 I'm Marcia Joyner, and this is Cannabis Chronicle, a 10,000-year audit. And there's so much to learn about cannabis, hemp, and all of the other things that go with this plant. And in the time we've been on the air, we have attempted to learn to discover and explore these 10,000 years with this plant. And today we are going to talk to a dear friend, and you all know I only talked to dear friends, who just produced what is it, the annual Cannabis Expo on the Big Island. And Brent Norris is with the patient, what is it, patient union? Let me get it right now, Hawaii Patients Union, and you're the chair. Is that correct, Brent? That's correct, Marcia, yes, thank you. And so you had this wonderful event, and so many people told me they came from all over the world to be with you. So tell us about the event. What happened? Well, thank you, and thanks for asking. And we did have people from all over the world come and attend, it was our third annual event, so it was really nice to see those, see the tide sort of turning and helping everyone from our vendors to our sponsors get brand recognition in the space, and the platform has evolved now to include, you know, we had people from eight different states participating in all of the islands, and this year's focus was really more about elevating our consciousness towards a loving role with cannabis than our events in the past, which focused on legislation and some of the things that we need to do to improve patient's lives. In this case, we shopped for love, and we wanted to make sure that everyone that attended our event felt like they were loved, and by all measures, we accomplished that goal this year, so that was our goal, and that's all we did, and everyone very time celebrating cannabis. So what were some of the events that happened during the weekend? Well, thank you. Yeah, we planned an event with an organization called Be Heroic as part of their pollination tour. Nikki Florio came over with a co-sponsorship from the Tahoe Hemp Company and Green Color Technologies and put an event on Tuesday, June 11th, and that was a really great event, and I'm not sure that type of information had been cut here before. And then we went to Friday. And what was the, what did they, you say, it hasn't been put on before? What, what did they do? Much of the discussion there was about climate engineering and how everything from 5G technologies to agrochemical technologies, the way they're affecting our pollinators, responsible for about 40 percent of the pollination of our food in Hawaii. So those, those topics, I don't think we're talked about at this depth in an event of this type. Well, does the 5G interfere with pollination? It does, apparently, and I'm, I'm no expert in this area. I'm, I'm really a neophyte. I'm just learning about it myself. But Be Heroic, the nonprofit behind this, has so much information to share about the topic. You know, I would encourage people to go to the Be Heroic website and Be Heroic. And check out. Yeah, we will. Be Heroic. And because that's, I know the phone companies all sell 5G, but if it's going to interfere, then I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised or amazed, or maybe we haven't done enough research to find out what it does, how it affects, and if it does affect what, now, because it floats through out there, would that interfere with the pollination? Let's say of the bees, would that interfere? Do you think? I, I, so I don't really understand how it, how it all works. And, you know, that's, I don't understand how so much of it works. And that's why we bring these experts in, is because they, they really are on top of their game. And, and they were nice enough to fly in from Lake Tahoe to do the presentation. So it's Be Heroic? We just bring people together. Be Heroic is what you said? Be, e, e, Heroic, yeah, two E's and B. So that tells me there's, has to do something with the bees. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what else? Tell me more. What else happened? Well, then we jumped into a celebration of Medical Cannabis Day with, of course, Dr. Otto. Dr. Otto, yes. And the support of our Patients Union, holding that event at the Mokuwa Pa Pa Pa Discovery Center here in Hilo is a really well-received event with opening remarks from Senator Russell Ruderman, talking about the past legislative session and our own Alana Miller elevating that event to this more of a loving state with singing and really a celebration of cannabis with our sponsors, vendors, and presenters on that particular evening. That was on Friday, June 14th. Can we go back to Dr. Otto? I'm not, he's a Jewel and he has been on the show so many times, but I think he was our very first guest. And, but one of the things, I think that we need to make a distinction, because so many people didn't, that 420 is a symbol for recreational or adult, whatever we want to call it, cannabis, where June 14 is the day that it became legal in Hawaii. So that day was set aside to recognize that it's been 19 years since the governor signed and made it a legal medical cannabis in Hawaii. So I just think that we need to make that distinction. I do too. It's really important. I think we should take every opportunity we can to celebrate the wins and celebrate our heroes in our own medical cannabis space. And June 14th is the day to do that. This is the day when we recognized or accepted the medical use of cannabis in Hawaii. And having been 19 years ago, we think that that brings a lot of weight with that date to help people understand and maybe become more aware of how long patients have been working to get fair and equitable access to this medicine. Do you have any idea of how many patients there are statewide that go to the dispensaries that have the cards? Oh, that's a really good question. We don't have transparency laws in Hawaii that would allow us access to that point of sale data, as you might see in other states like Washington. So we don't really know how many patients are going to dispensaries versus purchasing in the home market. Let me rephrase that. How many people are eligible? Not how many people actually go, but how many people have cards? How many people has the state issue the card to? Do you know? Great. 26,000. That's incredible. That's incredible. It is. And it's 10,000 just on our island. And that's a lot of patients for a population of 200,000 or less. Now, you have dispensaries on the Big Island? We have two dispensaries. Big Island Grown and Hawaiian Ethos. And Big Island Grown is open with multiple locations right now in Hawaiian Ethos. So we expect to be opening in any week now. Good. So my concern, of course, when we talked last year, was about having to come to Oahu and flying across the water and whether that was legal and all of that. So that's been taken care of. That's not an issue anymore. Well, it could still be an issue depending on the person's understanding of the law. So we have a lot of workers in between the law, the law's intent, and the patient. So these include people from the TSA, local law enforcement. These are people who largely have not been trained in all of the laws of all of the states of medical marijuana. So they don't necessarily understand the law. And oftentimes you can get detained at an airport, for example. Just while that particular security team gets a better understanding from their commanders or from someone else on their team of whether or not they should put a patient in jail. Oh. I meant for an ounce of... Oh, no. That's absurd. And then they say they don't have room in the prisons for hard and criminals. But they found room for... Okay. All right. So, scratch that. So what else happened at the weekend? Oh, well. So we went in from this fabulous celebration of Medical Cannabis Day on Friday night and just really imbibing everyone with love into Saturday morning at 9 o'clock when Dr. Jim Berg, who has certified as many patients in our state as anyone else, takes the stage, delivers this keynote address that is absolutely mind-blowing. People's History of Medical Cannabis in Hawaii was the title of the talk to a full house. Everyone was completely quiet in the entire trade show listening to Dr. Berg deliver this. And then that was immediately followed by Medical Cannabis Discussion Panel where we had all sorts of experts like Wendy Gibson, Cannabis Nurse Wendy, Mae Fouima, Mahal. We had Jacqueline Moore from Big Island Grown Dispensary. I'm going to stop naming the names right there because I know I'm going to miss someone and I don't want to. But Dr. Otto was able to fly in that morning and fly out that afternoon and participate in that panel and that was incredibly helpful. So that was an intensely medical-focused discussion panel. Is that the one about the women of weed? No. Valorant-shaped-up, we had an industry panel ready to go for Sunday and one of our media partners of White Canvas magazine on Maui said, hey, we've got some people for your industry panel. These are some experts for the panel and it turned out that at that particular time we didn't have any men signed up for that industry panel yet. And the girls that run White Canvas magazine had these women that were interested and we had plenty of women that were interested as well. So it just made sense in that moment in time to combine all of these industry experts by gender. And it's not something we would normally do. We go for the top talent and in this particular case and they were all ready to go. So that's how we ended up with a professional industry discussion forum or panel comprised of women. And that wouldn't happen last but on Saturday we also had the hemp production in Hawaii. So we really expanded this year into hemp thanks to our sponsor Let's Talk Hemp and the Hawaii Hemp Conference. The Colorado Hemp Company really enabled us to bring hemp into our event through this healthy hemp emporium which is a chance for cannabis or hemp carriers to ask questions that you might not otherwise be comfortable asking in any other place in our communities. So we were super forced and that kind of rounded off Saturday. Well now we need to take a break and in 60 seconds but I want to talk about hemp and the health department. So we will be back in 60 seconds. Aloha, I'm Gwen Harris the host here at Think Tech Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep the people of Hawaii safe and sound. I'm Gwen Harris and I'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again and the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Aloha, I'm Marsha this is Cannabis Chronicles and we're back and we are talking with dear dear friend Brent on the Big Island was the host This year, we called it the Hawaii Cannabis Awareness Conference. Just before we went to break, we talked about the women's being there in numbers. From what I've read, there are more women in the cannabis business in Hawaii than any place else. We have a trailer produced by the people that made the movie, and so we're going to run just the 32nd trailer, okay? And then you can tell us about the movie. Great. I realized I wasn't just starting a business, I was like joining a revolution. I grew up in the dairy generation of just say no. Marijuana is a gateway drug. We're a movement and industry and consumers that are all working together. We got the power! I'm doing this film and I've never consumed cannabis. The plant is the core of the whole industry. Cannabis is now medicine. Cannabis is medicine. We want everyday doctors to be able to look at cannabis as just part of your toolbox. How are we going to figure out why this plant works so well if you don't even know what you're taking? How do we build standards for sustainability? We're doing the earth a favor. You know, we can't have a war on science. Elected officials have to make decisions based on data. Marijuana is not a gateway drug, but marijuana offenses are a gateway into the criminal justice system. They said where's all the other Mexicans? I said in prison. We really wanted to make this about social justice. It is the door that you take your foot and you bust it down. This is starting to feel like a huge government conspiracy. It's shedding light on a lot of dark things in our culture that we all want to change and this is the catalyst for it. This is the first time you're really going to be able to get in and have a voice. We have the opportunity to create the first billion dollar sector that is not dominated by men. So there is no glass ceiling. We're building it together. I believe walking the walk is the most powerful thing I can do. I feel like I have more questions now than when I started. Brent, we're back. So I got that from your website where they were advertising the film. So how was the film? The film is excellent. All of the players are, I think, unique at this particular time in history and in this industry. We're still dealing with these gender issues. That's why for the film is we really are seeking gender parity where we have an equal amount of men and women involved. So this film really underscores not just the need but the skills and the talents and the experience that women have in our industry. This is a female plant that we're driving medicine from and that feminine energy in the garden, for example, is really welcomed by the plant. We see noticeable changes when women are involved in the garden. But at the highest levels of organizations right now, women are really being empowered in many instances by films like this, by movies like this. And then what we're trying to do on the conferencing side is we're trying to lift that up and make sure that that's a reality in our community. And not just for men and women. I was reminded this year to consider dropping the binary of men and women and really look at all of the ways that people in our industry identify with themselves, their sexuality, or their genders, or whatever it is. And so we'll be looking to make that a reality. It's kind of hard now to say men and women, or men or women, or whatever. So it's easier to just sort of, people, you know, just sort of lift it. Yeah, just people, just let that go. Yeah. Persons, humanity. Humanity, persons, whatever. Now you had started to talk about him. And I have an issue with the health department, which is not surprising. The Department of Agriculture has worked tirelessly to create a hemp industry in Hawaii. The health department is trying to kill it. What are we going to do? The health department sends out a press release and says that you can't use hemp in CBD because hemp is cannabis and it's illegal. I mean, they just got it all wrong. What are we going to do when the health department issues the wrong information? What can we do? Well, the health department is not engaged in, you know, protecting us from all of the corn and soy that's being drenched in pesticides. And when they're not involved in that discussion of what do we do with this corn on the side of the road that any child could pick up on the side of the road and get poisoned from. Yeah, we think that zero hemp crops are dangerous. I think the Department of Health are by not having priorities for healthcare and not having objectives to pursue a healthy population as opposed to a safe population. They cross over into the Department of Safety's line of work and in doing so I think they make themselves irrelevant. We certainly don't want to get on their radar because they'll put patients in jail just as they have been doing. But, you know, we don't want to be on their radar but at the same time we just can't take them seriously on some of their positions because they're not trustworthy. I know and when they send out a press release that says hemp is cannabis therefore it's illegal and you can't take it. And they were closing down people here on Oahu that had hemp, not hemp but CBD products. It's just an incredible thing that here we have part of the state working to create an industry where young people can grow into the industry and stay in the way rather than go off to school on the mainland and not come home. And then we have a health department trying to kill it. It makes no sense. It doesn't. It's harmful. I don't think that the health department should be involved in economic decisions or farming decisions. Well, farming decisions, they're not involved because you're right. You know, they spray all kind of chemicals on the food and the corn and soy are just loaded with chemicals, you know, the fertilizers. Yeah, can feed off of main roads. You know, these are harmful products that are sitting literally, you know, our pets are eating them yet the problem is hemp somehow and it's non-existent as a crop so far. Yeah. And North Carolina and Kentucky both had tobacco for hundreds of years. And then when we shifted to not smoking, their economy went tailspin. Now they are doing growing hemp. They have universities in North Carolina as a university where they teach about hemp, how to grow it, how to manufacture it, how to do these things. And their economy is thriving based on the hemp. And our Department of Agriculture seems to want to do that same thing and the health department is saying can't do that. Right. Yeah, so this affects everyone. In legal states where someone is farming chickens in their backyard, those farmers now have an ability to grow a little bit of hemp on the corner of their property and feed all their chickens for free. And this is more nourishing for those chickens, making better eggs for us to consume and providing nourishment. Hemp is a food product and being denied a food product because of some of the compounds have failed to research some of the compounds in the ways that they find are helpful like landmark studies. It's just absurd. And to allow all of the pesticides that they have allowed and continue to allow, you know, they're not giving us information on our water supply. At the same time, they're supporting this biogas or this biomass giant furnace up on our Hamakua coast, which is spewing out all of this stuff into the air and the water. And the Department of Health is supporting that. So they're just making themselves irrelevant and we know that their leadership is a direct conduit to the governor. And in fact, you know, they have been without any solid leadership for at least the last five years while all of this is going on. We need some policies and priorities that will prioritize the health of our people with other food products. Well, yes, you know, we need to look at that and this schism between the departments when they all fall under the governor. In fact, I read that the governor of Hawaii is the most powerful governor in the United States. He has 18 departments that answer directly to him and yet we have this schism. So, you know, oh my goodness, we are just about out of time. I love talking to you. We will have to do this again soon because we need to figure out how to deal with this schism. We really do. So again, Brent, thank you so much for all you do and always being there for us. And I have to say aloha.