Daryl Huff
Mar. 26, 2025
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Big reforms may be in store for Hawaii’s medical marijuana program along with a crackdown on illicit cannabidiol (CBD) outlets.
The changes would make it much easier to get medical cannabis and harder to find it illegally.
State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, Consumer Protection chair, said lawmakers are giving up on legalizing adult recreational marijuana for the time being, and shifting their focus to making the medical marijuana system better for dispensaries and patients.
“These people have to go somewhere and we don’t want them going to organized crime in the black market for their medical conditions,” Keohokalole said.
Hawaii’s 25-year-old medical marijuana system has needed updating for years. Fewer people are using regulated dispensaries and may be turning to unlicensed CBD stores and illegal dealers.
They were also concerned about community grow sites getting too big.
“The loophole became a massive giant hole that was essentially undercutting the whole industry, and so that’s what we need to. That’s why we need to regulate,” Keohokalole said.
Senators, led by Health chair Joy San Buenaventura, have proposed a host of changes, most of which have been discussed in prior legislative sessions.
One of the biggest changes would let a medical professional decide if cannabis would help a patient, instead of having to follow a restrictive list of ailments.
Medical cannabis advocate Dr. Clifton Otto said that could bring many more patients into the system with issues that weren’t on the official list.
“These three conditions, anxiety, insomnia and depression, are things that I think a certifying provider could reasonably consider for patients who are suffering from these,” he said.
More dispensary outlets would be authorized for rural areas under, and for the first time, licensed cultivators that could sell medical-grade cannabis to the dispensaries.
Dr. Otto said that could improve the products available at the dispensaries.
“We need to have more cultivators who are producing high quality flower for patients,” he said. “So that could be a potential benefit, but that’s a big change.”
Keohokolole said the so-called “horizontal” model of regulation is considered best practice in other states.
“They’d essentially be able to wholesale to various retail locations, which is the way alcohol works. It’s the way tobacco works. It’s easier to regulate,” he said.
Bills in both houses would also restore the system of caregivers to help people who want home-grown product, although Andrew Goff, the state Health Department’s chief of medical cannabis control and regulation, opposed letting caregivers help more than one patient at a time.
“We would ask that one-to-one relationship be maintained to reduce the risk of commercial operations and diversions,” he said to the House Health committee, which rejected the Senate’s proposal that would have allowed one caregiver to work with up to five patients.
The bills would also crack down on CBD stores by requiring licenses, seizing products with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and shutting them down.
“So it’s not only the ability to immediately seize and immediately fine and forfeit, but also be able to go after the establishments themselves,” San Buenaventura said.
Additional law enforcement and investigative power would extend oversight to anyone abusing the regulations, including patients and caregivers, which concerns advocates like Dr. Otto.
“Patients already have to violate federal law to participate,” he said. “So if you start adding on all these punitive measures, patients are going to think it’s not worth the effort and they’re going to go back underground.”
The Senate proposals, contained in House Bills 302 and 1482, will be heard jointly by the Ways and Means and Judiciary committees before they go back to the House.
Although it’s a lot of material to absorb late in the session, House leaders said they do agree about the need to improve the dispensary system and crack down on the illicit markets.
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