Hawaii’s state Senate took a formal step toward federal marijuana reform this week, advancing two resolutions that call on Congress to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, support record-clearing efforts in states that have legalized, and open banking services to cannabis businesses operating legally under state law.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved resolutions SR58 and SCR64 in a 5-0 vote. Both measures were sponsored by Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D) and lay out a clear legislative ask directed at federal lawmakers: deschedule cannabis entirely, help states expunge cannabis conviction records, and fix the banking access problem that has left licensed dispensaries operating largely in cash.

The banking issue is not a minor inconvenience. Because cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, financial institutions that accept deposits from cannabis businesses risk federal prosecution under money laundering statutes. The resolutions note that current medical marijuana businesses in Hawaii “are hampered by their inability to obtain the full spectrum of private banking services under federal law.” That situation forces cash-heavy operations, creates significant public safety risks for staff and customers, and limits the ability of cannabis companies to grow, hire, and pay taxes through normal financial channels.

The resolutions also point to a public health and equity argument: cannabis possession convictions remain on record for many Hawaiians, and those records directly affect a person’s ability to secure housing and employment. The call for federal support of state-level record-clearing efforts reflects a growing consensus among legal experts and public health researchers that the collateral consequences of cannabis criminalization extend well beyond the criminal justice system. A 2021 analysis published in the American Journal of Public Health, led by researchers at Boston University, found that criminal records for drug offenses were associated with significant long-term reductions in employment and earnings, effects that fall disproportionately on Black and Latino communities.

If the resolutions pass the full legislature, they will be transmitted to President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the top Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress, as well as each member of Hawaii’s congressional delegation. That transmission carries no binding authority, but it signals an official state legislative position on federal cannabis policy.

The economic case for legalization was also part of the resolutions’ framing. A state-commissioned study projected that a legal recreational cannabis market in Hawaii could generate more than $1 billion in sales by its fifth year of operation. That projection would make Hawaii a significant, if geographically constrained, market. The state’s population of roughly 1.4 million is smaller than many U.S. cities with legal cannabis markets, but its tourism economy and relatively high cost of living may support robust retail demand.

One notable editorial decision happened inside the committee. The original language of both resolutions drew a comparison between cannabis and alcohol and tobacco, pointing out that those substances are not scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act despite evidence that they cause physical injury, chronic illness, and psychological harm. Sen. Karl Rhoads (D), the committee chair, removed that language, characterizing the comparison to other substances as “irrelevant” to the core argument for cannabis rescheduling. The trimmed language keeps the resolutions tighter and avoids a debate about relative harms that, while scientifically legitimate, tends to generate political friction without advancing the specific policy ask.

That comparative harm argument, though stripped from these resolutions, has a real evidence base. Research published in journals including The Lancet and Addiction has consistently ranked alcohol above cannabis in terms of harm to both users and others. A widely cited 2010 analysis in The Lancet, led by David Nutt at Imperial College London, used a multicriteria decision analysis to score 20 substances on 16 harm criteria. Alcohol scored highest overall, cannabis ranked considerably lower. The committee’s decision to cut that framing was pragmatic, not scientific.

Separately, Hawaii’s Senate Health and Human Services Committee this week adopted its own set of resolutions asking the state attorney general and health department to seek a formal exemption from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which would allow Hawaii to run its medical cannabis program without the threat of federal interference. That request, if submitted, would ask the DEA to grant a kind of enforcement forbearance that the agency has no established mechanism to provide. It is more of a political signal than a practical solution, but it reflects the underlying tension that every state with a legal cannabis program lives with: operating a state-sanctioned medical system inside a federal prohibition framework.

Congress has considered cannabis reform bills repeatedly over the past decade without passing comprehensive federal legislation. The SAFE Banking Act, which would address the financial services problem specifically, passed the House multiple times before stalling in the Senate. The MORE Act and other descheduling proposals have followed similar trajectories. What has changed in the current political moment is harder to read. The Trump administration has not announced any clear federal cannabis policy position, and the DEA’s rescheduling review process, which gained momentum in 2024 under the Biden administration, has not reached a resolution.

Hawaii’s resolutions will not force that resolution. But they add a formal state legislative voice to a federal policy debate that, for patients, business owners, and people carrying cannabis convictions on their records, has real and daily consequences.