STAND. COM. REP. NO. 605

                                 Honolulu, Hawaii
                                                   , 1999

                                 RE: H.B. No. 1157
                                     H.D. 1




Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say
Speaker, House of Representatives
Twentieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 1999
State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Health and Public Safety and Military
Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 1157 entitled: 

     "A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE MEDICAL USE OF
     MARIJUANA,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill, as received by your Committees, is
to allow for the medical use of marijuana by ensuring that:

     (1)  Severely ill or terminally ill patients will not be
          penalized by the State for obtaining and using
          marijuana strictly for medical purposes when the
          patient's physician provides a written professional
          opinion, corroborated by a second physician that
          marijuana is medically beneficial to the patient;

     (2)  Physicians are not penalized by the State for providing
          their written professional opinions to their patients
          on the benefits of medical use of marijuana to treat
          severely ill or terminally ill patients;

     (3)  Compliance with this measure does not put the State in
          violation of federal law; and

     (4)  Patients and physicians cannot procure marijuana for
          nonmedical purposes, endanger the public, or enable
          minors to use marijuana for medicinal purposes without

 
 
 
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          the written permission of their parents or legal
          guardians.
     Numerous testimonies both for and against this measure were
received by your Committees.  The Life Foundation, Malama Pono,
the Big Island AIDS Project, the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, and
many individuals submitted testimony in support of this measure.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii and a few
individuals submitted testimony in support of the intent of this
measure.

     The Honolulu Police Department, the Hawaii Ophthalmological
Society, Citizens Advocating Responsible Education, the American
Cancer Society, the Coalition for a Drug-Free Hawaii, the Hawaii
Medical Association, the Hawaii Catholic Conference, the Hawaii
County Police Department, and several individuals submitted
testimony in opposition to this measure.  The Department of
Health submitted comments.

     Your Committees find a compelling health need for the
medicinal use of marijuana to alleviate pain, reduce nausea, and
enhance appetite, all to advance the simple goal of staying
alive.

     Your Committees have amended this bill by deleting its
substance and inserting language reflected in a similar measure,
H.B. No. 1341.  As amended, the purpose of this bill is to allow
for the acquisition, possession, cultivation, distribution,
transportation, administration, and use of marijuana for medical
purposes.

     Your Committees respectfully request subsequent committees
to discuss how to control and legislate the supply of marijuana
and, in the spirit of self-sufficiency, enable patients to grow
their own medicine.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your
Committees on Health and Public Safety and Military Affairs that
are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with
the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1157, as amended herein, and
recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto
as H.B. No. 1157, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on
Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.
                                   Respectfully submitted on
                                   behalf of the members of the
                                   Committees on Health and
                                   Public Safety and Military
                                   Affairs,

                                   

 
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______________________________     ______________________________
NESTOR GARCIA, Chair               ALEXANDER C. SANTIAGO, Chair