 Well, hello, hi, and how are you doing? Gordo the Texar here, welcome to another exciting and thrilling episode of Hibachi Talk. We have really interesting and cool guests today. So as a result of that, we're not going to do any cryptocurrency update. We put Angus to bed, so he's not going to be here. We've got a lot to cover in 28 short minutes. So please grab yourself a libation, pull up a chair, and sit down, and we're going to talk about medical marijuana and Hawaii. So we have Dr. Cisley, who's with us today, and Brian Goldstein, who's also the CEO and co-founder of Minola Botanicals. So we're really going to get into this, but first a couple of comments where there's some common threads that we actually have here, and I love this world. Dr. Cisley, your telemedicine was one of your, or it still is maybe one of your big things. Yes, it is. I was very much involved in telemedicine back in the 80s before you were born. Oh my God, that's incredible. I was doing stuff back in that space. So it was really cool. You're a real pioneer. It was a real pioneer. We did telemedicine to Guam. I mean, it was really kind of cool stuff. And then, Brian, you've got the interesting background. I love your comment on the web about shocked at Coinbase being shut down in Hawaii. And I've been ranting on that for about a month. Yeah, I was pretty upset about that. We were looking at potentially using cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. One of that forms of payment in our dispensary, but that's not really a viable option. It's not a viable option. Well, I can talk to you about some other viable options that will work in that cryptocurrency space. Anyway, I'd like our audience to get to know who our guests are, just to get you a little bit of your background. So Dr., since Lady's first, Chivalry's not there, just took a nap. Why don't you just give us a background? You've got one minute. Okay, you bet. Yeah, I'm a physician from Scottsdale, Arizona. I practice internal medicine and psychiatry. And I'm the president of a research institute in Arizona called the Scottsdale Research Institute, where we focus on conducting controlled trials, looking at cannabis as a medicine. And my role here is I'm a medical director of Minoa Botanicals, and I'm eager to start working with patients and seeing patients finally having access to lab-tested quality cannabis. Yeah, and it is, and it's medicine. And I won't hold it against you, the fact that you're an Arizona football fan. I mean, I saw that. I mean, I'm a rainbow fan, but we'll talk about that later. But you also did some stuff in the NFL side, and we want to touch on that a bit later on. I was happening in this. Brian, you've got an interesting background too, so give us a little background on yourself. Yes, but most of my career in technology, about 15 years in software in the San Francisco Bay Area, and then about another 15 years in various technology-related businesses here in Hawaii. And I have been looking at and involved with the medical marijuana industry for about three years now. So this has really turned into a very important part of my life and part of my family's lives. Yeah, and I think the point I want to make sure we get across, this is medicine. This is not recreational. We're talking about medicine here and what happens in that space. And one of the things I particularly like about what you have done, your organization has done, is your community outreach. I mean, so tell us a little bit about that. What possessed you to get into this business, and it is a business, healthcare is a business. I don't care what anyone says, healthcare is a business. We've done a bunch of shows on healthcare. But it's a healthcare business, but what possessed you to get into it, and then what possessed you to say, let's get to the community. So I was introduced to cannabis as a medicine probably about six years ago by a friend in the industry, and I used it as a topical cream that helped with some arthritis that I have. And I was shocked to discover that it worked. And when the Hawaii legislature passed the dispensary law and I started to assemble the team, I wanted to have a very strong medical focus to us as an organization and as a team. And as I did my research in the industry, I came across Dr. Sisley and her groundbreaking innovative research in testing medical, whole plant smoked medical cannabis and the treatment of PTSD. And I grew up in Arizona. I actually went to University of Arizona for one whole year, killed my GPA, and reached out to Dr. Sisley. And she was actually a very early member of our team, pre-licensed, pre-licensed. So you became part of the team pre-licensed. And I got to see all the outreach that this team was doing, and you mentioned the community, these talk story sessions they hosted where they collected meaningful patient feedback about what they wanted from the industry. And I think the key themes were that they were looking for broad access, that they wanted to make sure that patients would actually be able to get a card for a reasonable list of diagnoses and that they would be able to get quality medicine that was lab tested and safe. And so I think, and also that it's affordable. I think that's one of the things we're struggling with now is that we're seeing some onerous regulatory kind of back-breaking regulations from the Department of Health in terms of the certification of labs. And I'm hoping that that changes soon because I sit on the state of Nevada lab testing commission. And we've been very careful to, you know, we feel that patient safety is paramount, but we also are trying to find a balance to make sure that there aren't a ton of added costs that will be then put on the patient. Put on it. Yeah. And this is not, I'm going to say this over and over again during this. This is not recreational marijuana. We're talking about a medicine that we want to bring in. Now, you focus on a number of areas that you want to treat. Yes. Yeah. So because there's a whole number of things, opportunities out there. But you're focused. Now, what are some of the things that you're looking at? We, you know, the study that we're most well known for is this PTSD trial. So we're doing a randomized controlled trial looking at four different varieties of whole plant cannabis in military veterans that have post-traumatic stress disorder. And I can tell you that we're also examining other areas including using cannabis as a substitution therapy for opioids. And we have so many patients that are, you know, chronically opioid dependent. And we really need to find a solution for them to help them get off the opioids that they're addicted to, but also to maybe see if cannabis could be used as an adjunct to pay other pain management. We already have a report from the federal government. The National Academy of Science issued a groundbreaking report in January talking about the fact that there's strong scientific evidence that it's already published confirming that cannabis should be used as a treatment for chronic pain, for nausea and vomiting, and for multiple sclerosis. And that came from the federal government, which is, you know. Which, and we know what their position is, is that all of this stuff. And Brian, you've got to be up against this as your role, so you've got to deal with the political aspects from the federal side. Because, you know, even medical, correct me if I'm wrong, even medical marijuana is still a federal, I won't call it an offense, but it's a federal, it is. Marijuana, regardless of whether it's a medical or a recreational state, is a schedule one controlled substance, so the possession use and sale and transport is against federal law. It is legal at the state level. So we are state licensed dispensary. We have a license from both the Department of Health, as well as a scheduled controlled substance permit from the Narcotics Enforcement Division from the state of Hawaii. So we have permission from the state of Hawaii to possess and sell, well, not yet sell. But once we get our dispensary certified, we will be licensed to sell cannabis. So you, and so one of the things that you've been doing, and I'll be about a year behind schedule. Well, I don't know if I say we're a year behind schedule, but while it was middle of 2015 that dispensaries could have legally sold cannabis, that was never a realistic timeline. My expectation was that by early summer, by now, dispensaries would be allowed to sell. And the holdup right now is certification of private labs to test the medical cannabis. Okay, that was going to be my next question. So what's the holdup at this point? Well, Hawaii has some very stringent regulations, and we're very concerned about patient safety, just like the State Department of Health is. But one of the challenges is the state public lab needs to certify the private labs, and that process is taking significantly longer than anyone expected. And part of that is, and our understanding is that the state is treating cannabis as a pharmaceutical, and cannabis is not a pharmaceutical, it's a natural botanical whole plant medicine. So to treat it as a pharmaceutical is flawed, and will actually lead, potentially did significantly higher costs. So that's a great point, because it's the fact that it is a natural substance, it's not GNA, it's not modified, it's not a created substance like opioids. Exactly. This is just a natural thing. I love this fact of the opioid piece. We did a healthcare segment, and overprescription of opioids, as a person who has had multiple knee surgeries, I've still got bottles of pain pills. Prescribed 10, I use one. And that really feeds the black market in opioids. Mine are still in the cabinet. You didn't solve them. Well, you know, there's still a challenge out there, we have an opioid epidemic, and there's actually some really interesting research coming out of states that have legal cannabis programs. They're seeing at the macro level, at the state level, that the rate of prescriptions of opioids are decreasing. Pharmaceutical companies aren't going to like that. No, it's actually doesn't look good for pharmaceutical companies when they see what's happening in the states with cannabis programs. So we're actually seeing in states that are looking to pass medical cannabis programs, the anti-movement is funded by pharmaceutical companies. I know, and I've always had issues with them advertising on TV and such. But let's talk about some of the myths. I mean, the myths of medical marijuana or cannabis and such. Well, I always come to my mind as the 1932 movie refer madness, I mean, how crazy that whole thing is. But so what are some of the myths out there that we could perhaps be able to spell it within a minute or so? I think the biggest myth is that cannabis has no medical benefit. That was perpetuated by our federal government by placing it in schedule one that's defined as drugs having no medical benefit. But we all know now that there are thousands of controlled trials published in peer-reviewed medical journals that confirm the therapeutic benefits of this plant. So for the government to continue to insist that there's no medical benefit is really erroneous and it's systematically misleading the public. So the other myth that I think is a big problem is the idea that cannabis is a gateway drug. There's no data to support that. And in fact, we're finding more and more now that cannabis is truly an exit lamp instead of a gateway drug. It leads people off of much more addictive meds. And you can see that, as Brian mentioned, in the states where there are legal medical cannabis laws in place, we see a major drop in the prescription drug overdose rates. For instance, there was an article in JAMA where they showed an average of 25% drop in opioid overdose deaths in those states that had a medical marijuana law. So those are points that somehow the media doesn't bring out. It's hard to focus on. So why did, you know, well, we can spend hours on this. So you've got a number of upcoming events and I want to cover those too because I want to make sure that the community knows that they've got opportunities to come in here. You speak and so on. But before we do that, what I'm going to do is take a short one-minute break. We've got to pay the bills, you know, because we are a non-profit 501C3. So we're going to take about a minute. We'll come back and we're going to talk about what's going on in the community where you can come out and find out what's happening in the medical marijuana industry. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube, and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Freedom. Is it a feeling? Is it a place? Is it an idea? At DiveHeart, we believe freedom is all of these and more, regardless of your ability. DiveHeart wants to help you escape the bonds of this world and defy gravity. Since 2001, DiveHeart has helped children, adults, and veterans of all abilities go where they have never gone before. DiveHeart has helped them transition to their new normal, search DiveHeart.org and share our mission with others, and in the process, help people of all abilities to imagine the possibilities in there. Aloha, and how are you doing? This is Gardo the Tech Star. Welcome to Hibachi Talk. We are here with Dr. Cicely. She's the medical director of Manoa Botanicals. And we're here with Brian Goldstein, who's the CEO and founder of Manoa Botanicals. And we're talking about medical marijuana in Hawaii, and it's going to be coming here soon. A lot of the steps are going in place. But one of the things I like about these two individuals and what you're doing is your community outreach. Now you've got some things coming up in the near future. So can you tell us about them and who can come and what opportunities are there? Yeah, we're really excited to have Dr. Cicely in town this week. And we have a number of events that are taking place. Probably the largest event to open to the public is this evening at Temple Emanuel, which is located at 2550 Poly Highway. Poly? So it's right on the Poly. Yeah. And we're talking about medical cannabis in Hawaii. Both Dr. Cicely and I will be presenting. Dr. Cicely will be talking about some of the latest research. I'll be sharing information about the program in Hawaii, various qualifying conditions, how people can get a medical marijuana card. On Friday evening, we have an event at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, which we're really excited about. This is directed primarily at healthcare professionals. So many of your listeners that are nurses, physicians, advanced practitioner, registered nurses, medical students are invited to attend this. That's at the Sullivan Center at the Cancer Center Friday evening. And Dr. Cicely will be the speaker at that event. Really targeted at a pretty somewhat technical talk on medical cannabis, the conditions it's used to treat with some of the latest researches on that. And then Saturday morning, we have an event at the Box Jelly, which is focused on PTSD and veterans. And Dr. Cicely has some groundbreaking research on cannabis that I'd love for her to take a minute to talk about. And actually that event was sold out within just a few days and we were able to increase the capacity. And there's, I think, just a few more seats left. All these events are free and they're on eventbrite.com. Oh, okay, perfect. So Eventbrite, there's three of them. So you've got the Polly, you've got the Cancer Research, which is Kakaako, you've got Box Jelly, which is Kakaako as well. So you've got all three of those. Parking is easy. It's one of the big things in Hawaii. Parking is easy and the price is right. It's $3.99. I encourage people to go out. My wife's a registered nurse, so she's very much interested in what's going on in this space. Tell us a little bit. So you just mentioned right about a little bit of the research. So you want to talk a little bit? Sure, yeah. I mean, we have an immense amount of data that supports cannabis as a medicine and the idea is there's a number of qualifying conditions here in Hawaii and many patients may have never considered cannabis as a possible treatment option. So we want to really encourage the public to come to this event and learn more about how they might treat a condition that they're struggling with. For instance, if they have, let's think of a... There's chronic pain. There you go. Let's just try that. That's the most significant one. The back pain. That's right. If they've been struggling with this and they've tried a lot of conventional treatments and nothing's helped, then they can come and learn about the existing data. There's already published literature that confirms that cannabis does provide pain relief and that was, again, mentioned in the NAS report, the National Academy of Science, this respect in federal agency, concurred that cannabis is useful in pain management. So what about prescriptions? Because this is a prescription medicine. Yeah, it's not. It's not. It's good. Okay, then I had something wrong. That's right. It's only available by a recommendation from a physician or an advanced practice nurse. So the idea is that the physician, the health provider who does this would confirm that a patient has a qualifying condition and there's a list of what, 8 or 10 diagnoses? 12. No, they added dysarthritis and multiple sclerosis as well as others. So chronic pain, epilepsy, PTSD, there's a whole list of conditions and a patient actually, doctors cannot prescribe cannabis. This is good news. It certifies that you have a qualifying condition and then the patient needs, would go to the dispensary and with our assistance, and this is part of our core mission as a company, is to provide a consultative approach and help patients on their journey of discovery because each patient needs to go down their own journey of discovery to find what strain, what method of ingestion, what rates of titration, how much they should take, whether they should make a tea habit, use an oil, a smoke, or vaporize or rub it as a lotion. Find a method that works for them. So that's a great point. I love this. I'm glad we do a show and I learn stuff too. So it's not prescription, but there's other ways. It's not just smoke. It can be an oil. It can be ingested. There's a whole number of things. I met a family whose young child, who was by 7, was epilepsy, Colorado and he was on Medical Marijuana and they said it's just changed their entire family life structure because he was so much better himself and then for what it helped them with their entire family unit. So it's just kind of a... A very common way for people to start is if they have, for example, joint pain, is to use a topical that they would rub on. I have a tennis elbow. I use a medical cannabis cream on and I'm able to continue playing tennis. Man, I could use this for my niece. Man, that'd be awesome. So I want to digress just a little bit, but still in the research side because this is a big sports town, especially football. Football is huge. Now, you've got something, a little something you're working with the NFL. We have a campaign to try to persuade the NFL to end the ban on cannabis. You know, since its start, the NFL has always penalized and sanctioned players for utilizing cannabis even medicinally and we're trying to persuade them by showing them the science that's already been published to try to explain to them that this should be allowed and utilized by players because there's a growing body of literature that suggests that cannabis could be involved in neuro-protection. What we mean is that, you know, brain cells that are injured over and over during the course of an entire professional career in football, they may have, you know, thousands of head injuries and each time they get a concussion, they develop this inflammatory process that often results long-term in what we call CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy and many of these players have learned that cannabis could protect their brains from those kind of long-term injuries and many of the players are already using cannabis throughout their year, but the problem is once a year, the NFL tests for cannabis. You do the drug test that sits in your body for a certain period of time. So we have did, I mean, the U.S. government has a patent on cannabis for neuro-protection, so the federal government has already admitted that there is literature that confirms that cannabis is useful for this, but they still won't allow the, you know, to be federal. Because of this whatever ancient stigmatism, so my grandson played football for 14 years and he played for the university, he was a lineman and he's been beat up, beat up, beat up, and concussions that didn't even begin to come. And I played in the CFL and I got beat up and it explains why I have no hair in my head. But, you know, so if there's an option or an opportunity here where they're not off taking, you know, massive doses of opioids or whatever to kill the pain, this is a natural, it's a natural. It's a plant-based medicine. There's a growing body of evidence to support that. It provides neuro-protection and it's stunning what some of these studies are coming out and suggesting is if this turns out that what these indications are true, then not only should the NFL allow players, but they should provide medical cannabis in capsule form without any psychoactive, so you can ingest cannabis that has no psychoactive effect so it doesn't get you high. Yeah, that's a good point. And not just be allowing their players, they should be providing it to the players. That's what they should be. Yeah, and the NCAA and not just football, there's all the other... Yeah, NBA's for bands. Yeah, the military. I mean, you just go down the list and like you said, that's a great point is that the misconception is that every time you take medical cannabis, it's elicinogenic and it's not. Every time you rub it on your elbow, I don't think so. I use a tincture for some lower back pain that has, it's a 20 to 1 CBD to THC, so it's got 20-part CBD to 1-part THC. So I take a dropper full of that. My pain goes away and I feel nothing. There's no psychoactive effect. The amount of THC is so, it's a micro dose. You don't feel it. So how is the medical marijuana industry being perceived in Hawaii now? I mean, it's been discussed a lot. There's been news a lot. I mean, we're obviously not distributing it yet, but how is it perceived now since you've been doing this for, what, three years? Yeah, there's just a great deal of public interest in it, and especially even in the early in the process pre-license when I was approaching people to solicit their assistance to become part of the team, and frequently you would think that people are going to be, oh no, marijuana, but I was surprised to find out the reaction was, oh my God, my dad used it before he died. It helped him so much. My mother used it before she passed away. There you go. This is a long time ago. It's okay, yeah. It's amazing. People are so hungry for information, and it's proof that when we offered these sessions, they filled up immediately because people are desperate to find out to really get objective information about how does cannabis work and how to sign up, and I think that's I'm not sure if you went over how the patients... Well, yeah, I mean, so there are most, all of the healthcare systems here like Capulani, Queens, Kaiser, they don't allow their doctors to certify patients, so you need to go to either an independent doctor who does not work for one of these hospitals. Interesting. Or a cannabis clinic that specializes in seeing patients and determining if they have a qualifying condition. And if your doctor doesn't certify patients, then just send an email to us at infoatmanoabotanicals.com and we have a list of doctors, advanced practitioner, registered nurses that will see patients and determine if you have a qualifying condition. If you do, you'll get your medical marijuana card in about seven to ten days. Seven to ten days. Now, the thing is not covered by insurance provider. No insurance. Because they've got federal pressures on them, I would believe. Right, right. If it's not covered by Medicare, then insurance doesn't pay for it. So you have to come up with ways to be able to get this funded. Are there non-profits out there that are getting established to help fund these kinds of things? Well, actually, that's one of the outputs. In our pre-license talk-story outreach sessions, one of the things that we took away was patients' concerns about affordability. So we developed a compassionate care plan called the PULAMA plan that will provide financial assistance to patients who have a demonstrated need. Okay, perfect. So guess what? We're running out of time. What's the website? It's manoabotanicals.com Right now, it's just a coming soon webpage. Our full website will be coming out in about two months. Okay, and I've been on there and submitted a question, I think, or so. Anyway, we give all of our guests this autograph solo cup. This is 125. 125th show, A&B. Don't lose this. It's worth at least a penny and a half. Or a millionth of a Bitcoin. Anyway, we want to thank everybody for joining us today. I think it's a great show. So check out the website. Check out this show when it gets released. And like we say at the end of every show, one, two, three, how you doing?