On February 14th, Hawaii's Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on SB 669, one of several cannabis legalization bills introduced in the state this year. Unfortunately, SB 669 does not contain provisions that would provide retroactive relief for individuals who have been criminalized due to the prohibition of cannabis.

LPP testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where we encouraged Hawaii's legislators to add language to the bill that would create state-initiated record clearance and resentencing processes. Our testimony included some of the recommendations we made to Hawaii's Dual Use of Cannabis Task Force last year.

The next day, Hawaii's Health and Human Services and Commerce and Consumer Protection Joint Committee hosted a hearing on another legalization proposal, SB 375. LPP was thrilled to see that this bill does provide an avenue for retroactive relief via the creation of a state-initiated record clearance process.

During the aforementioned hearing, LPP showed our support for SB 375. At the same time, we also called for the bill to be amended to ensure that the state-initiated processes allow every person who has been harmed by cannabis criminalization to access relief.

Click here to read the written testimony on SB 669 and SB 375 that we submitted to the respective committees.