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Honolulu police Chief Susan Ballard said her department’s controversial policy requiring medical marijuana patients to relinquish their guns was wrong. Read more

Honolulu police Chief Susan Ballard said her department’s controversial policy requiring medical marijuana patients to relinquish their guns was wrong.

“It is not illegal to possess the ones you already have,” Ballard told the Honolulu Police Commission on Wednesday. “Merely having a medical marijuana card doesn’t mean you’re using marijuana. We can’t prove you’re using marijuana. Our practice of having them turn in their firearms was incorrect.”

The department is returning firearms to two people who voluntarily relinquished their guns, Ballard said.

However, HPD will continue to deny new gun permits for medical marijuana patients while it reviews a policy that went into effect in September 2016.

The reconsideration follows community backlash since the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported last week that HPD sent letters to at least 30 gun owners, saying they had 30 days to bring in or transfer ownership of all firearms.

There were 35 gun permit denials for cannabis patients so far this year, HPD records show.

Ballard also said five HPD officers have been authorized to verify Department of Health marijuana registry records for firearms permit applicants, though confidential patient information is not released in that process.

Retired state Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson, a member of the Police Commission, questioned why the department was denying firearm permits for marijuana patients but not people using much stronger prescription drugs.

“I’m a little puzzled as to why the distinction between medical marijuana and medical opioids,” he told Ballard.

“I really can’t answer that question,” she said. “The main thing is … what federal law is telling us.”

Federal law prohibits an “unlawful user” of any controlled substance from possessing firearms, and under federal law, marijuana is a controlled substance. Ballard said that includes caregivers of cannabis patients with marijuana cards.

“I recognize the conundrum,” said Commissioner Loretta Ann Sheehan. “(But) respectfully it seems ridiculous. Keeping your old guns violates federal law. That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Carl Bergquist, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, testified before the commission that HPD should revisit the policy since medical cannabis is legal under state law.

“On behalf of physicians, nurses, caregivers and patients involved in the medical cannabis program, the assumption that they’re all impaired or a danger to society is a great insult,” he said. “A policy like this could push people out of the regulated system. We think these patients should not be stigmatized in this fashion.”