SICK BUT NOT TIRED

SICK BUT NOT TIRED: "Hi, can I ask you something" she almost shouted as we approached her place of business from 40 feet way.

What the heck is this we thought? Kapa`a is turning into barkers' paradise these days as the guy in the chicken suit down the road attested earlier.

But she wasn't trying to sell anything but attempting to buy.

In a heartbreaking story she explained that her husband and she hadn't smoked marijuana for 20 years but now he has a debilitating illness and a small amount someone had given her had given him the first good nights sleep he's had in months.

And this is what it's comes down to these days- people risking not just their job but their freedom to get medicine because of the catch-22 of the current Hawai`i state law that provides for possession of medical marijuana with a doctor's "recommendation" but gives patents no way to actually obtain it without breaking the law.

We were sorry to have to tell her we've been out of the circuit for many years too but were able to give her some hope by telling her that SB1458 SD2 HD3 which "establishes a comprehensive five-year medical marijuana distribution pilot program in an unspecified county" was hanging on by it's teeth as the state legislature draws to it's close.

And this morning, despite reports of it's demise, the bill apparently almost unanimously passed "third reading" in the house and was referred to a conference committee.

And though the bill at one time had inserted Maui as the county where the pilot program would be established, it now leaves the name of the county blank.

Of course the idiocy of leaving the whole program under the Department of Public Safety rather than moving it to the Department of Health where it belongs will apparently be status quo for another year and the measure to legalize possession of less than an ounce is also dead. It's now a matter of seeing what the conference committee will do.

Overall it's been a disappointing year after so many good bills made it through crossover only to die in the other chamber but as long as our insane hurry-up-and-wait legislative system allows single legislators to kill good bills we'll have to fight every year to achieve some degree of sanity on this and a lot of other no-brainer" issues.