 Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner and this is Cannabis Chronicles. It is a 10,000 year odyssey. So tell me news of that plant of many sources which wandered far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel, fiber and cultivated for millennial. As we venture through the past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant from which cannabis derives and the many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, hashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and apple, and so our odyssey begins. Today, our odyssey is not long ago and far away. In fact, it is current and that is last weekend we had the Cannabis Expo right here in Honolulu. It was a fabulous event and there were vendors from as far away as the Netherlands and Oregon, Washington, Colorado and the Big Island. Just a wonderful event and so today we are going to talk with one of the organizers of the event, this fabulous Cannabis Expo right here in Honolulu. And our guest is Kyle. Now Kyle pronounce your last name for me. Paredis. That's a beautiful picture. Kyle is one of the organizers of the event and this is, is this your third year, is that correct? Correct, it was our third year. Now tell us all about the expo from beginning to end and you as the organizer. What is it and how is it that you do what you do and present such a fabulous event? Aloha and thank you for having me. Yes, my name is Kyle Paredis. I'm one of the organizers for the Hawaii Cannabis Expo. We are in our third year this year and basically me and my partners several years ago, we were sitting and talking about the industry as a whole and trying to find a avenue to help advocate for the movement and we decided that this would be a good venture for us to pursue and so it happened three years ago was our first event and we launched that without any expectations just trying to look into what the community, what the state was, what their appetite was and surprising to us that in our first year we put in about between four and 5,000 spectators coming in for knowledge, information, consulting and also just seeing what's going on in the industry and so it began with that movement. Fast forward to the second year, we increased our vendors by about 20%. We grew about 20% and we pulled in another couple thousand people into the show over the weekend and again it was still based around the idea of advocating, providing knowledge and information for patients and also just the curious person. We flew in experts from around the country to come in and do presentations and answering questions from the audience. Well, I was there of course and I met such wonderful people in such a diverse group of people and a little bit of time that we have been doing this program with watch this industry grow by leaps and bounds and I was amazed at people that stopped me and said oh aren't you the lady on cannabis chronicles that ordinary people, I'm not talking about just vendors, tell us about the kinds of vendors you had, the different, I was amazed at the variety. Well, yeah, I mean we had vendors that were medically based so we had medical professionals there as well as advocacy groups pushing the legislation side as well as people who are bringing in products from the edibles to drinks that are specifically made for medicinal purposes using CBD as part of its ingredient but we had tons of different types of vendors. We had over about 115 vendors this year which was again another 20 percent over the second year so we had quite a bit of variety there. Now tell me the difference in cannabis and CBD. What's the difference? I saw so many people selling different CBD products. I saw one woman selling soap and somebody else selling drinks and food well not food but edibles. So what's with CBD? So there's two major ingredients that the industry focuses on and out of dozens of ingredients that the cannabis plant puts out but two very specific ingredients the CBD aspect and the THC aspect. THC is what people are familiar with that gives the psychedelic or that high feeling and the CBD is considered more of the medicinal ingredient but doesn't have that psychoactive ingredient and so more of the industry leaning towards the CBD side because it can be sold through stores and over the counter whereas THC you need your medical marijuana card and go through a licensed certified seller. So there's that significant difference as far as being able to even acquire them. Well so if you take CBD then you don't have a dirty p-test is that correct? That is correct. Yes you shouldn't have if it's a pure CBD extraction you definitely should not have any issues with a drug test or urine test. Well now how do you know that it's pure? I mean what is there on the label that says this is pure or is this something somebody cooked up in their kitchen? Again how do you hit it right on a nose? Yeah you hit that right on a nose and that's why we put together these types of events because there are you know your dozens and dozens of people who are cooking it up at home and and have learned through time and and and you know process to develop their own formulas and then there's people who are developing these products through laboratory equipment and and procedures. So there there is significant levels in product quality and you know again it's we're fairly new in the industry and Hawaii is is again a little bit behind the rest of the country as far as our access to the high quality products. So sometimes you're going to deal with you know your your home product makers and and not to say that they're any worse or or you know degraded from what you could get from the mainland but it's just different levels of quality I would say. Well my question to you then is how do we know? I saw so many things and I would love to buy from people that are local I want to keep it local. How would I know? What is on the is there something on the label that tells us this is local this is not something somebody made up in the kitchen? Yes I mean again somebody's kitchen is going to make it so I mean as opposed to a certified kitchen or a home kitchen that's that's what I meant. Yes yes and on on most people's labels they will identify what the main ingredient is so they might say CBD from hemp or CBD from cannabis or full spectrum or it's a cannabis based product or a hemp based product so there's again various ingredients or variables you know variables that are going to be different so that's why I show that this is important because people have to walk around and talk to these vendors and learn about what makes them different and and it's very hard to say one company is better than the other because you know their process and or where they get their growth from is going to make a big yeah that was my next question so if I wanted to make cookies where would I get the product to make to put in the cookies where where do I get the the CBD to put into the cookies where where does that come from the origin yeah yeah so so CBD again the origin can come from a cannabis plant and or a hemp plant now 90 percent of the industry who are selling products over the counter are selling a CBD extract or isolate from a hemp based plant and and so those are very very low to to nil in THC and that's why it could be promoted on a larger scale more publicly whereas a CBD extract from cannabis is considered more of a full spectrum and has has more you know of the THC ratio and so you know there is that that the deciding factor of where you're going to get your CBD from oh do you can you buy it wholesale from somebody that's selling wholesale for that very purpose for you to make things with it is again like okay so so I mean legally cannabis CBD or cannabis in general needs to be acquired using you know the the procedures laid out by the state so you need your medical marijuana card you can go to a dispensary to pick them up and or you can go to a medical provider that is certified or cleared to treat patients right so so that one you can you need to go through that process to buy the the CBD to make the edibles and I'm going to say not just CBD because we're we're just using CBD in this general term because again they come from two different plants now again CBD from cannabis you need to go through a particular procedure to acquire those CBD from hemp you can kind of get them from anywhere whole foods uh some of our natural natural food shops and some of the smoke shops uh they definitely have CBD from hemp yes they're very readily available oh at down to earth you can just yeah yeah I mean a lot of these natural food stores will sell hemp drinks or or CBD based drinks so you know it's it's pretty available out there in the market yeah oh oh that's that's interesting I I don't know what I thought I thought that you had to buy wholesale product in order to make edibles and drinks and things like that yeah no that's why that's why this year if you came to previous shows you would have seen a explosion in CBD products oh it was oh my goodness yeah yeah so so for example my my partners in business uh launched their new product this year which was the bombucha kombucha I love that say it again bombucha kombucha it's it's it's a kombucha product that is enhanced with CBD kombucha what is kombucha kombucha is a fermented type of tea that you know goes through a process at the end of the day you get this tea that is very high in in probiotics and live active cultures that's really good for the digestive tract and the immune system and and to bring that to a whole nother level we're we're enhancing it with CBD wow so oh and and that was I saw I saw that name but it you know I there was so many booths and I visited so many people yeah they did it was their debut show to launch the product and so they were at the show but why I brought that up was we thought you know we'll be maybe 10 or a dozen of us selling CBD specific type of products but when everybody laid out their their products on their tables or at their booths as I was walking around organizing the vendors I was amazed that how many vendors showed up with CBD products and it was it was quite impressive it was I was astounded to see that many and they're all different there were no two alike everybody had something different yes yeah it's very different they have different um potencies they have different volume in sizes and then they have different combination and uses so it was it was amazing to see the the market grow like that you know especially here in Hawaii I was impressed by the numbers of people from out of state I met one man from the Netherlands like wow yes uh yes and then I met people of course from the big island and Maui the man from Maui had this huge belt looked like a heavyweight belt and it was he had won first place with this with the cannabis seeds I guess that's what that was yeah it's like they call that the aloha cup where um you know the growers around the state submit their their seeds or their plant for judging and it goes through a um a process of testing to to determine the quality of their product and uh and yeah so there there are people from across the the state all the islands were represented and I was able to speak to a handful of them that were you know just flew in from Hawaii just because they wanted to be at the show or Maui or or the big island you know and it was it was nice to hear from those individuals because a lot of them came for real information you know and um and again like you said there were people who flew in from the rest of the states and internationally yes um uh this family that grows hemp on the big island and it's a family and they made all kind of beautiful things out of hemp yes I don't remember their names now but they were delightful and they had been doing it for years and we don't think of hemp as a local product at least to do what they do uh yeah I mean if you go back you know several generations yet you gotta remember that Hawaii was really really well known for their their growing practice of the cannabis and hemp plant so um you know we're not too far behind as far as the quality we can produce here in fact you know as far as outdoor growing there's you know super high quality here what what they're learning uh currently in Hawaii is how to do the indoor growing which which is a little bit more tedious and scientific so um yeah that's the biggest difference we need to take a break we'll be back in one minute and then I want to talk about growing because that one totally spell bounds me so we'll be right back thank you cop this is stink tech Hawaii raising public awareness some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut at dive heart we believe that to be true we say forget the moon dive heart can help children adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on earth search diveheart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life you play so any chance you play at all you know that's my life I love music Ted Rawson here folks you're a host on where the drone leads our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on Think Deck where we talk about drones anything you to do about drones drones remotely piloted aircraft unmanned air christmas whatever you want to call them emerging into Hawaii's economy educational framework and our public life we talk about things associated with the use the misuse uh technology engineering legislation with the local experts as well as people from across the country please join us noon on Thursdays and catch the latest on what's taking place in the world of drones okay yeah those kind of questions I can answer yeah uh loha and we are back and we're talking today with Kyle who is one of the organizers of the very successful cannabis expo of the last weekend and I want to ask Kyle about growing plants because if I get a card today um and it says that I can grow 10 plants well my question then is where do I get the starter plant how do I grow it uh you know how much suns how much water how much soil uh will the afternoon sun which in Hawaii burns up everything will that kill it what do I have to do to get this plant that they say I can use there's so many questions about the plant so Kyle you're on let's start with a where do I get the plants okay so um first and foremost before you can start growing you definitely need to make sure you have your medical marijuana card yes and and from there you you'll be able to enter a dispensary and acquire seeds so you can ask oh so you get the seeds from the dispensary correct okay you can get the seeds from the dispensary I mean there are um other ways of acquiring seeds uh at the show there was there were dozens of vendors that were seed specialists oh I saw so many seeds yes correct and and so um but for the most part if there isn't a you know event like that you you will have to go to a dispensary and talk to them to see how you can acquire some of the cannabis seeds now there are dozens and dozens of different strains so you have to also determine what strains are best for your needs oh dear that opens another can of worms how do I know that that or does the grower or the dispensary or the doctor that you went to are those are the people you ask okay so I have arthritis and it's really bad and the pain is what do they can they answer that question that that is a really really good question and I cannot speak for the uh capabilities of each dispensary but I would hope that the dispensary themselves are hiring people within their their staffing that are qualified to direct people in the right direction for the specific strain and or combinations suited for their needs and and and at least from from my perspective I would I would want that um professionalism if I entered a dispensary um you know for some particular needs so yes obviously you need to find out what your real needs are and then there are strains that address those needs very specifically so um you really you really need to know what's going on if if it is for some medicinal purposes right well I mean but that's what you get the card for isn't it for medicinal purposes well you know again even the doctors that are registering you or certifying you for your medical card they can suggest what to do and where to go but now when you're purchasing that's a whole another process you you need to make sure that you're buying what you need right so that's either consulting with the physician that that certified you and or speaking to other professionals that endocannabinoid specialists specialists that are dealing with certain issues and hopefully the staffing at the dispensaries should be able to give you a good direction to head in I saw hundreds and maybe even more I don't want to exaggerate but it seemed like just hundreds and hundreds of seeds with different names beautiful names each little seed every little brochure beautifully done and the seeds all had different names so then and when I looked at that and I thought oh well how do you make a decision how do you decide which one of these is what you want and then okay so I chose this one let's assume I bought this one now if at the at the expo if I wanted to buy the seeds would I have had to show your card yeah I mean if you show your card you should definitely be able to acquire seeds at the at the expo I meant correct yeah but what could anybody buy them you know I don't know what vendors were actually selling seeds most were doing more of educational certain strains that they're growing and why it's good so that I cannot speak on specifically what seeds or where you could buy them I don't know I like I said I just saw so so many and then I could I could smell as I was leaving I could smell the smoke from was there a smoking area there wasn't smoking area but but keep in mind right like if you're a medical card holder you are allowed to smoke as long as you're following the guidelines of the location you're smoking you know like some some buildings you got to be 20 feet or 50 feet right away so so if you're a tobacco smoker or a cannabis smoker it's the same and I was just like I said as I was leaving I could and outside I could smell and I thought well I didn't think you could do that here but anyway well that's another let's let's let's let's get past that whole misconception right it's it's legal if you have your medical card no I meant the because of the building that not whether you could or not but just no no no the building regulations that was all yeah there was no smoking indoors or or anything but if you went outdoors and and cleared cleared yourself from whatever regulations that the building had that that was my question it was just the building nothing not whether it's okay or not it was you know that you can't smoke anything in the building you're absolutely yeah and now uh tell me real quickly about all of the different people you brought in I met a Martin Lee was it brilliant man who said he was a journalist and started this whole movement of looking into CBD he was very interesting man yes and so yeah we go ahead yeah we brought in a we brought in a lot of experts uh people from growing experts to to how to use cannabis for medicine to the legislative movement also you know how to use the CBD and or cannabis in in your health practice so there was a lot of experts like you said we had also several doctors presenting on on this usage and or the research that they have been following well like I said I was thoroughly impressed with the whole thing now the mainstream media said that there were about 10 000 people that came through is that correct or more something like more to me I would say this year we touched the 10 000 mark so again I would say another growth of a couple thousands from year two well so that bodes well to thinking there will be a year four absolutely there there will be a year four um and I it's going to be at the same location until I believe the convention not convention center but the place they'll may be going under construction in a couple years so they will definitely be there until they they go under construction for modernization well now if that's the case you will promise me you will stay with us come visit with us regularly as you progress toward the expo next year so we will absolutely yeah so keep us informed tell us what we need to do who needs to register how they do all of those steps so if you can stay with us we would absolutely love that and we'll see you next time thank you so much for having me I love her