A proposal establishing a medical marijuana pilot project appears dead this year.

Lawmakers decided to defer the proposal in Senate Bill 1458, calling on advocates to further study the issues and come up with recommendations for next year.

Originally, lawmakers had proposed a five-year pilot project establishing a “compassionate care” distribution center on an island to be determined. 

The latest version of the proposal, floated today, would have delayed the opening of the distribution center for two years while a working group studied ways to cut down on alleged abuses of the existing medical marijuana statute.

Sen. Josh Green, the Senate health committee chairman, had sought tougher restrictions on medical marijuana, saying more than half of Big Island patients with legal prescriptions were young adults under the age of 30.