 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner and this is Cannabis Chronicles. And you know we talk about the muse and all of the wonderful plants and things that come out of this very ancient plant of food and fiber and fuel just amazing. And it's a 10,000-year odyssey. And so we have learned or we are learning and discovering all sorts of things about this 10,000 years. About hemp and cannabis and hashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and Dural Uncle Sam. And so our odyssey today is not really far away, but it is the Big Island. And for those of you that don't know where the Big Island, it is the island of Hawaii. And it's called the Big Island because it is big. And Madame Pelley is creating new land so it will be even bigger. So our guest today is from the Big Island of Hawaii, Brent Norris from the Hawaii Cannabis Organization. Aloha Brent. And thank you for coming back. Aloha Marsha. Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity. Well, the last time we talked, you told us about your spring equinox and about the consciousness or raising the consciousness about this plant. Tell me how did that go? Oh, the event was fantastic. We filled the room. We had a grower's panel. And so a lot of beginners learned how to start growing. And a lot of advanced growers that have been growing for many, many years had an opportunity to ask three different or four different expert growers on the panel all sorts of questions. Now, what did you mean by the consciousness? That intrigues me. Cannabis is really large, both as an industry, as a plant, as a medicine, as an idea for personal freedom as well. And depending on what level of consciousness you're at, you may have different beliefs or thoughts. Some folks aren't even really that aware of what patients go through to obtain cannabis medicine or what inmates are going through for minor charges of possession of cannabis. Some would like sentences. So depending on your level of awareness, you may or may not participate in certain parts of what's going on right now. Wonderful. So that's that. Okay. And now I understand. And you tell me you are having an event this week. And that's at the end of May. So again, before we get into that, you are on the Big Island and Madam Pelley is showing what Madam Pelley can be. Tell us, how far are you from Madam Pelley? Well, what I live is about the same distance from the current fissure eruptions in the Lower East Rib Zone and the Kilauea Summit that has the large ash cloud that so many videos have been showing. So this event Friday will not be affected by what's going on with the volcano? No, it will not be. It will be a helo in a safe, secure dobing. There's no problem with the lava. We could get some bad air. Everything right now depends on which way the wind blows. Well, tell me how far is helo from the volcano? That's a good question. I would say between 15 and 20 miles straight line as the crow flies. Okay. Because, you know, most people I've gotten calls from cousins I didn't know I had. And we're on Oahu and they say, How's the volcano? Are you all right? So people don't have a sense of Hawaii at all. You know, and I think most people go to the Caribbean and they think of these little islands and they can't imagine the vastness of Hawaii. So now, now that we got the geography taken care of, tell us about this event that's coming up. Well, this event is going to be hosted by a couple of people. One of them is an incoming leader that will be able to event the event for the Hawaii Patients Union. And then also we have sort of a superstar author, Ethan Nebelkoff, who wrote the book, The Herbal Connection, to help people understand how herbs work to relax and detoxify the body. So, so that these natural, the mother nature's garden, which includes cannabis. So he's going to talk about all the different natural plants that we can or can use, have used, will use. That's, that's right. Mr. Nebelkoff was talking about herbs and helping people. He wrote his book, gosh, 10 years before Terence McKenna wrote his book, Food of the Gods. So he's got some very early insights. And he's also a really great leader of conversations in this area. So we'll talk about a lot of herbs, including cannabis. And how can we participate? Can, how do people reach you? How do people, how do you, can they register? Is there a cost? They can RSVP on our website. And then that's going to enter them into free drawing. We're going to give t-shirts away. We're going to give some herbs away. Not, we won't be giving cannabis away, but we'll be giving a special combination of herbs that's listed in Ethan's book to folks that are, at least until we run out of herbs. Wonderful. Well, we just posted the address so that people can participate. Is there a way to, for us that are not there, to participate by Skype or Facebook Live or any of those things? Well, if anyone's interested and unable to make the meeting, we'll certainly run a video camera and live stream it, if helpful. We do that sort of thing on Facebook. So absolutely, I would, I would say stay tuned to Facebook.com slash Hawaii dot patient. Hawaii dot patient. So that's different. The address is different from your Hawaii cannabis organization. So that's different. That's right. So they repeat that. The address, Facebook address. Facebook.com forward slash Hawaii dot patient. Hawaii dot patient. And so it's a live stream. And what time? We'll run out of it. Okay. What time is that on Friday? Friday, the, what's the date of Friday? Friday, the 25th at 5 p.m. Okay. 5 p.m. Hawaii standard time. And that is Friday the 25th at 5 p.m. Hawaii standard time. How long will the event be? We'll run about two hours. But we, we generally, we generally don't leave the event until every question has been answered. So anyone that comes that regardless of what level they're at with their skills or consciousness or whatever, we're going to make sure that their questions get answered. Well, I have some questions. You and I talked about the last time. And that is how have we moved? The legislature has closed. Did anything come out of the legislature that would move this industry forward? Well, yes. So when we're, when we're talking about the industry, you know, eight investment teams, they were able to move the industry forward to hopefully gain more market share for their businesses. And they're doing that by what's called reciprocity. So reciprocity means that patients that have a license in another state like California, for example, will be able to fly here, get a license and go and buy from the dispensary. In our case, we'll have a dispensary across the street from the airport for them. And what this does is in Hawaii, this will double the number of patients on any given island on any given day. So it's quite a, quite a windfall for those investment teams. What, now, when does that begin? The reciprocity, when does that begin? That's a really good question. Even though they're making law, it doesn't mean that it's going to work anytime soon. And like the dispensary program itself, you know, we've, we've had the law for years. And so I, that's a really good question. I don't think anyone really knows when it'll happen. Yeah. Okay. Now, now another issue we talked about was this one of not quite reciprocity, but moving people, residents of Hawaii from one island to the other. They have a cannabis card, they've gone through everything, but they live on Molokai, Kauai, the big island, and they're no dispensaries. Have we reached a point yet where we can fly from one island to the other? It was the only way you can get this fly. Have we reached that point yet? No. Unfortunately, we've created laws for most of the population to be able to access cannabis while we still have folks on, on some islands, Linai, Molokai, and in remote areas as well, that it won't really be able to access medicine. They may be able to get someone to grow cannabis for them. And, and certainly if they're in a remote part of our district, Pune here on the big island, we would make sure they had medicine. But there's no way to really fly with medicine. So they could take a vacation and try and heal themselves that way on an island that has a dispensary. But you know, even on Oahu, there are remote areas. All of the dispensaries are back to back, right close to each other. And that's all downtown Honolulu. But if you live on the North Shore, Waianae, Kahuku, there's nothing for you but to make that long trek into town. So have we reached, well, is there a reason for that? That they're all bunched up together, that they can't spread out? Is there a reason for that? I mean, is there something in the law that says they have to be together? I don't understand. That's a good question. What they're trying to do is maximize profits or, you know, to meet their fiduciary responsibility with their shareholders. By setting up corporations to run the dispensaries, essentially the responsibility of the investment team is to provide a return on that investment. So they've moved into population centers due to the limited number of dispensaries that the state allowed. So each one can have two retail locations and those locations are, we're going to find those in highly populated areas. But wouldn't it make, I mean, couldn't they reach the same amount of money given the numbers of people that live further out? Couldn't you get a return on your investment by moving further out? I think so. But, you know, the industry oversight committee, which is made up of representatives of the industry, mostly investment teams, and there's two patients on that oversight committee as well, you know, they saw reciprocity coming, right? They asked for it and that's what they got. And so the idea for them is to move to an airport because that's where half of their business will likely come from. Well, but I'm thinking of residents, people that live here and that live so far out and we have these two cannabis dispensaries and they're owned by separate, they're not owned by the same company. And yet the state says you have to be here, here, here. You can't be near a school and you can't be near a base and you can't be near this. But okay, but there are people that live out there with cards that want to do this legally, they don't want to grow it in somebody else's backyard. It just seems discriminatory, I guess is the right word, to just close out people. Right, right. Well, you know, these challenges come in when patients aren't really, you know, patients made a lot of recommendations. We had three medical so-called marijuana task forces and they all made recommendations that would allow for patients to access medicine in a lot of different ways and more easily and more cost effective. But those recommendations were largely ignored and the program was put into place that was, you know, setting things up a little more for tax and regulation, I think, than for medical purposes. This isn't really a medical program we're dealing with. Otherwise the type of medicine grown and the type of medicine available to patients would be based on the needs of the approved medical conditions that the state has allowed people to access medicine for. Well, okay, let's say we have a task force and all of these other things and you're saying the legislature doesn't listen. Has the legislature been, do they have a task, do they have a working group where the legislators are educated in what this is? The medical, we're not talking about adults and recreation, we're talking about medicine. Are the legislators educated in this, what this is and what it isn't? It's a really good question and I think there are different levels of consciousness going on. We've heard some legislators want to tax the medicine as much as possible. We've heard some legislators who are completely against making the medicine available. Everyone's at a different level, so it's really hard to stereotype or categorize our legislators because here in Pune we've got some amazing legislators that are trying their best. In fact, the legislators from the Big Island, I think, are more progressive, more advanced than any others in the state and that includes Honolulu. They really are. I'm absolutely delighted and rudiment with all of that land in Pune. I haven't talked to him, but I hope he's okay. Yes, us too. Education really is the key here. We need to raise this level of awareness, this level of consciousness continually because it's not that we're creating something new. There's a lot of talk about, oh, it's new, we'll get adjusted to it. That's just simply not true. Colorado has been legal for more than five years. Our program, for instance, has been, you know, it's what, 18 years old now, 17 years old. All of the issues, whether it's issues that are important to law enforcement, legislators, doctors, patients, all of these issues have really been worked through already in those states that legalized years ago. So what we really have to do is show them that this isn't new. In fact, as you mentioned in the intro, we're talking about a 10,000-year-old plant that's had a relationship with humans for at least that long. So none of this is new. The focus, however, is in what's called a vertical integration model, which makes 18s responsible and accountable for delivering, growing, processing, and selling medicine to 25,000 patients in our state across islands. So the focus on that vertical integration is really what the challenge is. The economic opportunity in our communities is literally being sucked out of the cannabis plant and put into the process of a field. But if it's vertical, and I think what you mean is that every, this dispensary grows, processes, and sells here, rather than saying, this or this company could grow and we can buy from you. And this company, we can test. So that you spread out the economic base. Could that be...? Right. We believe that licenses should be issued by the counties, as they are in the other legal states, in other, many other medical states, so that those growers in our communities that have 30 years of experience of growing or more are able to share strains that they've been using to heal their neighbors. And by sharing those strains with the dispensaries, the dispensaries aren't the single location for growth, which mitigates a lot of risks involved with growing cannabis itself, as we've seen with some of the dispensaries that have opened already. So... What I was thinking, okay, if we have a farm that is dedicated to growing so that the dispensary does not have that responsibility, that the dispensary can wholesale, or however you do it, from this farmer. We know it's certified. We know that it's pure. It's all tested and everything. Wouldn't you spread out the economic base if...? That's going to happen. I think maybe the challenge or some of the fear that seems to creep into this model is that if it's not centralized, then it's more difficult to control. And this plant has demonstrated it's impossible to control. Nobody's controlled it so far. It hasn't worked so far. It hasn't worked. And there is literally an ongoing drug war in our communities right now that is turning to a more cannabis-friendly posture, that it's doing so at the expense of privacy and homeowner rights and patients suffering in our hospitals where cannabis can't be administered. There's a lot of challenges. We believe that the economic opportunity should be spread amongst everyone in our community and take the emphasis and the control off of the plant and set an example for future generations so that it isn't this mystical thing that they need to try, that it is a medicine and it's something that patients need and rely on for their health. Now, you mentioned before about the Patients Right Bill that one of the other states has. Could you repeat that please? Sure. So one of the early states to legalize was the state of Washington. And they realized that they didn't have all of the information that they needed early on. And they realized that they were probably going to make mistakes creating legislation. Washington also has transparency laws. So a lot of light is being shown on this process as they were creating it. So rather than be heavy-handed and controlling of this plant and the patient medicine, what they decided to do was create a Patient Protection Act first. And basically what that said was in the event of a conflict between a patient or law enforcement that the patient had a legal right to that medicine on the onset. And so this was really great for patients that needed privacy protection. There's a large number of issues that come with these things for patients. So that's what they did. And we created our own version of the Patient Protection Act and we shared that with legislators. We shared that amongst our community. And we got a lot of feedback. And it turned out to be just about the same as the three previous medical marijuana attacks forces recommended with some extras that had been left out. But that's it in a nutshell. The Patient Protection Act really was designed to protect patients in Washington. And we'd like to see one of those here as well. Yes, especially so people can fly from one island to the other and not yet all hoot-hoot about our own little Jeff Sessions interfering, watching, looking over your shoulder. Right. And Congress did just agree, I'm not sure if they passed it, but they agreed to legislation that will take funding away from the Department of Justice for prosecuting medical cannabis patients. So that's a really favorable sign. And that's the and the TSA works under the Department of Justice and Homeland Security. So we believe that a couple of conversations could allow folks in Hawaii to fly under island with no problem. Okay. Now we are almost out of time. So tell us again about the event on Friday, May 25th. And so tell us about that and how we on the other islands can tune in. Great. Thank you. So this meeting will be a regular Hawaii patient union event. Hawaii Cannabis Organization is supporting the event. And we'll have herbs for everyone with our author of the herbal connection Ethan Nevillekopf. And it's a really great safe space with the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where conversations are okay about cannabis. And everyone is invited. We welcome patients with any type of ailments to come and have a discussion. There'll be doctors present, if they have questions, nurses that they can ask questions from and and a lot of growers, we're really focused on growing. Well, okay. Now give us the local address and we and the time and the place. Absolutely. It's 117 Kalei Bay Street. That's in Hilo, Hawaii. We'll start at 5 p.m. on Friday, May 25th. Everyone's invited. The meeting will last about two hours. And there'll be lots of questions and answer sessions. Okay. Repeat that address one more time, so we'll get it right. Thank you for asking. It's 117 Kalei Bay Street. That's K-E-A-W-E in Hilo. We're right downtown Hilo. And we're in the University of Hawaii at Hilo Innovation Center. Oh, okay. So people can recognize that. That's right. That's right. And of course, anyone can go to HawaiiCanibus.org forward slash subscribe and they can get regular event updates and we publish our, we publish events on all islands to everyone. So, yeah, we'll do our best. We hope as many of your viewers will come as possible. Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure talking to you and we will talk to you again after this event and before the next one. Thank you so much. Thank you for helping this. Thanks for helping to heal our islands. Aloha. Aloha.