A pair of Senate committees in Hawaii have advanced an amended medical cannabis bill that would, in its new form, allow healthcare providers to recommend marijuana for any debilitating condition they believe is “appropriate” for the treatment instead of only being able to help patients who have maladies on a specific list, as is the case under current law.
Hawaii’s governor has previously floated expanding access to medical marijuana in such a way while broader recreational cannabis legalization bills have failed to reach his desk.
The medical cannabis measure, HB 302 from Rep. Gregg Takayama (D), was approved by both the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services and the Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection on Wednesday. It has already passed the full House of Representatives in earlier form.
As introduced, the proposal would also clarify that under state law, a medical marijuana recommendation would no longer need to be made by a doctor who had conducted “an initial in-person consultation” with a patient.
One of a handful of changes adopted by the panels before Wednesday’s votes, however, amended the definition of “debilitating medical condition” in the law’s section on qualifying conditions to mean “any condition determined by the certifying physician or [advanced practice registered nurse] to be appropriate for the medical use of cannabis.”
That effectively would open the door to wider access to patients who might have conditions that stand to benefit from medical marijuana but whose ailments haven’t been specifically recognized by state officials. Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project, told the panel in testimony at the hearing that “providers can prescribe far more dangerous medications off-label.”
“One in every five prescriptions is off-label in the U.S., which means for a condition other than the one it was approved for by the [Food and Drug Administration],” she said. “At least ten other medical cannabis states allow doctors to recommend cannabis for other conditions or all other serious conditions. We urge you to follow suit.”
Hawaii was the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana through its legislature, passing a law in 2000.
Sen. Joy San Buenaventura […]
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