Marijuana Moment: Hawaii Officials Finalize New Medical Marijuana Rules Letting Dispensaries Sell Dry Herb Vapes, Papers And Grinders

[Tokeativity]

Hawaii officials have finalized rules that will allow medical marijuana dispensaries to sell an expanded assortment of products for patients—including dry herb vaporizers, rolling papers and grinders—while revising the state code to clarify that cannabis oils and concentrates can be marketed for inhalation.

The Department of Health’s (DOH) Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation (OMCCR) last week announced the updated rules, which officials said are meant to “improve the medical cannabis patient experience and to provide for the protection of the health and safety of qualifying patients and the general public.”

The administrative code is being amended in a variety of ways—codifying the rights of caregivers to accompany patients in a dispensary waiting room, enacting additional advertising restrictions for cannabis products and prohibiting dispensaries from hosting in-person or telehealth medical marijuana certification consultations, for example.

For patients, one key welcome change to the code is that dispensaries will now be permitted to sell marijuana paraphernalia on-site. That includes rolling trays, grinders and papers. Also, while vape products have been available in pre-filled sealed containers, now the shops can sell vaporizers for flower, too.

The @HawaiiDOH OMCCR amended Chapter 11-850 Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules regarding medical cannabis dispensaries to improve the medical cannabis patient experience and to provide for the protection of the health and safety of qualifying patients and the general public. pic.twitter.com/e0riADX52A

— Hawaiʻi State Department of Health (@HawaiiDOH) November 17, 2025

DOH also implemented a rule change that redefines what constitutes an “oil extract” or “concentrate” product. Instead of being limited to an “edible cannabis” category, those products can now be “marketed for inhalation subject to ingredient restrictions like nicotine and hemp-derived cannabinoids,” Andrew Goff, project manager at OMCCR, told Marijuana Moment.

Meanwhile, the department also recently affirmed its support for federal marijuana rescheduling—a policy change that the Trump administration is actively considering. And a state lawmaker who sponsored a cannabis legalization bill in the most recent session says he’s actively gathering input on how to revise the legislation in the hopes it can pass next year.

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Regulators are also launching a series of courses designed to educate physicians and other healthcare professionals about medical marijuana as the state’s cannabis program expands.

The underlying medical marijuana expansion bill signed by the governor in late June, in addition to allowing more patients to more easily access cannabis, also contains a provision that advocates find problematic.

Before lawmakers sent the legislation to Gov. Josh Green (D), a conference committee revised the plan, inserting a provision to allow DOH to access medical marijuana patient records held by doctors for any reason whatsoever.

In May, Green signed separate legislation to allow medical marijuana caregivers to grow marijuana on behalf of up to five patients rather than the current one.

And in July, the governor signed another bill that establishes a number of new rules around hemp products in Hawaii, including a requirement that distributors and retailers obtain a registration from DOH.

Lawmakers also sent a bill to the governor this session that would help speed the expungement process for people hoping to clear their records of past marijuana-related offenses—a proposal Green signed into law in April.

That measure, HB 132, from Tarnas, is intended to expedite expungements happening through a pilot program signed into law last year by Green. Specifically, it will remove a distinction between marijuana and other Schedule V drugs for the purposes of the expungement program.

The bill’s proponents said the current wording of the law forces state officials to comb through thousands of criminal records manually in order to identify which are eligible for expungement under the pilot program.

Hawaii’s Senate back in February narrowly defeated a separate proposal that would have increased fivefold the amount of cannabis that a person could possess without risk of criminal charges. The body voted 12–11 against the decriminalization measure, SB 319, from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D).

Had the measure become law, it would have increased the amount of cannabis decriminalized in Hawaii from the current 3 grams up to 15 grams. Possession of any amount of marijuana up to that 15-gram limit would have been classified as a civil violation, punishable by a fine of $130.

A Senate bill that would have legalized marijuana for adults, meanwhile, ultimately stalled for the session. That measure, SB 1613, failed to make it out of committee by a legislative deadline.

While advocates felt there was sufficient support for the legalization proposal in the Senate, it’s widely believed that House lawmakers would have ultimately scuttled the measure, as they did in February with a legalization companion bill, HB 1246.

Last session, a Senate-passed legalization bill also fizzled out in the House.

This year’s House vote to stall the bill came just days after approval from a pair of committees at a joint hearing. Ahead of that hearing, the panels received nearly 300 pages of testimony, including from state agencies, advocacy organizations and members of the public.

This past fall, regulators solicited proposals to assess the state’s current medical marijuana program—and also sought to estimate demand for recreational sales if the state eventually moves forward with adult-use legalization. Some read the move as a sign the regulatory agency saw a need to prepare to the potential reform.

Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.

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