Hawaii’s first medical cannabis dispensary has finally opened its doors one week after the Department of Health granted a license to Steep Hill Hawaii to test consumer products, KHON reports. The approval for Maui Wellness Group’s Maui Grown Therapies Kahului location was granted by the Health Department on Tuesday.
In the report, Teri Freitas Gorman, Maui Grown Therapies director of community relations and patient affairs, said the dispensary would launch a “soft opening” after doing intakes for about 400 patients prior to gaining Health Department approval.
“We want to make sure our patients and our staff and also our neighbors here in the Maui Lani Village Center that everybody has a positive experience with us opening,” she said in the report.
A second dispensary, Aloha Green in Oahu, expects to open its doors today.
Dr. Virginia Pressler, director for the Department of Health, said that while implementing the program was challenging, the official rollout of the program marked “an important day for qualified patients and caregivers on Maui.”
“With legal guidance from Department of the Attorney General, the DOH team paved the way for this new industry in Hawaii and has set a new standard for dispensary programs other states can emulate,” she said in an interview with KHON.
Under Hawaii’s medical cannabis law, patients and caregivers can purchase up to four ounces of medical cannabis during a consecutive 15-day period and up to eight ounces over a consecutive 30-day period.