Hawaii: Medical marijuana list released

State erroneously sent database of patients to Big Island newspaper

Angry telephone calls started coming in to the state Department of Public Safety almost as soon as the June 27 issue of the Hawai'i Tribune-Herald hit the streets.

A front-page article on medical marijuana mentioned that the department had provided a database with patient names and addresses, the locations of their plants, their certificate numbers, and their prescribing doctors.

The breach of privacy was an inadvertent mistake, and the newspaper did not name any of the patients, but many were alarmed because the information is like providing a roadmap for a stash of legal pot.

"Nobody here was a very happy camper," said James Propotnick, the department's deputy director for law enforcement. "People started calling. ... We were notified immediately. I don't think the paper was hot off the press 15 minutes and we started getting calls."

On Monday, Clayton Frank, the department's director, sent letters of apology to the 4,200 medical marijuana patients statewide, informing many who had not read the article that their confidential information had been compromised.

The letter explained the information had been forwarded by e-mail to a Tribune-Herald reporter who had asked for statistics on medical marijuana users. The department's information technology personnel have since isolated the list and added other internal controls to prevent it from being mistakenly released in the future.

David Bock, the newspaper's editor, said the newspaper complied with the department's request to destroy the information.

"We just wanted to know the number of people in Hawai'i County who were currently receiving medical marijuana," Bock said. "And they erroneously sent us the list with the actual names."

Hawai'i is one of 12 states that allow marijuana to be used to help treat debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS and chronic back or neck pain. The law, approved by the state Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Ben Cayetano in 2000, allows patients or their primary caregivers to grow plants at their homes.

Patients are limited to three mature plants, four immature plants, and up to three ounces of marijuana. Under the law's administrative rules, patient names and other information is confidential and can only be disclosed to law enforcement as verification that patients are in the program.

Patients on the registry are exempt from state law prohibiting marijuana possession but not federal laws against the drug.

Some in the medical marijuana community distrust the department's narcotics enforcement division, which oversees the program, and are disappointed with law enforcement's opposition to its expansion.

Dennis Shields, an ordained minister who lives in Captain Cook on the Big Island and has one of the first registry cards, said he was extremely distressed when he read the newspaper article. He said he does not believe the information that was released has been destroyed.

"Right now, it's sitting on some server somewhere," Shields said, doubting the information was erased. "I don't believe that, no. It's unverifiable. And I'm traumatized by that. I've been damaged."

Propotnick said the department would never knowingly release the information publicly and responded quickly after discovering what happened.

"It has to do with safety," he said. "Let's say that there's a whole lot of people who want to steal marijuana and you publish the list with the names and addresses. Now what have we done?

"We simply wouldn't do it as a matter of safety and as a matter of privacy. They have a right to their privacy."

The privacy breach is another wound for activists who watched as a proposal at the state Legislature to expand the program was reduced to a task force and then vetoed by Gov. Linda Lingle on Tuesday. The state Senate voted in a one-day special session to override the veto, but the state House did not take up the bill, so the veto stands.

State Rep. Joe Bertram III, D-11th (Makena, Wailea, Kihei), wanted to create a secure growing facility on Maui and expand the amount of marijuana patients can legally possess but settled for a task force at the University of Hawai'i that would study cultivation and other issues surrounding the law.

Gov. Linda Lingle, in her veto message, said the bill was "objectionable because it is an exercise aimed at finding ways to circumvent federal law. The use of marijuana, even medical marijuana, is illegal under federal law."

Bertram said the privacy breach, combined with the veto of the bill and the lack of a House override, shows a disregard for patients.

"It's a travesty," he said.
Medical marijuana list released | HonoluluAdvertiser.com | The Honolulu Advertiser

So much for patient doctor confidentiality.:wtf:

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

Disgusting... I hope someone has to pay for this crime...

Well, if there were any way possible to get Bush for 4 more years, he could press it into a change in the Constitution, the States exhibiting independance from the Feds?? Seems to be the trend. started when the Gov't abandoned the states. That is when local taxes went up. Federal programs became state programs and the Feds had less fiscal responsibility to States. Heck, I expect the Feds to charge the States (instead of fine them from funds) just to be a State of the Union!

I am pissed a list like this could get out. Why register your guns or anything else. And those that do not get State Cards, this is a good reason.

If the stoners at the newspaper had not been stoned, maybe they would have picked it up and deleted it. Or, did one spiteful reporter get it and say, Ahh, shall I get a better position in life; I can use these names later! All the possible use's, not just crime against the people whose name got out. However, seems only the paper has it; You'll never know what has become of the list!

I suppose that State needs to put everyone in the Witness protection program and send each person to another island, and the family; at Gov't expense!

The whole thing just sucks!:wtf:

Yeah,I got a letter from them about it too,I was kinda like WTF?
No check?just a sorry?
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeet........Das against HIPPA. isnt it?

Yeah this is why so far I like Washington's MMJ laws. No registration. Its just between you and your doctor which is exactly the way legally its supposed to be.

Really?
How easy is it to get a job and is rent cheap up in Wshington?

Boeing is always hiring. Still lots of jobs available here in the state. We don't seem to be doing to bad as far as the economy is going.

Me and my family are thinking of moving up to the mainland,Were thinking of Oregon,but I hear washington is a good place too,you guys have dispecaries up there?