Honolulu, HI: Following five years of rapid growth in the number of patients legally permitted to use marijuana as a medicine in the state of Hawaii since the law was adopted in 2000, enrollment in the program dropped sharply last year. According to Keith Kamita, administrator of the Narcotics Enforcement Division of the Department of Public Safety, the state agency that runs the medical use program, the number of certified patients has dropped nearly 22% over the last ten months.
Pamela Lichty, head of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, said the cause of the decline in patients is uncertain, but troubling, indicating she suspects there may be fewer physicians willing to certify patients. Lichty’s group has been lobbying the state legislature to move the program out of the Department of Public Safety, a law enforcement agency, to the Department of Health, a more appropriate agency for handling a program for seriously ill patients. Moving the program will encourage more patients to use the program, and will ease the anxiety of physicians who are asked to certify patients, Lichty said.
More than 2,000 patients have been certified for medical use in Hawaii, with more than half of those living on the Big Island. Allegedly one single physician is responsible for 879 patients, more than half of those certified on the Big Island. Certification permits a patient to have up to three mature marijuana plants, four immature plants, and up to one ounce of usable plant material for each mature plant. A patient has to renew his certification each year.
For more information on medical marijuana in Hawaii, contact the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii @ http://www.dpfhi.org/