HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A huge marijuana farm on Oahu’s North Shore is the focus of one of the hottest debates in the state Legislature.
Care Waialua offers medical marijuana patients access to grow-their-own sites, and it has more than 1,000 medical marijuana card-holders signed up.
But critics, including the state Health Department and key lawmakers, say big farms are a threat to public safety and the integrity of the network of licensed cannabis dispensaries.
Hawaii state law allows each patient to have 10 plants.
With so many patientsCare Waialua could technically have up to 10,000 plants in its climate-controlled greenhouses.
The farm in a remote former plantation field rents space to marijuana card holders and caregivers ― with each plant tagged to an individual owner.
Owner Jason Handley said they are meticulous in following the medical marijuana law,
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“You must have the plant the patient’s registration number, and the patient’s expiration date on the card tagged at the base of the plant for DOH compliance to check,” Hanley said.
But the farm’s critics say Hawaii’s licensed and regulated cannabis dispensaries are an essential service and are threatened by large shared grow sites, which don’t have the same regulation as dispensaries.
“We all know that…