On March 7, the Hawaii Senate voted to move an adult-use hashish invoice in a 22-3 vote. Additionally known as SB669 SD2, the invoice would arrange a framework for cultivation, manufacturing, gross sales, and taxes. It might enable residents to own as much as 30 grams, domesticate as much as six crops for private use, and in addition decriminalize small quantities of hashish as nicely.
The invoice was first launched by Sen. Pleasure A. San Buenaventura, Sen. Stanley Chang, Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, and Sen. Angus LK McKelvey on Jan. 20, and has constantly labored by way of quite a few committee hearings. Sen. Keohokalole chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce and Client Safety, the place amendments were addressed, together with establishing penalties for unlicensed cultivation, defending employers who wish to prohibit worker hashish use, stopping any hashish enterprise from opening inside 1,000 ft of youth-related areas, and different modifications to deal with hashish licensing that doesn’t enable monopolies to develop.
“Right this moment marks a big step ahead within the legalization of adult-use hashish in Hawaiʻi. These amendments are reflective of the Senate’s dedication to making sure a good and well-regulated hashish market that gives secure entry to each grownup customers and present medical sufferers,” stated Keohokalole. “If legalization of adult-use hashish is one thing that’s supported by the Governor, we hope his administration, which has to this point opposed each proposal to legalize adult-use hashish, will work with us to carry this to fruition.”
After passing within the Senate with amendments, it was despatched to the Home for consideration on the identical day.
On Jan. 11, a distinct adult-use hashish invoice, HB-237, was launched by Rep. Hawaii Rep. Jeanné Kapela. This invoice would set up a regulatory framework for legalization as nicely, however would additionally embody language to permit out-of-state sufferers to profit from medical hashish legislation, and would make medical hashish gross sales exempt from being charged with the overall excise tax. Moreover, Kapela launched HB-283, which might prohibit employers from discriminating in opposition to potential hires or present workers for his or her medical hashish consumption. Neither HB-237 and HB-238 have progressed previous hearings, which had been held in late January.
A latest ballot printed by the Hawaii Cannabis Industry Association on the finish of January discovered that 86% of grownup Hawaiian residents are in favor of legalizing adult-use hashish, with solely 9% in opposition, and 5% saying that they don’t know. The ballot additionally discovered that adult-use was barely extra widespread than medical, in a forty five% to 41% comparability. Total, the state might acquire as much as $81.7 million in taxes and $423 million in gross income if hashish legalization was handed.
A further report from the Dual Use Cannabis Task Force additionally printed its findings in January, and shared that hashish tax income might attain between $34 million to $53 million.
Kapela centered on the information offered by that activity drive report back to create the invoice she launched. “Everyone knows, and Hawaii’s folks know, that it’s excessive time to legalize leisure hashish use for adults in Hawaii. This yr we stand on the precipice of historical past,” Kapela stated. “Following the suggestions of a activity drive dedicated to addressing hashish coverage, we now have a roadmap for legalizing leisure hashish in our islands.”
Except for the tempo of assist for hashish legalization from legislators, efforts to legalize therapeutic psilocybin have additionally turn into widespread. One such invoice, SB-1454, was launched in January, and unanimously handed within the Senate Committee on Well being and Human Companies on Feb. 6. It goals to ascertain laws to create a “therapeutic psilocybin working group” to look at the medical advantages of psilocybin for situations akin to post-traumatic stress dysfunction, despair, nervousness, and end-of-life psychological misery.