Hawaii’s First Dispensary Sells Out of Cannabis

Hawaii’s first cannabis dispensary has already had to close its doors due to lack of supply.

Maui Grown Therapies sold out of its stock in less than a week. The dispensary must now wait for the Department of Health’s State Labs Division to clear a backlog of products.

The most recent batch of cannabis flower was expected to be cleared by last weekend, but the dispensary announced that a temporary closure was necessary while they waited for their next batch. On Wednesday the dispensary was conducting business only with patients who made appointments via their website.

Maui Grown Therapies had already faced problems due to the State Labs’ Division. The SLD has not certified a lab that can test manufactured products, so the full line of products Maui Grown was planning on releasing to patients still waits to be approved for sale. Maui Grown opened its doors for consultations without being able to provide any product in mid-July and just started to be able to carry flowers for sale. There is no answer on when a lab will be certified to approve manufactured products.

“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.”

Cole worries that Hawaii has a long way to go before the cannabis industry becomes normalized in the state. “Even though we were approved by the Department of Health on May 24 to manufacture cannabis products, the restrictions placed on the state’s only licensed lab have prevented us from offering these products to our patients—and it is entirely unclear to us when this will change.”

Before Maui Grown Therapies and other dispensaries were approved on Hawaii, the islands roughly 18,000 patients were required to grow their medicine at home.