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THE SENATE |
S.C.R. NO. |
221 |
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THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2022 |
H.D. 1 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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SENATE CONCURRENT
RESOLUTION
REQUESTING THE LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU TO CONDUCT A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CURRENT PRICES OF AND ACCESS TO MEDICAL CANNABIS AND THE VOLUME OF ILLICIT CANNABIS SALES IN THE STATE.
WHEREAS, Act 241, Session Laws of 2015 (Act 241), established a regulated statewide medical cannabis dispensary system to ensure that patients have safe and legal access to medical cannabis; and
WHEREAS, since the passage of Act 241, medical cannabis dispensaries licensed under the State's dispensary law have averaged only a thirty-one percent market share of the State's registered medical cannabis patients; and
WHEREAS, the remaining sixty-nine percent of registered medical cannabis patients, equating to more than twenty thousand patients, purchase medical cannabis from the illicit market or from cannabis grown by themselves or their caregivers; and
WHEREAS, from 2018 to 2021, 13,851 people registered as new medical cannabis patients, yet only 3,675, or 26.5 percent, of these new registered patients purchase medical cannabis from a licensed dispensary; and
WHEREAS, this problem could be partially attributable to the lack of access to licensed dispensaries, as the medical cannabis dispensary law only allows eight dispensary licenses statewide and each licensee may only have two retail dispensing locations, which has resulted in only sixteen licensed retail dispensing locations across the State; and
WHEREAS, another contributing factor to the high rate of illicit medical cannabis purchases could be the price of medical cannabis from a licensed dispensary as compared to cannabis from the illicit market; and
WHEREAS, the State has an interest in reducing the amount of illicit cannabis sales to ensure that medical cannabis patients have access to regulated, tested, and safe cannabis products; support the growth of the legal medical cannabis industry in Hawaii; and raise tax revenues gathered from legal medical cannabis sales activity; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2022, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Legislative Reference Bureau is requested to conduct a study on the relationship between current prices of and access to medical cannabis and the volume of illicit cannabis sales in the State; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislative Reference Bureau is requested to submit a report of its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2023; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Health and Director of the Legislative Reference Bureau.
LRB; Report; Medical Cannabis; Illicit Sales