Hawaii decriminalizes marijuana - but stops short of making recreational pot legal
- Hawaii's governor allowed a bill to decriminalize marijuana slide into law on Tuesday by neither signing nor vetoing it
- Hawaiians can now possess up to three grams without facing jail time
- Medical marijuana became legal there in 2000, but there is still no legal amount to sell
- The governor claims to want to 'learn from the mistakes' of other states before passing a law to make pot legal
Hawaii decriminalized possession of small amounts of cannabis on Tuesday, joining two dozen other US states that have adopted similar measures.
Under the new law, anyone with up to three grams of marijuana may be slapped with a $130 penalty but no longer faces the possibility of 30 days in jail for even a tiny amount of the drug, nor a fine of up to $1,000.
The state's now-Democrat-controlled legislature passed medical marijuana legislation in 2000, approved the new bill in May and sent it to Governor David Ige for final approval.
Ige did not sign it but he did not veto it either, effectively letting the bill, which comes into effect on January 11, 2020, become law on Tuesday.
Hawaii has decriminalized marijuana, meaning that those in possession of three grams or less cannot face jail time or criminal charges - but they still can't buy it legally without a card
Advocacy groups welcomed the move even though they said it did not go far enough toward legalizing the drug.
'Unfortunately, three grams would be the smallest amount of any state that has decriminalized (or legalized) simple possession of marijuana,' the Marijuana Policy Project said in a statement.
'Still, removing criminal penalties and possible jail time for possession of a small amount of cannabis is an improvement.'
Currently, 24 other states as well as Washington DC have passed laws decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana.
Cannabis legalization has been sweeping the US, with the first wave spurred by the plant's medicinal uses.
Medical marijuana is now legal with a card or prescription to use it for such health issues as pain, insomnia, anxiety, nausea, appetite loss and seizures in 33 states, including Hawaii, the first state whose legislature passed such a measure, in 2000.
In 11 states, it's legal to use even if a doctor hasn't claimed you need it, medically speaking.
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And then there are the states that have settled comfortably into the gray area between legal and illegal weed, which now include Hawaii.
Some see the illegality of marijuana as more of a federal funding and incarceration issue than as one that cuts people off from something that might benefit their health.
Marijuana arrests actually went up between 2016 and 2017, even as more states legalized it.
By decriminalizing the drug, Hawaii should see its incarceration rate fall as arrests for small amounts of the marijuana fall.
But proponents of legalization note that legal possession does not mean legal sale.
So those who want to purchase marijuana still don't have any legal dealers, because selling the drug is still banned.
Full legalization supporters often lean on marijuana's health benefits and relatively low inherent risk profile.
However, scientists remain hesitant to declare it the cure-all industries like the trendy CBD market would like it to be seen as.
And legalization may come with some collateral damage.
High driving and car crash fatalities have increased in states like Colorado where weed is legal.
And marijuana commonly found in the toxicology panels of car crash fatalaties, sometimes in conjunction with cocaine, alcohol and, most commonly and worryingly, opioids.
Perhaps these are some of the downsides that Hawaii's governor was referring to when he said, last month, we continue to learn from other states about the problems they see with recreational marijuana, and most of the governors that I talk to that have recreational laws have acknowledged significant problems with those measures,' ABC reported.
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