The Honolulu Star-Advertiser told the state Health Department on Thursday it will file a lawsuit if the agency does not release by the close of business today the names of committee members who will award Hawaii’s first medical marijuana dispensary licenses.

Jeff Portnoy, attorney for the Star-Advertiser’s parent company, Oahu Publications Inc., delivered the notice to the Department of Health demanding it disclose the names.

“Be warned that unless those names are released by the close of business tomorrow (Friday), Oahu Publications will seek immediate relief from the state courts, including a court order that the names be released,” Portnoy wrote in the letter. “We strongly urge the DOH to avoid the inevitable public ridicule and suspicion that would accompany your continued refusal to make the names public.”

http://www.scribd.com/doc/299033406/Portnoy-letter-to-Pressler-J-Okubo-Feb-11

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POT PANEL MEMBERS’ NAMES TO BE RELEASED
But whether the Health Depart­ment has fi­nal­ized the com­mit­tee is un­clear

By Kris­ten Con­sil­lio
kcon­sil­lio@starad­ver­tiser.com

The state Health Depart­ment re­versed course Fri­day, say­ing it will re­lease the names of med­i­cal mar­i­juana dis­pen­sary com­mit­tee mem­bers be­fore the panel grants Hawaii’s first li­censes for le­gal pot sales. On Tues­day the agency said it would keep se­cret the names of the pan­elists who are to se­lect eight win­ning ap­pli­ca­tions from the 66 that were sub­mit­ted last month. The de­ci­sion to keep the se­lec­tion process se­cret drew a sharp re­buke from law­mak­ers. The Honolulu Star-Ad­ver­tiser also threat­ened to sue the state if the names were not re­leased.

“The de­part­ment’s orig­i­nal in­ten­tion was to re­lease the names of the panel mem­bers af­ter the dis­pen­sary li­censes were awarded,” the DOH said on its web­site. “The rea­son for this was to en­sure that the in­tegrity of the re­view process is pre­served and to pre­vent the panel mem­bers from be­ing sub­ject to in­ap­pro­pri­ate out­side pres­sures. In light of the ex­tra­or­di­nary pub­lic in­ter­est in the names of the panel mem­bers, how­ever, the de­part­ment has de­cided that the names will be re­leased prior to the is­suance of the dis­pen­sary li­censes.”

The Health Depart­ment did not give a spe­cific date for the re­lease of the names, nor did it state clearly whether the panel mem­bers have al­ready been se­lected.

“If they didn’t have a panel, why didn’t they say so and say they would an­nounce the names af­ter choos­ing the panel and be­fore the se­lec­tion process be­gan?” said Frank Bridge­wa­ter, ed­i­tor of the Star-Ad­ver­tiser.

The Health Depart­ment said it is re­view­ing the ap­pli­ca­tions to make sure they are com­plete and will “as­sem­ble” the panel af­ter that re­view.

“Cur­rently, de­part­ment staff are re­view­ing each ap­pli­ca­tion to ver­ify that the ap­pli­ca­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion is com­plete, that the in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted is true and valid, and that it meets the re­quire­ments of (the law),” the DOH said on its web­site. “The de­part­ment will as­sem­ble the merit se­lec­tion panel mem­bers af­ter the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of ap­pli­ca­tions has been com­pleted. Once the panel has been fi­nal­ized, the names of the panel mem­bers will be re­leased.”

Asked to clar­ify whether panel mem­bers have al­ready been se­lected, Health Depart­ment Direc­tor Vir­ginia Pressler re­ferred the ques­tion to the state at­tor­ney gen­eral. Joshua Wisch, spe­cial as­sis­tant to the at­tor­ney gen­eral, de­clined to an­swer the ques­tion, say­ing all the avail­able in­for­ma­tion was on the Health Depart­ment’s web­site.

Jeff Port­noy, at­tor­ney for the Star-Ad­ver­tiser’s par­ent com­pany, Oahu Publi­ca­tions Inc., de­liv­ered a no­tice Thurs­day to the Health Depart­ment de­mand­ing it dis­close the names.

“For the Depart­ment of Health to say they’ve now changed their po­si­tion be- cause of the ex­tra­or­di­nary pub­lic in­ter­est is a spin that is hard to ac­cept since they are legally re­quired to re­lease the names and now they have been con­fronted by the fact that their prior pol­icy was in vi­o­la­tion of state law,” Port­noy said. “We ex­pect those names of the panel will be re­leased as soon as the panel is or­ga­nized and prior to any work in eval­u­at­ing the suc­cess­ful qual­i­fy­ing can­di­dates.”

Hawaii le­gal­ized med­i­cal cannabis in 2000 but did not pro­vide a way for pa­tients to ob­tain the drug. Act 241, adopted last year, au­tho­rizes the DOH to is­sue eight li­censes to sell med­i­cal cannabis: three on Oahu, two each on Hawaii is­land and Maui, and one on Kauai. Each li­censee will be al­lowed to op­er­ate two pro­duc­tion cen­ters and two re­tail cen­ters for a to­tal of 16 dis­pen­saries statewide. The de­part­ment is to se­lect suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants by April 15.

Sen. Sam Slom (R, Di­a­mond Head-Ka­hala-Hawaii Kai) said the se­lec­tion process should be open to the pub­lic, par­tic­u­larly be­cause of the high-pro­file and po­lit­i­cally con­nected can­di­dates vy­ing for li­censes.

“I’ve al­ways been for open trans­parency, and here’s the (Gov. David) Ige ad­min­is­tra­tion talk­ing about how trans­par­ent they are and they’re not,” Slom said. “Be­cause there’s some very high-pro­file peo­ple that are among the ap­pli­cants … we should know who the peo­ple are who’s se­lect­ing them and what was the cri­te­ria for (the se­lec­tions). It shouldn’t be a se­cret be­cause there are so many dif­fer­ent groups that are in­volved, and the pub­lic wants to know and the pub­lic has a right to know.”


http://www.pressreader.com/usa/honolulu-star-advertiser/20160213/281496455336812/TextView