Many are questioning why a medical marijuana card was issued to officer Steven Chu when marijuana use is not tolerated at HPD. The way the law is written, the State Department of Public Safety’s Narcotics Enforcement Division, which oversees the process, cannot ask a patient what he or she does for a living.
The application process for a marijuana medical card involves several steps. First a physician determines if a patient is suffering from a severe debilitating medical condition like AIDS, cancer or glaucoma and then recommends the patient try marijuana.
"He then fills out an application with the and on this application it only talks about what’s the patient’s name. It doesn’t talk about what’s his occupation," said Keith Kamita, the Department of Public Safety’s Narcotics Enforcement Division Chief. "At Narcotics they don’t know if it’s a policeman or not."
"It’s not asked and it’s not in the discussion, I mean that’s discussed with the doctor but not with the state not with the narcotics enforcement division," said Dr. David Barton of Medical Marijuana of Hawaii. He says while there is some abuse most patients are truly suffering from chronic pain. "A lot of patients face that bias in their workplace where it’s not accepted and they have to hide it from their employers."
Including the Honolulu Police Department and other agencies that require employees to take random drug tests.In most cases, employees are responsible to disclose if they’re taking any controlled substance.
"One of the problems is there is not avenue to police it, we find out only after the complaint is made," said Kamita. "In the law, it doesn’t allow us to search or verify a lot of things."
The law also states how much marijuana each card holder is allowed on their property.
"He can have four immature plants, non-flowering, three mature plants and one ounce per mature plants so three ounces maximum," said Kamita.
According to the Narcotics Enforcement Division, Hawaii Island has 4,305 patients with medical marijuana cards, Maui 2,204, Molokai 141, Lanai 18, Oahu 3,013, Kauai 1,232 and Niihau 1. For a total of 10,914 patients. There are also more than 11-hundred caregivers and 218 doctors with marijuana medical cards.
"A jump from last year which had about six-to-seven thousand patients so we’re staring to see this number increase," said Kamita.
Law enforcement officials recently pushed for a bill aimed at limiting the number of cards issued.
"For you to be a patient it would have to be for a specific debilitating medical condition so it couldn’t just be general pain anymore," said Kamita.
The measure died but is expected to be re-introduced next year.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
