LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i Police Department Chief Darryl Perry joined the police chiefs from the three other counties in a Thursday lobbying effort to help kill a bill at the state Legislature that would have allowed counties to establish medical-marijuana dispensaries,
LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i Police Department Chief Darryl Perry joined the police chiefs from the three other counties in a Thursday lobbying effort to help kill a bill at the state Legislature that would have allowed counties to establish medical-marijuana dispensaries, he said.
The four chiefs met with House Speaker Calvin Say and other lawmakers to urge defeat of the proposed legislation, Perry said in a telephone interview.
“All of the chiefs are together on this,” against establishment of the dispensaries, he said.
Keith Kamita, head of the state Department of Public Safety’s Narcotics Enforcement Division, spearheaded the lobbying effort, Perry said.
The bill died after not being moved from the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, although it had been approved by the full Senate.
Perry said he is not against allowing those who have debilitating medical conditions to get medicinal marijuana, but was against the measure because of the likelihood of abuse of the proposed dispensary system.
In California, such dispensaries have become drug-dealing enterprises catering not only to those who have legitimate need and documentation for medical marijuana, he said.
“We need to put more sound systems into place” before establishing such dispensaries, said Perry.
The bill that died would have allowed counties the ability to establish, license and regulate dispensaries.
Mary Daubert, county public information officer, did not respond by press time to an e-mail asking whether or not Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. would act to establish dispensaries on Kaua‘i had the measure passed.
At the state House level, Kaua‘i representatives Mina Morita, D-Kapa‘a-Hanalei, and Roland Sagum, D-Po‘ipu-Waimea-Ni‘ihau, voted for the measure at its last House vote, while Jimmy Tokioka, D-Wailua-Lihu‘e-Koloa, voted against it.
