A push is underway within the Hawaii Legislature to broaden the state’s medical marijuana program after efforts to legalize adult-use once more didn’t advance.
In keeping with Hawaii Information Now, payments within the Senate and the way more conservative Home comprise a number of provisions aimed to spice up enrollment within the MMJ program whereas thwarting unlicensed and unregulated provide channels.
Proposals embody:
Permitting medical professionals to suggest hashish for sufferers as an alternative of adhering to a restrictive checklist of qualifying circumstances.
Permitting licensed cultivators to wholesale medical marijuana merchandise on to retailers.
Including dispensaries in rural areas.
One other invoice would enhance enforcement of unlawful CBD shops by requiring licenses, seizing merchandise containing THC and shuttering such institutions, Hawaii Information Now reported.
All of the laws, in accordance with lawmakers, is designed to prop up the state’s stagnant MMJ market.
The variety of registered medical sufferers in Hawaii has been steadily falling since at the least September 2023.
On the finish of February, there have been 29,820 in-state sufferers, down from 31,581 in February 2024, or roughly 5.5%, in accordance with the most recent statistics from the state’s well being division.