NO ONE CERTIFIED YET IN HAWAII TO GET MEDICAL POT

- -- Nearly two months have passed since Gov. Ben Cayetano signed a bill
making Hawaii the eighth state to legalize possession of marijuana for
medical treatment.

But no one has been certified to get it because state narcotics enforcement
officials are still writing procedures to allow doctors to register patients.

The proposal will go to the Attorney General's Office, public hearings, and
the governor before they are adopted, perhaps by the end of this year.

But the new law doesn't say how or where patients can obtain marijuana,
said Keith Kamita, chief of the state's narcotics enforcement division.

"That's one of the flaws in the law," he said.

Besides making no provisions for distribution or sale of marijuana for
medical purposes, the law doesn't even allow a patient to obtain seeds or
plants to grow their own.

In the meantime, a growing network of underground growers is said to be
filling a demand for medical marijuana. They often give the marijuana to
friends for medicinal use or sell it far below the market prices.

The growers are well aware that federal law prohibits marijuana, even for
medical purposes.

Hawaii probably will have to follow the same pattern as other states in
which somebody who forms a growers' club or buyers' club gets arrested, and
the issues are aired in court, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.