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Doctors express concern over marijuana use

12-20-2004 | Robbie Dingeman | The Honolulu Advertiser

The number of people in Hawai'i who have registered to use marijuana for medical purposes continues to grow, reaching almost 2,000 since the state Legislature created the program four years ago.

And the number of patients signed up has increased steadily every year, according to Keith Kamita, administrator with the state Narcotics Enforcement Division, which oversees the program.

Yet patients and doctors have some concerns with the state's system, and the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether laws such as Hawai'i's are valid.

Last month, the high court heard arguments in a case in which two California women have filed a complaint to prevent the federal government from confiscating their medical marijuana and prosecuting them for its use.

Dr. Inam Rahman, head of the Hawaii Medical Association, said many members of the physicians association are wary of recommending marijuana to their patients precisely because of that conflict between the federal laws that criminalize marijuana use and the state laws that allow its use for certain medical conditions.

Rahman said physicians worry that "the federal government can always come after the doctors." Hawai'i is one of 10 states that have passed medical marijuana laws since 1996.

The system isn't working for every patient.

Kailua resident Ruth Hendrix, 46, said she was disappointed to find that getting access to medical marijuana is more difficult here than it was in California.

"We had stores where you just went to buy it," Hendrix said.

Hendrix said she has used medical marijuana for two conditions: chronic pain and hepatitis C, "which comes with extreme nausea."

She said she went to a local doctor who ran some tests after she arrived in October but the doctor did not want to go through the procedure of registering with the state law enforcement office.

In California, she said she went to the doctor who diagnosed her and wrote a one-page recommendation. Then she went to the store to register, they confirmed the information with the doctor and she could get her marijuana.

She expected a similar setup here. "I was surprised they were so far behind," she said."I have not been successful."

Hendrix said she will wait until after the holidays and then pursue finding a doctor who is willing to register patients.

"I probably made a hundred phone calls," she said.

From his perspective, Kamita said the Hawai'i program works pretty well with only a few complaints each year, usually from patients who criticize doctors who are reluctant to register patients for marijuana.

Kamita said his office does get some complaints from people who report that their neighbors are growing marijuana or calls from police who get those reports. Being part of law enforcement means that his agency will check around the clock.

"If they are registered, we'll verify that with law enforcement."

Another complaint is that Kamita's office won't provide a list of doctors who issue medical marijuana certificates because no state agency should be recommending a specific business or doctor over another.

Here's how the system works in Hawai'i, according to Kamita: A patient visits a physician who indicates that the person has a debilitating medical condition, fills out the application which is reviewed by his agency, and then a medical marijuana certificate is issued.

Kamita said the doctor's role works as a recommendation.

"You can't write a prescription for marijuana," he said.

The patient or a caregiver can grow up to three mature or flowering plants and four immature plants up to one ounce per plant.

Rahman, who practices internal medicine, said many doctors are reluctant to recommend marijuana over other available pain treatments. He said marijuana that's smoked is harder to monitor than pills and "there's always a potential for abuse."

Most of the registered patients are on Neighbor Islands, despite the fact that many more people live on O'ahu.

Kamita said that's because there are "a few pockets of physicians who are the major utilizers of this program."

For example, one Big Island physician has 436 patients in the program. Two other doctors have more than 200, one who lives on the Big island, the other on Kaua'i, Kamita said.

And those few shape the island-by-island breakdown. "Most of the physicians participating in this program have about five to six patients," he said. "Some have one or two."

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bi0nic bo0geRs

Gee, I live in Hawaii and I don't even hear about this kind of news. Anyway, same ole' stupid legislative crap. Federal gov this...State gov that...I personally have no idea why all this is even an issue.

As a locally born and raised Hawaiian resident with Hawaiian blood, I can personally tell you that this is such a stupid debate over cannabis...Hawaii has the biggest crystal meth addiction in the entire nation. I'm sure all this tax payer dollars can go to solving a bigger and more threatening drug epidemic. Decriminalization of possesion would be perfect for our state. Stupid police wasting everyone's time and money flying around in their copters looking for a harmless, beneficial plant...

As far as Hawaii being far behind with medical marijuana distribution, we're far behind on everything. People are just naturally "slower" here. We drive slow (I hate with a passion), we learn slow, we talk slow, etc. It's just a fact of life that if you come to Hawaii, especially any other island than Oahu, things tend to move slow. That woman is better off just growing her own stash, in her area of the island there are lush, green mountains which receive light rains on a daily basis near the mountain base. Sunshine is always there...year round...nonstop...tropical weather....need I say more? It isn't that hard to disguise plants and blend them into a backyard garden....

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king cola

They say all kinds of garbage about marijuana killing people and all this other bullsh*t. What's funny though is the FDA has no problem throwing a drug on the market killing over 100,000 people with their Vioxx. It's even worse though, that's just one of their drugs, they marketed a lot more which have killed or givin people health problems. Marijuana might possibly be on the unhealthy side but let's face it, people have smoked it for 30 years or more and are still alive, some people are using these FDA approved drugs and dying after 2 or 3 years of use or even sooner. It's getting to the point where people are afraid of using their drug and more than likely they will probably turn more to illegally using marijuana for medical conditions than these lab made drugs, but who could blame them.

They are quick to throw a drug on the market to drive the drug stocks up. I know this is mostly about marijuana but the gov has to do with the drug laws, it's just funny how they critize marijuana while all these unsafe drugs kill people and get marketed, some have even know it was going to happen but everyone else in the group turns against them and they market the drugs anyway. Pharmacy's just don't know how to regulate marijuana and if everyone just used marijuana, the drug stocks would stay the same, each time they market a new drug, it shoots right up and that's what they want which is obviously why so many drugs which were said to be unsafe in the first place make it to the market. Marijuana can be used for a lot of symptoms but the pharmacuticals have a pill for everything marijuana can do, giving them more residual income on prescriptions. Oh you have arthritis, take this drug, oh and you have severe headaches too huh, well we have another pill for that too!

I always trusted using marijuana but you know somethin, i feel even safer now using that than all these new approved drugs that make it to the market and kill hundreds of thousands of people. It's a plant from the ground, not something made in a lab.