Bill Text: HI SB3009 | 2016 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Medical Marijuana
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-02-18 - The committee on CPH deferred the measure. [SB3009 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2016-SB3009-Introduced.html
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THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
3009 |
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TWENTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE, 2016 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
Relating to medical marijuana.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature recognizes that chapter 160, Hawaii Administrative Rules, sets out the department of health's process to amend the list of debilitating medical conditions approved for medical marijuana, which includes a petition process for a physician or potentially qualifying patient to ask the department to add a new condition to the list. This process requires a public administrative hearing, which may be held as infrequently as once per year. A petition for rule amendment is the only way a patient with a condition that is not on the approved list can obtain medical marijuana. The legislature finds that since the medical marijuana program's inception in 2000, no changes to the list of debilitating medical conditions occurred until post-traumatic stress disorder was added in 2015 by legislative action through Act 241, Session Laws of Hawaii 2015.
A physician's ability to make timely recommendations for care based upon confidential consultations between the physician and the patient and the physician's utmost discretion in recommending appropriate, individualized treatment are necessary for successful treatment. Due to the often immediate need for treatment, the legislature finds that when a physician determines that the use of medical marijuana may benefit a patient's condition despite that condition's absence from the approved list, the process of petitioning for amendment of the department's approved list through administrative rulemaking may not be a feasible option.
Understandable concerns about the potential abuse of medical marijuana, particularly marijuana's primary psychoactive compound, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, have arisen throughout the life of the State's medical marijuana program. In 2009, the Office of National Drug Control Policy reported that the average THC potency in seized marijuana had doubled in the period from 1998 to 2008, with the average potency in 2008 being 10.1 per cent. Many marijuana strains now sold in the United States for recreational or medical use report THC content near twenty-five to thirty per cent or higher. The legislature recognizes these concerns and finds that affording physicians the ability to recommend higher THC marijuana solely at their discretion is not appropriate at this time. However, the legislature finds that lower THC marijuana, with its lessened psychoactive effects, has the potential to provide many additional patients relief and physicians should be able to legally recommend its use at the physician's discretion.
The purpose of this Act is to provide physicians the ability to certify patients to use low THC medical marijuana to treat any medical condition or illness for which the physician has determined medical marijuana would provide relief.
SECTION 2. Section 329-121, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending the definition of "debilitating medical condition" to read as follows:
""Debilitating medical condition" means:
(1) Cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or the treatment of these conditions;
(2) A chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment that produces one or more of the following:
(A) Cachexia or wasting syndrome;
(B) Severe pain;
(C) Severe nausea;
(D) Seizures, including those characteristic of epilepsy;
(E) Severe and persistent muscle spasms, including those characteristic of multiple sclerosis or Crohn's disease; or
(F) Post-traumatic stress disorder; or
(3) Any other medical condition:
(A) [approved] Approved
by the department of health pursuant to administrative rules in response to a
request from a physician or potentially qualifying patient[.]; or
(B) For which medical use of marijuana has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the patient's health would benefit from the use of marijuana; provided that the medical use of marijuana be limited to medical marijuana with a tetrahydrocannabinol potency that does not exceed five per cent."
SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.
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INTRODUCED BY: |
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Report Title:
Medical Marijuana
Description:
Amends the definition of "debilitating medical condition" to allow for greater physician discretion to prescribe low potency medical marijuana.
The summary description of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.
