the August issue of the Hawai`i Medical News, a publication for members of the
Hawaiian Medical Association, the HMA opposed the bill primarily because
“first, federal law still prohibits physicians from recommending marijuana to
their patients.”
Marijuana’s best known medical uses currently, in
addition to aiding glaucoma sufferers, are its ability to relieve the vomiting
and severe nausea caused by chemotherapy and for retarding weight loss.
Marijuana is known to improve appetite. But although studies are underway, the
amount of test results is minimal when compared to other, legal drug
remedies.
The HMA has advised caution to its member physicians, since
marijuana has not been fully tested in clinically controlled trials.
Again,
the Hawai`i Medical News: “Physicians should be extremely cautious when
(discussing) the risks and benefits of marijuana’s medical use. A physician may
be at risk of malpractice liability if a patient suffers an adverse effect, of
which the physician was unaware, that would likely have been identified if such
testing had taken place.”
In Oregon since that state’s law went into
effect, more than 750 registration cards have been issued to almost 500
patients and caregivers and nearly 300 physicians are participating, according
to Kelly Paige, the Oregon marijuana program manager.
And Paige told the
Associated Press that not one registered patient or caregiver has yet to be
convicted of even a misdemeanor offense connected to marijuana and not a single
card has been revoked.
So, if a sufferer finds a local physician who will
approve his or her use of marijuana, how much pot may they have?
The new
Hawai`i law states that the patient is allowed to have no more than three
mature marijuana plants, four immature marijuana plants, and one ounce of
usable marijuana per each mature plant.
Calls to Kaua`i County Prosecuting
Attorney Michael Soong and county police chief George Freitas seeking comment
were not returned.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at
245-3681 (ext. 252) and dwilken@pulitzer.net
