Hawaii

News

Police arrested a 24-year-old man after he allegedly stabbed another man in a drug deal gone bad in Waikiki Sunday night, police said.

University of Hawaii researchers have discovered that the use of marijuana may reverse heart failure.

Sales at Hawaii's six medical marijuana dispensaries totaled $6.7 million in the past 10 months, and their earnings are likely to grow with two changes to the state's cannabis law.

Hawaii is another step closer to finding out whether industrial hemp could be a major crop. The state Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month that it is accepting applications for state licenses to grow hemp.

Letters

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.

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!

The concern about how the federal government will affect legalized medical cannabis (marijuana) dispensaries in the Hawaiian Islands (as a state of islands marijuana sales tricky for Hawaii, Feb. 29) is another reason to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders on the March 26, Democratic Presidential Primary Caucus. Sanders, is committed to removing cannabis from its historically discredited Schedule I substance classification alongside heroin (while meth and cocaine are only Schedule II substances), which will allow interstate and interisland commerce without threat from the federal government.

It will be highly lucrative for those groups awarded the medical marijuana dispensary licenses. Unfortunately, applicants who get chosen will be accused of undue influence and conflicts of interest. Those who don't will likely file lawsuits. What to do? I suggest we discard the panel to select the groups. Instead, have the state Department of Health choose the approved applicants in a fair way with an equal playing field.

Remember "government of the people, by the people and for the people"? The state Department of Health has the fate of thousands of medical marijuana patients in its hands.

As a Colorado citizen who helped re-legalize cannabis, Jeffrey K. Coakley's misinformed letter (Real motivation for marijuana isn't medicine, Jan. 14,), demands much correction.

Oh, how to respond to Mr. Coakley and his North Hawaii Community Associations letter to the editor on Jan. 13?

Commercial cannabis (marijuana) in Colorado currently is grown indoors ("Like it or not, legalizing pot could be boon for local ag," Star-Advertiser, David Shapiro, Jan. 10).

Opinions

Since 2000, the state of Hawaii has had a medical-use-of-marijuana program to provide patients with chronic illness a safe and effective treatment option. As we progress through 2017 and in anticipation of opening dispensaries, it is now the appropriate time to remove the inconsistent treatment of cannabis as an illegal substance from Hawaii law. It would seem the state Legislature agrees, as there are over 10 bills seeking to decriminalize marijuana; over 10 bills expanding the current dispensary program (even though dispensaries haven't opened yet); over five bills trying to open the state in some way to industrial hemp; and several bills claiming portions of the tax revenue from still unopened dispensaries - all alongside two or three bills with a more "boogeyman" and much less science-based approach. For example, House Bill 922 points out that 90 percent of the state's medical marijuana certifications are issued by just 10 doctors, then asserts this is due to some abuse ! of the system instead of the fact that most doctors feel their license will be in danger if they issue marijuana certifications, or the fact that many people choose to seek marijuana certifications from doctors who specialize in cannabis rather than their regular doctor.

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.

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

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.

Papers