Hawaii’s Governor has signed into law an expanded bill that will allow medical marijuana caregivers to cultivate cannabis for up to five patients instead of the existing one.
Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat from Washington State, signed SB1429 into law at the beginning of this month. According to the legislation’s introduction, the purpose is “to maintain and clarify the various options available to qualified patients for accessing a legal and safe supply of medical marijuana,” including primary caregivers.
In addition to increasing the limit on how many patients a caregiver can cultivate cannabis for, the new law also extends a state allowance for caregivers to cultivate marijuana for patients in the first place—a right that technically expired at the beginning of this year after lawmakers failed to amend a sunset date in prior legislation.
As the state legislature tries to come up with a policy solution, the Governor signed an Executive Order in December. This executive order has protected caregivers since then from any “undue” enforcement.
In a recent survey, only 55% of patients said that they purchased medical marijuana from dispensaries licensed by the state. This means that as many as 45 percent of medical marijuana patients get their supply from sources other than licensed dispensaries, such cultivation.
The report continues that patients “should have multiple options to obtain medical cannabis. This includes having their primary caregiver cultivate an adequate supply for them.”
A fine of not more than $5,000 would be levied by the Department of Health for violations of the new law.
In early April, lawmakers sent the bill along with cannabis-related legislation to Governor. This included a proposal allowing people to be enrolled as medical marijuana patients if their doctor believes cannabis can benefit any condition.
HB 302 would enable patients to obtain medical cannabis recommendation through telehealth sessions, instead of having to build a relationship in person with a healthcare provider.
In a separate incident, this month a bill supporting research on psychedelic assisted therapies which had been passed by both chambers in Hawaii’s Legislature under different names missed a deadline for legislative action and died.
SB 1042, from Sen. Chris Lee (D), was scheduled for a conference committee meeting—with lawmakers from both legislative chambers set to hammer out differences between versions of the bill passed by the House and Senate—but “Unfortunately, we ran out of time was the bottom line,” Lee told MEDCAN24 at the time.
Although the proposal is not likely to be moved forward in this session, Senators said that the conversations this time will help set the tone for renewed efforts in 2026.
Lawmakers also recently sent a bill to the governor that would help speed the expungement process for people hoping to clear their records of past marijuana-related offenses—a proposal Green signed into law in April.
That measure, HB 132, from Rep. David Tarnas (D), is intended to expedite expungements happening through a pilot program signed into law last year by Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat. It will specifically remove the distinction between marijuana, and other Schedule V substances for purposes of the program.
Bill’s supporters said that the existing wording in the law requires state officials to manually comb through thousands criminal records to determine which ones are eligible to be expunged under the pilot project.
Hawaii’s Senate back in February narrowly defeated a separate proposal that would have increased fivefold the amount of cannabis that a person could possess without risk of criminal charges. The body voted 12–11 against the decriminalization measure, SB 319, from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D).
The amount of cannabis that is decriminalized on Hawaii would be increased to 15 grams if the law had been passed. Possession up to the 15-gram limit of marijuana was a civil infraction punishable by $130.
During the same time, an adult-friendly marijuana bill in the Senate was stalled. SB 1613 was unable to get out of committee in time for a deadline.
While advocates felt there was sufficient support for the legalization proposal in the Senate, it’s widely believed that House lawmakers would have ultimately scuttled the measure, as they did last month with a legalization companion bill, HB 1246.
Last session, a Senate-passed legalization bill also fizzled out in the House.
This year’s House vote to stall the bill came just days after approval from a pair of committees at a joint hearing. The panels had received almost 300 pages of testimonies from various state agencies, advocacy groups and the general public.
This past fall, regulators solicited proposals to assess the state’s current medical marijuana program—and also sought to estimate demand for recreational sales if the state eventually moves forward with adult-use legalization. The move was interpreted by some as an indication that the regulators were preparing for a possible reform.
Hawaii became the first U.S. State to pass a medical marijuana law through its legislative branch in 2000.
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Side Pocket Images. Photo by Chris Wallis.