Don’t rush licenses for pot dispensaries
Complaints about the creaking wheels of government rolling along too slowly are commonplace, and usually deserved. This time, where it concerns the state’s fledgling medical marijuana industry, taking sufficient time to do the job right is essential.
The eight groups that were issued medical marijuana dispensary licenses are still waiting for the go-ahead to start their businesses, three months after the July 15 statutory start date has passed.
State Department of Health officials reported to a legislative oversight committee last week that the extra time is needed to finalize arrangements for a “seed-to-sale” tracking system.
The software vendor BioTrackTHC, a Florida company, was tapped to install the tracking system but the contract isn’t yet inked, largely due to complications of integration with an existing department database.
The licensees are certainly frustrated, especially given that the department cannot yet give a projected date that the system would be ready or when dispensaries could start cultivating.
And the complaints have been coming in from the potential buyers of the drug as well, those who hold the required medical marijuana certificates.
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One who wrote to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser pointed out that the tracking systems have been in existence for some time, and that “integrating them into any other existing programs shouldn’t take this long, either.”
It would be nice if that were true. Unfortunately, very few such assumptions can be made where information technology upgrades and compatibility with existing systems are concerned. Hawaii is notoriously behind the eight ball on IT infrastructure.
And the system will be crucial. The tracking system will register and follow plants as they are grown, processed and sold to guard against illegal use of the marijuana.
The new software must interface with an existing patient registry system to prevent dispensaries from exceeding the cap on the amount to be sold to each patients: 8 ounces monthly. Unless the systems are coordinated, patients could shop at multiple dispensaries and get around that restriction.
If that safeguard isn’t in place at the start, it will be all but impossible to provide the assurance of legality to the public.
Hawaii was on the vanguard of legalizing medical marijuana, passing the original law 16 years ago. However, until last year there was no provision for the patients to obtain the drug, other than by growing it themselves.
Last year, lawmakers passed Act 241, clearing the way for the issuances of eight licenses for a total of 16 medical marijuana dispensaries.
At least one dispensary, Maui Wellness Group, reports it’s ready to start cultivating plants and has hired a dozen employees and has leased agricultural land and a retail facility. Those are expenses it can’t readily recoup, because cultivation takes at least three or four months, and now the company won’t meet its goal of starting sales by year’s end.
Maui state Sen. Roz Baker wants to keep bureaucracy at bay: “You don’t necessarily have to wait for everything until you get started” with cultivation, said Baker.
Of course, the Health Department must work to keep delays to a minimum. Critics are right that the lag in start-up on the production end also has delayed the development of product safety laboratories. And patients have a legitimate complaint about waiting for a workable dispensary network to be established.
But it’s better that they wait a bit longer than that the state builds a shoddy foundation for a new industry: The tracking system does need to be in place before any green lights flash.
The stance taken by the department, expressed by spokeswoman Janice Okubo, is the right one: “It is a huge responsibility and it’s not something we’re going to take lightly or rush through.”
11 responses to “Don’t rush licenses for pot dispensaries”
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Medical marijuana is supposed to be high quality ‘pot’. Illegal activity is a vital concern.
“Don’t rush licenses for pot dispensaries”
These individuals who were aware these licenses already have them. They followed every rule and jumped through every hoop.
Right now, today, there are sick people out there with cancer and AIDS and chronic pain who might benefit from access to this medicine. The State of Hawaii is being its typical obstructive and incompetent self, and you are making excuses for them once again.
If the state can’t figure out how to track plants, that’s not the licensees fault, nor is it the patient’s fault and neither should have to suffer because of their incompetence. This is as big a mess as they made with the implementation of Obamacare where they made a massive amount of money disappear with nothing to show for it before turning it back over to the Feds.
“Right now, today, there are sick people out there with cancer and AIDS and chronic pain who might benefit from access to this medicine.” This is true of you define put as medicine.
Even more true for many such patients in Hawaii is the inability to access real medical care, even when they have paid their health plan $thousands and $thousands for it.
Why is Roz Baker providing stuck close oversight and concern about access to Marijuana, but she had done nothing about widespread lack of access to real medical care?
It is unlawful in Hawaii for health plans to fail to provide access to care, but there is zero monitoring or enforcement by the state, and no oversight or concern from Roz Baker.
Why? And why haven’t the SA editors asked Kristen C. to dig into this issue? Clearly is newsworthy, even more so than the dispensary side show. C’mon SA take the opportunity to be relevant and useful before the paper completely fades into oblivion.
“This is true IF you define POT as medicine.”
(and helping subscribers to edit or comments to correct spelling or satisfy your decency filters would be useful. It is 2016, not 2006)
Rush ? You call over a DECADE a RUSH ? WOW I guess this paper is so used to SLOW and INCOMPETENT. This is really sad !!
With the multitude of States moving in the direction of medical marijuana there are enough examples of how to move forward with supplying these dispensaries. The State does not need to reinvent the wheel. There are many examples for the State to follow to have a robust system in place. What happens if and when recreational weed is allowed another 20 to 30 years of waiting. Washington State used to have medical marijuana that went out the window when recreational weed was approved for sale. A prescription was no longer required and ALL of the dispensaries were deemed illegal ( no license ) to sell. Lets hope the State will get off there okole and do something constructive for a change ? Too many flat tires stop the forward progress of many projects within the State a prime example is the fail I mean rail. It will not alleviate the traffic problems and there are toooo many chiefs ruining it.
If Longs’s drug store and Kaiser can keep up with my prescription drugs and won’t let me re-fil my prescription a day or two early… What in the world is the problem with the state? Are they using paper and pencils while the rest of the world is using computers?
Yes
This editorial shows how much the writer doesn’t know what really happens outside their circle of friends. You’re holding back very sick patients from obtaining medicine. The sky is not going to fall and the next step is just to legalize cannabis, regulate it, tax it and move on.
…so a medical marijuana certificate is worthless, and nobody knows when the dispensaries will open.
Hawaii government workers are so incompetent that they will NEVER get things right. Have they ever? NO! Other states have already done it. They need to fire all the lazy stu*p*id local government workers (including the directors, managers, and especially the senior workers)and start hiring mainland and even foreign workers to transition into a system that can get work done.