Hawaii’s first medical cannabis dispensary is already having to suspend sales just five days after it began selling marijuana, and the operators aren’t happy, lashing out at the government in a scathing statement. The reason for the suspension is because of lab delays, an unforeseen issue that the Hawaii State Labs Division ran into that resulted in the company selling out its first batch of certified weed on Saturday and having nothing anything to replace it with, and the dispensary slammed the government in a statement.
It’s an illustration of the numerous random obstacles states are running into when weed is legalized. Fortunately, it’s not looking to be a big problem for the dispensary yet, with sales expected to resume on Aug. 16. But for a dispensary hoping to allow general sales for walk-in customers on Monday, Aug. 14, it was an irritating development, and they are worried this is just the start of problems.
Hawaii has joined a number of other states in the U.S. in legalizing marijuana, and the push for legalization nationwide continues to gain steam even as it remains illegal at the federal level. Many states have even passed laws to make the recreational sale of marijuana legal.
“It’s unfortunate that an administrative hindrance of this magnitude prevents patients from getting the help they need,” said Christopher Cole, Director of Product Management for Maui Grown Therapies. “We had planned to open with a full range of derivative products such as concentrates, oils, capsules and topical products, but at the eleventh hour we discovered that the State Labs Division had failed to certify a lab to conduct testing of manufactured products.”
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