![](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-25.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Key Hawaii lawmakers have filed legislation that would put the issue of marijuana legalization on the ballot<\/a> for voters to decide.<\/p>\n The move comes after repeated efforts to legalize cannabis legislatively in recent sessions have demonstrated momentum but failed before reaching the finish line to be enacted into law.<\/p>\n If the legislature agrees to the new plan, voters would see this on their November ballots:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cShall the Constitution of the State of Hawaii be amended to:<\/p>\n (1) Authorize individuals aged twenty-one and older to use and possess personal-use amounts of cannabis; and<\/p>\n (2) Require the legislature to enact laws governing the use, manufacture, distribution, sale, possession, regulation, and taxation of cannabis within the State?\u201d<\/p>\n If a majority of voters approved the ballot measure, cannabis legalization would take effect on July 1, 2027.<\/p>\n House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee Chairman David Tarnas (D) and Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Joy San Buenaventura (D) are the lead sponsors of the new<\/a> measures<\/a>. Tarnas\u2019s House proposal has 13 additional cosponsors.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is kicking this particular policy decision\u2014very selectively\u2014to the public for a decision,\u201d Tarnas, who has previously sponsored legalization and other marijuana reform bills, said in an interview earlier this month.<\/p>\n Karen O\u2019Keefe, state policies director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Marijuana Moment that \u201cyear after year, the Hawai\u2019i Legislature has failed to enact cannabis legalization, despite strong popular support.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for legislators to give voters the power to expand their privacy and liberty directly,\u201d she said,<\/p>\n While Gov. Josh Green (D) supports legalizing cannabis, and polling has indicated that Hawaiians are ready for the policy change, the new measures signal that the sponsors don\u2019t anticipate that fellow lawmakers will be ready to move forward with a legislative reform this year but may instead be inclined to defer to voters.<\/p>\n Putting the measure on the ballot as a constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds vote in each chamber of the legislature.<\/p>\n That said, Tarnas and San Buenaventura have also filed<\/a> separate<\/a>, more traditional statutory cannabis legalization measures for the 2026 session.<\/p>\n House Speaker Nadine Nakamura (D) has acknowledged broad public support for marijuana legalization, but said that some of her chamber\u2019s members from the island of Oahu are not on board with the reform.<\/p>\n Hawaii\u2019s Senate last February narrowly defeated a proposal that would have increased fivefold the amount of cannabis that a person could possess without risk of criminal charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n Had the measure become law, it would have increased the amount of cannabis decriminalized in Hawaii from the current 3 grams up to 15 grams. Possession of any amount of marijuana up to that 15-gram limit would have been classified as a civil violation, punishable by a fine of $130.<\/p>\n A Senate bill that would have legalized marijuana for adults, meanwhile, ultimately stalled for the session. That measure, SB 1613, failed to make it out of committee by a legislative deadline.<\/p>\n While advocates felt there was sufficient support for the legalization proposal in the Senate, it\u2019s widely believed that House lawmakers would have ultimately scuttled the measure,\u00a0as they did last February with a legalization companion bill, HB 1246<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2024, a Senate-passed legalization bill also fizzled out in the House<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s House vote to stall the bill came just days after approval from a pair of committees at a joint hearing<\/a>. Ahead of that hearing, the panels received nearly 300 pages of testimony, including from state agencies, advocacy organizations and members of the public.<\/p>\n Green signed separate legislation last year to allow medical marijuana caregivers to grow marijuana on behalf of up to five patients<\/a>\u00a0rather than the current one.<\/p>\n And in July, the governor signed another bill that\u00a0establishes a number of new rules around hemp products in Hawaii<\/a>, including a requirement that distributors and retailers obtain a registration from the Department of Health.<\/p>\n Lawmakers also sent a bill to the governor that would help speed the expungement process for people hoping to clear their records of past marijuana-related offenses<\/a>\u2014a proposal\u00a0Green signed into law in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n That measure, HB 132, from Tarnas, is intended to expedite expungements happening through\u00a0a pilot program signed into law in 2024 by Green<\/a>. Specifically, it will remove a distinction between marijuana and other Schedule V drugs for the purposes of the expungement program.<\/p>\n The bill\u2019s proponents said the current wording of the law forces state officials to comb through thousands of criminal records manually in order to identify which are eligible for expungement under the pilot program.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in November, Hawaii officials finalized rules that will allow medical marijuana dispensaries to sell an expanded assortment of products for patients<\/a>\u2014including dry herb vaporizers, rolling papers and grinders\u2014while revising the state code to clarify that cannabis oils and concentrates can be marketed for inhalation.<\/p>\n The department also affirmed its support for federal marijuana rescheduling<\/a>\u2014a policy change that President Donald Trump ordered to be completed last month but has yet to come to fruition.<\/p>\n \u2014 Regulators are also launching a series of courses designed to\u00a0educate physicians and other healthcare professionals about medical marijuana<\/a>\u00a0as the state\u2019s cannabis program expands.<\/p>\n The\u00a0underlying medical marijuana expansion bill signed by the governor<\/a>\u00a0in late June, in addition to allowing more patients to more easily access cannabis, also contains a provision that advocates find problematic.<\/p>\n Before lawmakers sent the legislation to Green, a conference committee revised the plan, inserting a provision to allow DOH to access medical marijuana patient records held by doctors for any reason whatsoever.<\/p>\n This past fall, regulators solicited proposals to\u00a0assess the state\u2019s current medical marijuana program<\/a>\u2014and also sought to estimate demand for recreational sales if the state eventually moves forward with adult-use legalization. Some read the move as a sign the regulatory agency saw a need to prepare to the potential reform.<\/p>\n The post Hawaii Lawmakers File Bills To Put Marijuana Legalization On The Ballot For Voters To Decide<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Key Hawaii lawmakers have filed legislation that would put the issue of marijuana legalization on the ballot for voters to decide. The move comes after repeated efforts to legalize cannabis legislatively in recent sessions have demonstrated momentum but failed before reaching the finish line to be enacted into law. IfContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":85190,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85191,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85189\/revisions\/85191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills<\/a> in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters<\/a> pledging at least $25\/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don\u2019t miss any developments.<\/strong>
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-24.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/a>
\nLearn more about our marijuana bill tracker<\/a> and become a supporter on Patreon<\/a> to get access.
\n\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
\nRead More: Hawaii Lawmakers File Bills To Put Marijuana Legalization On The Ballot For Voters To Decide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"