Hawaii SB 686

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2019 Hawaii cannabis legalization proceeded with SB 686 / HB 708, introduced January 2019. The bill was listed as a "top priority" for the 2019 legislative year, President of Hawaii Senate Ron Kouchi, [1] [2] and supported by the Hawaii Democratic Party chairperson Keali'i Lopez. [3] It was opposed by Governor David Ige. [4]

Ron Kouchi is a Democratic politician and current 14th President of the Hawaiʻi Senate.

Keali'i Lopez is the chairperson of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, elected in May, 2018. She was appointed director of Hawaii State Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on December 4, 2010, and her term ended on December 1, 2014. Prior to that, she was an executive at a Hawaii nonprofit that ran several public-access television channels. She received a bachelor's degree in communications at University of Hawaii at Manoa.

David Ige 8th Governor of Hawaii

David Yutaka Ige is an American politician serving as the eighth governor of Hawaii since 2014. A Democrat, he previously served in the Hawaii State Senate. In the 2014 gubernatorial election, he won the Democratic primary by defeating incumbent Governor Neil Abercrombie, and won the general election by defeating former Republican Lieutenant Governor Duke Aiona. He won re-election to a second term in 2018.

Contents

SB 686 passed the Senate Judiciary committee unanimously on February 9, 2019. [5]

The same year a plethora of other bills (11 in the state House, 11 in the Senate) were introduced to legalize cannabis. [6]

Provisions

SB 686 legalizes the possession of less than half an ounce of cannabis for those over age 21 and levies 15 percent surcharge in addn to the general excise tax. sales starting in February 2021. Thirty percent of the surcharge would go to a public education campaign including cannabis and impaired driving. The bill would eliminate all criminal statues in Hawaii concerning cannabis except distribution to minors (minors themselves would not be committing a cannabis crime), and require expungement of criminal records for cannabis crimes. [7]

Two main questions arise in the law surrounding driving after having ingested cannabis: (1) whether cannabis actually impairs driving ability, and (2) whether the common practice of testing for THC is a reliable means to measure impairment. On the first question, studies are mixed. Several recent, extensive studies--including one conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and one conducted by the American Automobile Association (AAA)--show that drivers with detectable THC in their blood are no more likely to cause car crashes than drivers with no amount of THC in their blood. Others show that cannabis can impair certain abilities important to safe driving --but no studies have been able to show that this increases the actual risk of crashing, or that drivers with THC in their blood cause a disproportionate number of crashes. On the second question, the studies that have been conducted so far have consistently found that THC blood levels and degree of impairment are not closely related. No known relationship between blood levels of THC and increased relative crash risk, or THC blood levels and level of driving impairment, has been shown by single-crash or classic-control studies. Thus, even though it is possible that cannabis impairs driving ability to some extent, there are currently no reliable means to test or measure whether a driver was actually impaired.

In the common law legal system, an expungement proceeding is a type of lawsuit in which a first time offender of a prior criminal conviction seeks that the records of that earlier process be sealed, making the records unavailable through the state or Federal repositories. If successful, the records are said to be "expunged". Black's Law Dictionary defines "expungement of record" as the "Process by which record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or Federal repository." While expungement deals with an underlying criminal record, it is a civil action in which the subject is the petitioner or plaintiff asking a court to declare that the records be expunged.

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References

  1. ↑ "These 10 states are most likely to pass marijuana legalization bills in 2019 - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  2. ↑ "Lawmakers Discuss Raising Minimum Wage". Usnews.com. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  3. ↑ "January 13, 2019 News Read > Hawaii Free Press". Hawaiifreepress.com. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  4. ↑ "Push to legalize recreational marijuana grows". Honolulu Star-Advertiser . 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  5. ↑ "Bill to legalize cannabis in Hawaii passes state Senate committee". Honolulu Star-Advertiser . 7 February 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  6. ↑ Michael Brestovansky (23 January 2019). "Numerous bills tackle marijuana-related issues". West Hawaii Today . Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  7. ↑ Andrew Walden (February 6, 2019). "Bill to decriminalize pot use criticized". Hawaii Free Press.
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