 And this is Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000 year artist. And today, we are going to visit with Mike Ruckels, who is my new best friend, and you know I only talk to best friends. And he has been on a journey with Cannabis for so long dealing with our version of Uncle Sam, with the state and the police, and the undercover. Oh, it's a mess. So, last week, we began this artist with him. So today, we will do part two. Aloha, Mike. Aloha. Marcia, how's it going? It's great. I am glad to see you. So, bring us up to date of where you, what year did you start this fight? Well, we actually started in 07. Oh, my God. Yeah, that was when we formed what was called Friends for Justice. And what happened, I'd put an ad in the paper saying, you've got illegal marijuana, but been busted anyway, united, we stand. And so what happened was over 100 people called me and we formed this group called Friends for Justice, which I believe ultimately is what saved me. Because even at the end, when I went pro se, I was able to refer to the gallery when I would say, hey, the people I was helping. And I was able to gesture over to the gallery, which was just full of people. Because they were members and people that we helped over the years. And so I believe that ultimately helped the jury understand that what we were doing was helping people not be trying to do anything criminal. And that collectives, you know, were non-profit. Nobody was trying to make any money and that we were actually trying to help the sick and dying that were falling through the cracks at the time. And you've got to remember this was before dispensaries. And there really was nowhere for people that didn't use cannabis prior to an illness to acquire cannabis. Because you've got to remember if, you know, if you're like me who've been smoking cannabis since you were 13, I had no trouble acquiring cannabis. Because I had been inquiring for 50 years and so I was well acquainted with how to do so. And let's just say you're a regular person who's just suddenly got prostate cancer or skin cancer or something that maybe cannabis can help you with. And you're trying to find this help. Well, sadly, most people on the big island would have to leave the state in order to do that. Yes. Like I believe Roseanne Barr was one of the first famous ones who pointed out that the only way she could find a medical cannabis in the state of Hawaii was to fly back to California and show them her Hawaii medical license. Because they had what we now have, I forget what they call it. Only in California, resperosity means they look at your Hawaiian medical card and they honor it. Resperosity over here means you've got to get a new card. And pay the county $40, $50. And then they'll honor your California card for two months. Well, let me say that anyway, that's a different story. Yeah. So anyway, so about the end of life. Right. And so anyway, that's a different story. We're going to go back to the trial. So anyway, so when Act 178 took place, and that was in 2013, but it didn't take effect, so 2015, we opened in 2015. But before we opened, we talked to the governor. We talked to the head of the program. We talked to everybody, and we thought that we had been given permission. At one point, Peter Whitaker, the head of the medical cannabis program, told us we were good to go at one of the health meetings. Anyway, so we opened and they sent in an undercover. And what they did is that when they changed from NED to the health department, they were allowed to promulgate new rules. And the legislators did this because they thought there was probably a conflict of interest with narcotics enforcement division running the medical cannabis program. And they had an excellent point. Only problem with it is that when they changed to the health department, this allowed the attorney general to promulgate new rules. And so you got to remember that the Department of Public Safety, which is this big triangle with the attorney general at the top. And so he was the one, and you got to remember the head of the program, Peter Whitaker, he was just a nice doctor. He actually ran the AIDS program before, and he's a very nice, intelligent doctor. And he's someone who's dedicated to helping people. And he really wanted to help us, cannabis patients, too. And if he would have had autonomy, it would have been great. And believe me, we would already have a way better program. Sadly, he had no autonomy. The attorney general was able to promulgate new rules that read like a wish list for a prosecutor, because that's exactly what it was. But at that meeting, we were able to get Peter Whitaker to say, well, if that's what the law reads, and I had to get rude to get him to say this. But I got it on video, and I apologize to him right now for being rude. But I got him to say, hey, if that's what the law reads and it does, you're good to go. So we opened the business, and so they sent in this undercover. And a nice young man. But the thing was, he was from Samoa. He had six children. A very nice young man. Samoa, when I said young, you know, fifties. And anyway, he came in and said he had a bad back, which apparently he didn't have. And he lied to me on the phone and said he had a card. Because we had over 150 members, and I was trying to protect them. Anyway, he lied, he comes up. I never let him out of the car because he had to produce your card. Anyway, he couldn't produce a card, so I recommended a couple doctors to him. He actually went to one of the doctors, Dr. Berg, a very fine doctor. And he got a card. And so he didn't actually have the card, but he had the written certification. That later became a rub. That's why I'm bringing that up now. But, and so, when he came back, showed me the certification. We signed him up because we were a private collective. Before that, we used to be a club. But when Act 178 took place, we turned into a collective. Because the new rules said you couldn't consume cannabis anywhere open to the public. So instead of being a club, which is open to the public, we switched to a collective, which is private. And so we'd make members sign things. And one of the things we'd make them sign was the coal memo, which was this federal memo that had come out, which later got rescinded by, uh, can't think of the guy. I call him the evil Kepler Elf. That's why I can't think of him. Or Jeff Sessions. Oh, yes. He rescinded the coal memo. But basically what the coal memo said was, hey, if you follow these seven things, then the feds won't come after you if you're doing medical in your state. So we made our members sign all that, and I made this guy sign it. Anyway, he signed up and we transferred medicine to him. And they came back five days later and they busted me. Now, you'll notice that later in the trial, what, you know, the prosecutor, what he says is he goes, because he tried to confuse the jury, and I'm kind of glad he did, but he went, hey, this isn't about patient to patient transfer. He says, this is about Mr. Ruggles hooking up a patient before he actually has his registration card. And he's like, the new rules say you can't do that. And he pointed to these new promulgated rules. The only thing is, the new rules don't say that. If you look at the new rules, what they say is, is that upon receiving your registration card, carry it when you're possessing. So you'll notice the difference. It doesn't say you must have it to possess. It says once you've received it, you must carry it when you're possessing. Anyway, so that's what he tried to say that it boiled down. It's written certification, but that doesn't mean you can possess, even though it does. And if you read it, even in the new administrative rules, what it says is that it's signed from the doctor till one year or sooner if the doctor recommends it. So you're actually certified as soon as you get your written certification. But the prosecutor was right. Your written certification isn't just your letter. That letter also signifies that all the other requirements for your written certification, including the money, has been sent to the health department. Anyway, that's what he tried to say the law was, but because right before the trial, like two days before the trial, they dismissed 31 charges, 30 felonies and a misdemeanor. And, you know, for a guy, you would think you would be relieved when they dismissed that because I was facing three lives, plus 32 years. They dismissed 30 charges and a misdemeanor, you think you'd be relieved. And I ran towards this, is that I've had an excellent group of young people helping me. Mr. Nurses, we had lawyers, I had a lot of people helping me, and I was trying to bring this forward for every collective in the state. And you gotta remember there were no dispensaries at the time, and there was over 20,000 patients. So we knew that there was literally hundreds of collective frays, some other collective that wasn't as well-prepared as I, would get arrested and just get steamrolled. It would be my decision to do it. And so here we had 10 boxes of stuff. This guy, I had to buy four printers. We had 10 boxes, both boxes, proving every one of those malicious charges were false. 33 felonies, I was 32 felonies and a misdemeanor. I was facing three lives plus 32 years. And let me tell you, you haven't lived and you've had a chance to tell you you're facing three lives plus 32 years. But it was a very humbling, all those people coming out to the gallery, I can never thank them enough, because I believe in the end, I tried to make it about a real, I'm sending off a question to the Supreme Court, right? Why a concern can go straight to the Supreme Court? Because I'm sure they spent over a decade. They spent $100,000 just on my lawyers and I was pro-safe. Mike, Mike, we have to take a break. We have to take a break. And we'll be back in one minute. Okay? Don't go away. I won't. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours, the Atherton Family Foundation, Carol Mun Lee and the Friends of ThinkTech, the Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and Education, Collateral Analytics, the Cook Foundation, Dwayne Kurisu, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, Hawaii Energy, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Hawaiian Electric Company, Integrated Security Technologies, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Kamehameha Schools, MW Group, the Shidler Family Foundation, the Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. And we're back. We're talking with Mike Ruggles about his struggles to assist people with medical cannabis and all he went through for 15 years. Now, I have my medical cannabis card, registration card, and it has a registration number and an expiration date and the growth site, and I am a caregiver, so that's what my card says, that I am the caregiver and it says who it's for and where the growth site is. Not that I could ever figure out how to grow plants, but that's what the card says anyway. It's not as easy as it looks. No, it isn't. No. No. But once you're talking about that, but it says here, it says registration card. It doesn't say anything else. It says registration card. So when you said that, you're talking about it without just a scene. Because how worse is this? It's the doctor's recommendation, written certification, that allows you to acquire and consume. It's the registration card that allows you to grow. But apparently with the new rules, what they're saying is that if you're going to possess, like if you're going to go down to the dispensary and acquire some cannabis, you're going to get a new registration card with you. Even though you don't really need it in order to consume, apparently now, in order to possess, you have to have it, but only once it's been issued to you. See what I mean? Say you're a new patient and you haven't been issued a card yet. You should still be allowed to take your written certification to the dispensary but that's not what this case was about. And obviously with 32 felonies and a misdemeanor, it clearly wasn't about whether it was certificate or registration, but the prosecutor tried to steer it that way. And what saved me, too, you got to remember was the judge, Nakamura, and I want to thank him, not because he's a cannabis advocate, or believes in medical cannabis, or any ways on our side, but he did with something no other judge in the state has done for 19 years, which has led a medical patient to tell his story. You got to remember, and he told me even before I told my story that he was going to rule against me because he did. Once I told my story, he ruled against me and the jury instruction said, unless Mr. Rebels was care-given for the undercover and can prove it, you must find him guilty. And so what he was basically saying was, is that patient-to-patient transfer is illegal. But you got to remember, I tried to get everybody to weigh in on this from the governor on down, and I'm sending a saying off to the Supreme Court, a question, just asking that question, is patient-to-patient transferred legal in the state of Hawaii? And if it's not, see, I'm going to sue him because what happens is this, and maybe you can talk to your federal buddies and Brian about it today, which is federal law since probation reads like this, is that when the state decides not to enforce federal law like drinking our cannabis as medical programs do, well, then you have to not enforce it on everybody. You don't get to just say, hey, I'm not going to enforce it on eight rich people that pay me, but enforce it on everybody else in the state. So unless the Supreme Court rules and the state admits the patient-to-patient transfer is legal, then what the dispensaries are doing is illegal. See what I'm saying? That's called racketeering. Because back in the old days, that's how our speakeasies would be allowed to operate. And that's how it saved the depression, because that money from alcohol. Exactly. And so they've already got a law set for that. You can't racketeer. That means you either enforce federal law uniformly or you don't enforce it at all. And in our state, they shouldn't be enforcing it. See, it's the same law they got in California. And so you got to remember, Act 228 reads word for word as the same as the one in California does. And they've always been able. Patients have always been able to distribute amongst themselves. Dispensaries were always able to operate and collect. Those were always legitimate. And so we're still fighting that fight. Even though the jury saved me, the question hasn't actually been answered yet. And so we're asking it to the Supreme Court, and if we don't get the right answer, I'm going to sue the dispensaries and try, I'm going to try to get a injunction against them because it's not fair for just eight people or eight companies to be allowed to break federal law while they enforce it on the rest of the state. Because you got to remember, these eight companies, they're doing it for profit. They're in simple. They're trying to make money off of sick people. And like I said in court, I find that repugnant. Our collective never made a dime. People that I transferred as the prosecutor pointed out, no, over $10,000 a month was going through our collective. But I never got a penny of it. It all went to other members that were transferring excess medicine. And they weren't charging for the medicine. They were charging for what it took them to grow their own and trying to get back what it cost. Because our prices reflected that. Our cannabis was going for $100 an ounce. And you can't find $100 an ounce in these dispensaries. No, here it's $500. We had hundreds of varieties. And why? Because these people spared no expense. They were growing it for themselves. And this was excess stuff. And the money went right back into the community. And so, like I say, I find making money off of sick and dying people is repugnant. And any time I can help, and I help many a cancer patient, because I can tell you this, first-hand knowledge. There's nothing better for skin cancer than cannabis. But you got to know as a chemistry major, and I have chemistry managers working for the collective, or I did. You got to kind of know what you're doing. Rick Simpson's formula is good, but you can get way better than that. It's a very crude. He wasn't a chemist. He was just a guy that had skin cancer and thought, cannabis might help. And actually made his own carrot, Rick Simpson oil. But, you know, he was very crude about it. He did it in a rice cooker with no chemistry background. And so, if you know what you're doing, see, we've made medicine, like one of our members, a gray wolf, I can be, because it's his nickname. He had skin cancer that had literally taken over his whole nose, one cheekbone, one eye, and his forehead. And we were able to save him. In fact, I can get him on the radio for you. We were able to save him with a combination of cannabis concentrate, which is utterly amazing to see someone recover from stage four skin cancer like that. Oh yes, my goodness, yes. And I just want everybody to know that. One thing's for sure, there's nothing better for skin cancer than cannabis and the proper concentrate. And so I want everybody that has any problem with any kind of skin cancer should immediately run out and see what they can do to get some form of cancer, a high THC concentrate. Can you just, can you put it, apply it, or do you have to ingest it? Well, it depends what you got, but for skin cancer, yeah, you want to apply it right on. In fact, when I first, you know, I stumbled onto it accidentally. And when I first put it on some that I had that I was scheduled to have operated on, it started stinging mildly. And I almost pulled it off. But to my side, I left it on because I was lazy and sleeping. So the next morning when I got up, it was amazing the difference. It was like, it would have been a runny, nasty sore. The next day it scabbed over. It was that quick, one day. And then like four or five days later, something that was obviously deadly was gone. Oh my. And that, I'm telling you, is a fact. And I can document it. I had two doctors who couldn't really cut it. When I showed it to them, they couldn't believe it. Oh. Anyway, so back to the trial. Yes. We had a little bit of time. So let's finish with the trial. All right. So hey, I had to, they dropped 31 charges. And like I said, I almost cried because I had 10 book boxes. I was going to prove I was innocent and they did all this crazy stuff they made. They said I had 150 plants over 50 pounds of pot. None of that was true. We weren't one gram or one plant over and I was going to prove each one of those charges false. But at the last minute, they boiled it down to just an ounce and a half in an e-pin. And they tried to say it was about a certificate versus a registration. Then when it came time for, to tell the jury the instructions, they were like, hey, if he wouldn't care to give it for that guy, that means he's guilty. And I got up and said what the prosecutor said. He's like, hey, everything else is noise. I pointed out, I said, look, they're changing their story. Look, if I would have had a registration card, would you be able to say I'm not guilty? No, you would not. So this obviously isn't about certificate versus registration. It's about what this still is about, which is can patients to patients transfer in a state of Hawaii after almost 20 years. It's going to be 20 years in too much, right? Right. And so I believe that patients can, if they cannot. I always want everybody to know out there, I'm still fighting for this. Even though I was found not guilty, we're going to get to the bottom of this. Either the Supreme Court says we can, and that's the end of it, or they say we can't, and then I'm going to sue the dispensaries, and we're also going to rally all the, and get everybody out there to go talk to the legislators. That was my next question. What are you doing with the legislature? Do you have it? We want them to tell, but do you... There's a lot that says distinctly and clearly that it's okay for patients to transfer or march themselves. Okay. So what we need... It's okay for patients to use, it kind of says it now, but we've had several medical patients get caught with cannabis concentrate and get charged. And then sadly, they take deals, because what happens is they do like they did to me. They overcharge you, and it's hard to say, I'm going to fight it when you're facing three lives plus 32. Everybody takes the deal, especially on this horrible practice of overcharging people. And like I say, why do they overcharge medical patients so you don't get to say you are a medical patient? Because you've got to remember, this is an affirmative defense. It's up to the judge to decide. Luckily, because I was running a collective, I was at least able to tell my story. But remember, the judge ruled against me. Did I get to use the medical defense? No. Has anybody in the state of Hawaii ever been able to use the medical defense? No. The only person that ever got ruled could was Woodall, and that was in the Supreme Court. And so that jury of mine was the first jury to even hear anybody bring up the medical defense. Ultimately, I didn't get to use it, but just because I was able to bring it up, they acquitted me. I believe that, and the fact that the galley was full of people that helped. And so there was no denying that I helped hundreds of people. And I had a few of them testify. In fact, Gray Wolf was very convincing. He got on the stand and went, no, look at me, he saved my life. Now, my question to you is how can we help with the legislature since the legislature's here and you're there? The Supreme Court rules against patient deposition transfer. We've got to talk to all our senators and our... Yeah, well, I meant right here in the state. I'll interrupt guys and let them know we need to have patient-to-patient transfer. Plus, patients have to be allowed to use cannabis in any form. Because you've got to remember, if you've got skin cancer, you can't just put buds on that. You've got to have somebody who knows what he's doing turn that cannabis into a concentrate that you can apply. Well, listen now, we are at the end of the program and I really love to talk to you again. But we will talk offline about how we can help with the legislature. Those of us that live here can actually physically go to the legislature. It's been a pleasure talking to everybody and I certainly hope we can do it again. We can. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Aloha.