The Hawaii Senate has passed a bill to allow qualified patients access to medical marijuana in health care facilities.

After receiving a favorable report in committee last week, Sen. Joy San Buenaventura’s (D) legislation advanced to the full floor on Tuesday as part of the consensus schedule with a 25-0 vote. A The version of the house proposal has also moved in this session.

The bill states, “It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this chapter to protect the ability of terminally ill patients and chronically ill patients over the age of sixty-five to safely use medical cannabis in specified health care facilities.”

Advocates would like the order to allow health facilities to use medical cannabis, but as written the policy would only allow those, exempting residential treatment centers from the proposed law.

Other exceptions contained in the legislation, SB 2408that medical marijuana may not be used for substance abuse recovery in hospitals, state hospitals or acute general hospital emergency departments “while the patient is receiving emergency services and care.”

Under the proposal, smoking and vaping of cannabis would be prohibited in health care facilities, “provided that the home health agency prohibits smoking or vaping before or during the home health agency staff’s stay at the facility.”

General acute care hospitals could not allow patients with a chronic illness to use medical cannabis unless they were terminally ill.

If a federal regulatory agency, the Department of Justice, or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) takes enforcement action against a health care facility related to its medical cannabis policy, or specifically notifies the facility that it is violating federal law, the health care facility may rescind the policy.

Meanwhile, last week, another Hawaii Senate committee passed a bill allow patients immediate access to medical cannabis once records are submittedinstead of waiting for the cards to be delivered, as is the case under current legislation.

Buenaventura, the head of the Health and Human Services Committee, is also a sponsor of his chamber’s version of the proposal. More of his panels has just passed legislation to legalize low-dose, low-potency marijuanaeven as their peers in the House of Representatives have said, the prohibition of cannabis in the state will not end this year.

The legislation would allow adults over the age of 21 to legally possess and use certain amounts of low-dose, low-THC cannabis, with the product limited to no more than 5 milligrams of THC per serving. In liquid form, twelve ounces can contain 5 milligrams of THC.

Senate committee action follows Senior lawmakers in the House indicated that proposals to legalize cannabis would not move forward In the 2026 session, citing the lack of sufficient support in their chamber.

Despite hopes that those bills – including one from House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee Chairman David Tarnas (D) that would put legalization before voters on the ballot – would advance this year, sponsor and House Speaker Nadine Nakamura (D) said there was not enough support in the legislature to pass this round.

State officials released a report in January the potential economic impact of recreational marijuana legalization on the stateincluding the revenue effects associated with domestic and international tourism.

All told, the researchers said survey data and comparative analysis indicate Hawaii could see $46-90 million in monthly marijuana sales in the fifth year of implementation, after taking into account the maximum tax rate of 15 percent on cannabis products.

The Hawaii Senate narrowly defeated a proposal last year that would have increased the amount of cannabis a person could possess without risk of criminal charges by five times.

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

The Senate bill that would legalize marijuana for adults, on the other hand, has finally stalled. That measure, SB 1613, did not make it out of committee during one term of the legislature.

While advocates believed there was sufficient support for the legalization proposal in the Senate, it is widely believed that House lawmakers would ultimately defeat the measure, as they did last February with a companion legislative bill, HB 1246.

In 2024, a The legislation passed by the Senate also failed in the House.

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

Gov. Josh Green (D) signed separate legislation last year allow medical marijuana caregivers to grow marijuana on behalf of five patients than the current one.

And in July, the governor signed another bill Establishes several new rules for Hawaiian hemp productsincluding the requirement for distributors and retailers to obtain registration from the Department of Health.

Legislators also sent a bill to the governor help speed up the expungement process for people who want to clear their past marijuana-related criminal records– a proposal Green signed the law last April.

This measure, HB 132, of Tarnas, aims to speed up the abolition Green’s pilot program signed into law in 2024. Specifically, it will eliminate a distinction between marijuana and other Schedule V drugs for the purposes of the decriminalization program.

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

Meanwhile, in November, Hawaii officials detailed the rules allow medical marijuana dispensaries to sell a wide range of products for patients— including dry herb vaporizers, rolling papers and grinders — while revising state code to clarify that cannabis oils and concentrates can be marketed for inhalation.

The department as well He confirmed that he is in favor of federal marijuana reorganization– The policy change that President Donald Trump ordered to be carried out quickly, but which has not yet been implemented.

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It’s Marijuana Time tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelic and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters by pledging at least $25/month, you’ll get access to our interactive maps, charts, and audio calendars so you never miss a development.

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

The under the medical marijuana expansion bill signed by the governor In late June, it not only makes cannabis easier for more patients to access, but also contains a provision that advocates find problematic.

Before lawmakers sent the legislation to Green, a conference committee revised the plan, including a provision allowing the DOH to access medical marijuana patient records held by doctors for any reason.

user photo Brian Shamblen.

In modern professional horticulture, medicinal crops such as cannabis and high-yielding vegetable production, root zone management is the cornerstone of consistent quality and yield. Rockwool substrates offer a very stable and correctable root environment, but this advantage is fully exploited when decisions are supported by reliable and well-interpreted data. Sensors in the root zone provide continuous information on water content, EC and temperature. Used correctly, they allow growers to anticipate plant needs rather than reacting to stress signals. Used incorrectly, they introduce noise, false confidence, and misdirection. The difference is in strategy, location and interpretation. Remember that sensors are just another tool and should not replace traditional monitoring methods.

Why Root Zone Monitoring Becomes Essential at Scale
Every grower evaluates the root zone, consciously or not. In smaller installations, this is often done visually and by touch: lifting blocks, assessing the color of rockwool, or observing the attitude of plants. These methods are valuable, but subjective and difficult to standardize.

As operations grow and the number of plants increases, manual assessment quickly reaches its limits. Weighing slabs or blocks on a scale adds objectivity, but at discrete moments and with significant manual labor. In larger facilities, the manpower required to continuously monitor root conditions throughout the crop is simply not available.

Root zone sensors address this reality. They provide continuous data streams that show trends, dynamics and responses to irrigation and climate change over time. In scaled cultivation, sensors are therefore not only a precision tool, but a practical necessity. Importantly, they do not replace experience; they formalize, making intuition measurable and repeatable.

© CULTIWOOL SA
Location, representation and care of sensors
A sensor does not measure the crop; measures the exact micro-environment in which it is installed. Correct positioning is therefore essential.

Sensors should be installed in the active root zone of a healthy, representative plant, at a depth where the roots remain active throughout the crop cycle. They should never be placed directly next to a drip, as this results in high moisture readings that do not reflect average root conditions. Therefore, consistent dripper placement is essential not only for block performance, but also for consistent sensor data.

The wider greenhouse context matters just as much. Sensors should not be placed in corners, edges, near walkways or in areas subject to shadows, drafts or uneven watering. Border plants and atypical sites experience conditions different from the majority of the crop and will yield data that are not representative of the compartment.

Once installed, the sensors must remain in place for the duration of the crop cycle. Repeated removal and reinsertion disturbs the structure of the rockwool, alters the local water distribution, and compromises the consistency of the data. If a sensor needs to be removed, it should never be put back in the same place. Previously used insertion points contain moisture and residual pockets that can affect EC readings. In such cases, the sensor must be installed in a new, unobstructed location.

Consistency in positioning is what allows producers to confidently recognize trends, responses and deviations.

How many sensors are enough?
A single sensor can never represent an entire greenhouse, and in most cases, not even an entire compartment. Changes in light distribution, uniformity of irrigation, air flow and plant development inevitably create them within the crop.

At the same time, the deployment of sensors must be economically rational. The goal is not maximum sensor density, but reliable representation. In practice, this means installing multiple sensors per compartment in areas with comparable growing conditions.

Instead of focusing on individual readings, the most robust approach is to work with average data. Each sensor reflects the conditions of its specific location; by combining their readings, growers create a stable reference that reduces the risk of overreaction to local changes and supports safer and more consistent decision-making. Again, a sensor is just one tool to consider.

Interpreting root zone data in rockwool
Rockwool allows precise control of the air-water ratio in the root zone. Sensors should therefore be used to observe dynamics rather than isolated values.

Meaningful interpretation is based on the behavior of the back-dry between irrigation events, wetting rate, EC stability and how these parameters respond to climatic conditions. Sudden spikes or drops often indicate improper watering, uneven distribution, or location effects rather than actual plant demand.

Root zone data gain real value when cross-referenced with climate parameters such as temperature, humidity and VPD, as well as visual observations of crops. Integrated platforms and multiple data sources, such as those enabled by solutions like SenseNL, help validate trends and clarify cause-and-effect relationships.

Selecting the right sensor for the right substrate
Not all sensors in the root zone are interchangeable. Sensor technology must be matched with the physical properties of the substrate to generate accurate and meaningful data. They must also be properly maintained and stored to ensure accuracy.

Different substrates, such as rockwool and cocopeat, have fundamentally different structures, water retention characteristics and EC dynamics. Sensors designed for cocopeat will not give reliable readings on rockwool, and vice versa.

Also in rockwool cultivation, the selection of sensors is important. Blocks and slabs differ in volume, water distribution and root development patterns. Sensors designed for stone wool blocks are therefore not always suitable for slabs, and vice versa. Matching the sensor to the substrate material and its form factor is critical to obtaining reliable root-site data.

Driving for uniformity and stability
In both medicinal and vegetable cultivation, success is defined by uniformity and repeatability. Correctly installed and correctly interpreted root zone sensors help to identify variability early, reduce differences between plants and support stable establishment or vegetation strategies.

Combined with high-quality stone wool substrates, the sensors become a powerful ally in precision farming, improving consistency without replacing the grower’s experience.

From data points to confident decisions
Root zone sensors aren’t about collecting more numbers; they are about creating clarity. When sensors are strategically placed, deployed in sufficient numbers, and handled consistently, they make rockwool farming a predictable and correctable system.

By averaging data from multiple representative locations, producers reduce risk, avoid overcorrection, and drive with confidence. In professional horticulture, where uniformity, stability and scale define success, reliable root zone data becomes the basis rather than an experiment, cycle after cycle.

For more information:
Cultiwool
(email protected)
www.cultiwool-substrate.com