HILO — The state Department of Health on Monday approved its first laboratory to begin testing medical marijuana, putting Hawaii’s dispensaries one step closer to being able to open.
HILO — The state Department of Health on Monday approved its first laboratory to begin testing medical marijuana, putting Hawaii’s dispensaries one step closer to being able to open.
The DOH granted Oahu-based private independent laboratory Steep Hill Hawaii provisional certification to test samples of marijuana, effective immediately.
The company “successfully passed its final on-site inspection and met requirements that demonstrate it has the capacity and proficiency to test cannabis and manufactured cannabis in compliance with state law,” the DOH said in a news release on Monday.
For Hawaii’s more than 17,000 medical marijuana patients, the news is long overdue: State law has allowed dispensaries to sell marijuana for more than a year, but none have actually been able to do so because of a lack of state-certified labs.
Law requires samples of any marijuana sold at dispensaries to be tested for contaminants and levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of marijuana.
“This is a good thing,” said Richard Ha on Monday, who heads Lau Ola, one of the two companies set to open Hawaii Island’s first dispensaries. “And I’ve got to side with the Department of Health for being careful. It’s frustrating to a lot of folks, but in the final analysis it’s important to do this right. … In the end, the fact they’ve worked through all the protocols is tremendously important.”
Monday’s announcement won’t necessarily impact Lau Ola’s