STAND. COM. REP. NO. 172

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 113

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 113 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MEDICAL CANNABIS RESEARCH,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to create a three-year pilot Medical Cannabis Research Program in the Department of Public Safety.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from six private entities and numerous individuals.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from one state department and one county department.

 

     The intent of your Committee is to provide a means by which a team of qualified researchers could undertake medical cannabis research involving local qualifying medical cannabis patients under the protection of state law.

 

     Your Committee finds that the use of medical cannabis warrants further research.  Hawaii has already established a medical marijuana law; the next step is to provide a platform on which the chemical properties and medicinal benefits of medical cannabis can be studied in a peer-reviewed manner.  Formal peer‑reviewed research investigates the chemical composition and therapeutic effects of medical cannabis in a controlled pre‑clinical and clinical laboratory setting.  Your Committee recognizes that in addition to peer-reviewed research, it is also important that research be conducted on the unique strains of cannabis that have been developed in Hawaii.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting a provision for an unspecified number of patients for each primary caregiver at any given time for purposes of the pilot program; and

 

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 113, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 113, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs,

 

 

 

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair