Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 128 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to transfer the administration of the State's program for the medicinal use of marijuana from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health, and to change certain procedures and definitions to make the program more efficient and more user-friendly to the seriously ill patients who register with the program.

The Drug Policy Action Group, Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, Life Foundation, Harm Reduction Hawai'i, the League of Women Voters of Hawaii, and four individuals submitted testimony in support of this measure. The Department of Health, the Department of Public Safety, the Kauai Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, the Honolulu Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, and the Honolulu Police Department submitted testimony in opposition.

Your Committees find that the mission of the Department of Health is to provide leadership to monitor, promote, and enhance the health and environmental well-being of all of Hawaii's people. The use of medical marijuana is properly regarded as a health issue, not simply as an exception to the State's laws on controlled substances, so the medical marijuana program would more properly be housed in the Department of Health rather than the Department of Public Safety.

Your Committees note that no other state places its medical marijuana program in its public safety department, and that most are placed in the health department, with a few in the human services and agriculture departments.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 128 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.