 This is Anibis Chronicle, a 10,000-year odyssey, and today the odyssey is not 10,000 years ago, but right here, right now, on the Big Island, or anybody that doesn't know where the Big Island is, it's the island of Hawaii. And it's called the Big Island because it is a Big Island. And my guest today is Mike Ruggles, and he has a story to tell. And don't miss it, but don't go away. Stay tuned because you can't miss one word of Mike's story. Mike, are you there? I am. Aloha, everybody. Aloha. So Mike Ruggles is, I think, an angel in that he is taking care of people at the end of their lives with medical cannabis. Now, that might sound, well, okay, but what's hospice for? Hospice, because it is paid for by Medicare, cannot give people at the end of their lives cannabis. Well, you know how crazy Uncle Sam is. So here's an angel that creates a facility that does all kinds of wonderful things for people on the Big Island. So, Mike, tell us the story from beginning to end. All right, I'm going to give everybody a quick reader's digest version because it's actually started back in 2007. And what happened that year was they had a police officer named John Weber. And he was officer of the year by George Bush, who was the president then. And he was made officer of the year because he busted over 1,100 cannabis users on the Big Island that year. And if you do the math on that, that's like over three a day if you work seven days a week. So this guy really was a whirl. And they gave him the award because they said attention to detail is what? Because he got a hundred percent conviction on over a thousand cannabis users that year. And so I was one of them that had been scooped up. And my parents were police officers. And so in the police report, he had me coming down the stairs. He had me saying, I don't care about my rights right now. And my wife and daughter have nothing to do with all these crimes or all these felonies. And who talks like that? Nobody does. And so it gave me an idea. I realized, hey, you know, this guy, he's pretty smooth at telling the lies. And he's probably done this a few times. And so I tried to put an ad in the paper and it said, you only get 12 words. So it said, got legal cannabis but didn't bust it anyway. And it had my phone number. And so the lady at the community Harold said, hey, you can't. I'm sorry, we can't print this because I was trying to put it in the personals. And she said, we can't print this. I said, why not? She said, because it's not legal. I said, well, yeah, it's medical. It's medical. It's legal. She's like, no, it's not legal. And we got into an argument and she hung up on it. And so I had her on a speed dial and I called her back. And she hung up on me again and I called her back. And finally I get this male voice that sounded like God. This is Mike Rubles. Oh, I forgot this part. This is the funny part because I said, because the only other personal ad in the paper at the time was a guy that said, spaceship leaving for Jupiter on a bay front anyway. She hung up on me. So finally I get the male voice and he says, you still want to run the ad? I said, Jessica, I will run this ad. They'll run the ad and within a week I got over 100 phone calls and people all saying the same thing. John Webber, yep, didn't care about my rights. He used that quite a bit. And so we ended up suing John Webber. We joined this, we made this club. We were called Friends for Justice. Although the more didn't, they were actually like in stage four cancer. In fact, the one guy ended up surviving from the medicine we made for him. That was right about when Fing's tears came out. You know, you guys are familiar with Rick Simpson's things anyway. So right about that time, you know, it always happens when I started thinking about no hospice and people that have passed. Okay, so we started Friends for Justice and what we would do is we would just go down to the courthouse and hang out like 100 of us on each case. And I sued the one cop and so Reverend Nancy was up to bat just like me. And everybody went down there for, we're sticking up for it. We had a full galley just like I did. Only thing is she went down and I was shocked because we were doing medical but with religion, you know, she was Reverend Nancy and she was doing the religious and I figured, you know, that being the First Amendment that she had a very strong case with Catholics being able to give children wine and, you know, Indian churches had Hayawasca and Peyote and all these other things. I thought, well, man, cannabis is a no brainer. But what they ruled was, no, it's okay for churches, you know, legitimate churches like Catholic churches and all these other churches, but no BS churches like cannabis. And to me, that was a stunning ruling because now that they're setting a yardstick on faith and if you think about it, what does faith mean? Faith means you believe in something you can't prove. Essentially, I believe that ruling called all churches BS. And if you think about it, you know, essentially, if you believe something you can't prove, that's faith. And so that means you believe in something that might not be rational. Anyway, they ruled against Reverend Nancy and so Friends for Justice, we became, we went from Friends for Justice, what was the next name? We became the alternative pain management club. And so there was over a hundred of us, and you've got to remember, these were all people that were charged by the same cop in 07. And I ended up pleading guilty to a petty misdemeanor because, you know, it was like, they gave me a deal, they said, look, even though I was totally innocent, yeah, I was too, they claimed I was two grams over and then charged me with like five felonies. And even though I was totally innocent, everybody said you'd be insane to fight this when they're offering you a petty misdemeanor, which is only 30 days and they weren't even asking for time. So I took the petty misdemeanor. Anyway, what we were doing, this is kind of a funny story because we were looking at the law and it said, if you have too much cannabis, you have to dispose of it according to the law and then it listed the law and I just happened to have a photographic memory, so I remembered it was 23-200-20. Is that a state law or federal law? Is that a state law? Yes, this was a state law, it's administrative rule. And where the law came from was that it was made years before we had a medical program. And what it was designed to do was let pharmacists, and this is a movie kind of repugnant, it was designed to let pharmacists sell outdated antibiotics. The only problem was it started this horrible chain of people getting antibiotics and it slowly made everybody receive it, but it started like 30 years ago anyway. So when they said, how do you dispose of it? You got to remember, schedule one drug, dispose of antibiotics, it wouldn't open. So I went down to the law library and the lady was like, you can't not let me open. So I'm finished, she had a special, we printed it out. Back then what we would do is you can only care give for one person at a time, but it didn't say how long. So what we would do is say I was care given for Sarah. I would sign a piece of paper saying, I'm no longer care given for Brittany. And then I'm no longer care given from Whitney. I'm care given for Sarah again. It's never changed location. You wouldn't have to, in the paperwork. And so we would send them the paperwork. And I'd get calls from the doctor and he'd be like, what's this? And so I would tell him. And then no one ever once said, hey, don't do that. You're, you know, that's illegal nuts. And so we did it like that 2013. And so what happened in 2013 was Act 178 passed. And Act 178, if you read the preamble to it, it says to remove obstacle, high blood loss, misqualifies for that, to get access to the medicine they need. And so the preamble was great. And what it did is if you look at 329, is it 122? 121, 329, 121. It used to say that as it drew a line, right? 329, 121, the law and everybody's welcome to look at it. And this is an important part of the story. I mean, I said, hey, look, at least make them show you the law that they say I'm breaking. And it was interesting because even though we were in a court of law, they would never break out the law and show it to the jury. And so I told the jury again, I says, hey, make them show you the law. I said, you have the power to, in my opinion, had they shown them the law because they were, you know, they were working on it. It wasn't an immediate verdict. So obviously some people thought I was guilty. Well, I believe the reason the judge didn't show them the law because he had an act where he thought the people that were rooting for me wanted to see the law. But I'm pretty sure the people rooting for me were going, hey, they couldn't believe he's guilty. Well, they wouldn't show them the law. And I believe that's what created the doubt. Well, now, we need... So when you're in a court of law, it does. Now, what we need to take a break, and when we come back, and we have 60 seconds, when we come back, I want you to tell us all about what happened in the court. All right. Including Liloi. All right. Thank you, guys. Aloha. My name is Victoria, and I'm a host at the Adventures in Small Business. This is a collaboration between U.S. Small Business Administration, Hawaii District Office, and its partners, where we showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses, talk about how to start a business, talk about great tips for small business owners. Please join us every Thursday, 11 a.m. at Think Tech, Hawaii. See you soon. Mahalo. Hello. I'm Mufi Hadamit. I want to tell you about a great show that appears on Think Tech, Hawaii. It's all about tourism. In fact, we call it Tourism 101, where we talk about the issues and challenges that faces our number one industry throughout the state. We'll have some interesting guests, very informative dialogue, and allow you an opportunity to maybe learn a little bit more about why this industry is so important for our state. It's been great for us in the past. We need it today, and especially going forward. That's Tourism 101 on Think Tech, Hawaii. Mahalo. Hi. I'm Marcia Joyner, and we're back. And what a great story this is. Mike Ruggles, please tell us now that you're in court this final time. Tell us what happened. All right, so we get to court, and basically, what happened was we had been, you know, I have like a bachelor's in this court case, because in the beginning I was charged with 32 felonies in a misdemeanor. Oh, my. And a year. You never lived until you had a judge tell you you're facing three lives plus 32 years. Oh, dear. And yeah, and I just got out of the hospital, because while I was in jail, apparently my kidneys quit working, and I went in the renal failure, acidified, got pneumonia, because they, and they keep you, and this is my next pet peeve as I'm going after jails, but they threw me in what, me being an old guy I knew used to be the rec room, and now they call it the fishbowl. And it's just this big room where they got over 100 people in it, and there's no bathroom and everybody's laying on the floor. Oh, dear. Oh, yeah. Well, being an old guy ended up getting pneumonia, and my kidney shut down and lost 70 pounds and all this other crap. Anyway, so we're back in court. And you had the three cops and like I say, with 32 felonies and a misdemeanor. And it was all jive, and so for four years, me and my crew we made seven book boxes of paper to prove that every one of these lies were outrageous. In fact, one of them, the 150 plants when they came up with a search warrant, they went on to my neighbor's property and took their cannabis and charged me with it. And when I went and had a survey done, they blocked the survey and wouldn't let me even show the date gone on to my neighbor's. Hey, it only gets worse after that anyway. So right up to the day before court, suddenly they just dropped 31 charges. And my lawyer, who is a great lawyer, I want to say Stan Oshiro, he actually saved me because even though I was representing myself he showed me how to do it effectively. Whereas I've had six lawyers before that all standby lawyers and when they say standby, that's all they do. They just standby you from the whole of the county, paid them $50,000. They never helped me one bit. When I got Stan Oshiro man, he showed me how to do it and then my crew was able to do it and that's how we actually prevailed. But a little background on leadway. So we have we're doing this thing called compliance checks back in the day from 07. I want to say they just quit them. They might not even quit them, but they quit doing them to me. I had a gold star over my house and so one day here comes Lee Loy with 15 other cops in the DEA and I was a little upset because a good friend of mine Jason Napster, who was a combat Iraqi war veteran they just done a compliance check on his house today before and he got upset and hung himself. And so I was a little upset so when these guys came up to drive away I started yelling at him and told him hey go get a warrant and I brought up Jason Napster's anger and I called him mother fornicators only a little more blunt terminology and so Lee Loy who's a big dude he's bigger than me. I'm like 6'3 but he's like 6'6, 6'7 and anyway he says look he says you go get your cards because I said go get a warrant he says no you go get your cards right now or I'm going to come in there, kick your ass and take all your cannabis and that was really irritating to me because I'm actually a trained poochelist and I knew there was no way he could kick my ass and so I let him Now let me interject here that Lee Loy is a police officer undercover and he is the county council woman's husband so there's a whole bunch of colloquia here good and so we stepped in front of it and I didn't realize how bad it was and so after that these guys were targeting me and in fact one time in fact Reverend Nancy was here we used to do the weekly meeting and I told her hey tomorrow at 10 o'clock they're going to do a compliance check here and everybody's like well how do you know if so often I pretty much know when they're going to come and she says well if you believe that I'll bring you a camera and so she came the next day and guess what I missed it by two hours and it was raining and but by noon here they came and we can send you the link we got the whole thing on video and it's hilarious they came up in a helicopter and landed in my neighbor's property and came over and said hey we're here because Lee Loy sent us up here to do a compliance check I got all that on video now what happened was the reason we were even in court was when they transferred the cannabis program from NED to the health department they were able to make new administrative rules and when they did we went down at bottom and said man we're like this sounds like the wish list for the Attorney General why because it was he was the guy that wrote them and so what happened was we opened January 2nd 178 took effect until 2015 in that time we asked everybody from the governor on down what to do and they just stood silent so what happened then on July 18th these new administrative rules took effect and even though it doesn't what it says in there new change what it said was once a cannabis patient has received his registration card he should carry it on him whenever he's possessing and this is key you'll notice it doesn't say you have to wait until you have your card to acquire it says once they give you your card you should carry it on you well they used this new law change to come after us I remember the undercover had come earlier before the law even changed no you gotta go give us a recommendation from the doctor because if you look at the law what it says is that your recommendation from the doctor will be good for one year from the time he signs it and that's called your written certification and so they tried to turn it into the undercover didn't have his registration card but the facts are this it's your written certification that allows you to use it it's your registration card that allows you to grow it and so you'll notice we weren't growing for him and they tried to say that later what they gave the jury instructions was you must find Mr. Ruggles guilty if you find that he was not caregiving for the undercover agent and you'll notice I never once said I was caregiving for him and in fact the cannabis that I transferred to him didn't belong to me didn't belong to the person I was caregiving for who was actually a police dispatcher yet belonged to another member and so I transferred one member's cannabis to an undercover who had a certificate which meant he met the conditions of use and they went and got a and like I say they wanted to shut me down and I believe the reason they wanted to shut me down was I was suing the dispensaries at the time and you're like whoa hold up why would a medical cannabis advocate sue the dispensaries well it's because it's racketeering here's how it works if it's federal law against everybody in the state are you enforced federal law against nobody in the state and so anyway a different story but I was suing the dispensaries and so the bottom line was this the attorney general was upset because at one point I had the attorney general and all the most expensive lawyers this was a kick on conference call just like you guys and I was all hey it's an easy fix gentlemen all you gotta do is admit patients and do the same thing your dispensaries are doing and then guess what it's not racketeering because you gotta remember racketeering laws came from prohibition and what would happen back during prohibition with alcohol is they would pay off the Mises and they would allow them to operate but not other people well the feds called that racketeering and they said this thing called the RICO Act so now I got Leloy and I used to think he was just mad at me because over our years I realized no they just went after him he was the new John Weber because you gotta remember John Weber the guy that busted over a thousand of them we all thought well man that was just one bad apple in the barrel no the whole thing because they get paid my dad who was in law enforcement for over 40 years later worked for the FBI this is a good story he told me son it's easy you want to know who did what he was doing crime he says it's easy you just follow the money so there's two reasons why the police target medical cannabis patients to this day in the state of Hawaii one is matching funds they get dollar for dollar from the feds once they start that investigation they get matching funds dollar to dollar all the way up through prosecution and guess where the money comes from because the feds fund because they call us domestic it's still illegal federally they give every state in America matching funds to go after cannabis users regardless of your medical or not but then the other kick in the pants is administrative for slayers just pass stop doing administrative forfeiture and what administrative forfeiture is is that they take they can take up to $100,000 for any of your property they charge your property so like I said you get pulled over smoking and adobe in your car they just take your car and they don't even charge you 25% of the time on administrative forfeiture and they do over $5 million of that on the big island so I don't know how much it is statewide anyway our legislators just pass the law against it and the governor vetoed it and you gotta remember administrative forfeiture I was found not guilty they took the money out of my cash register that I was using to pay my taxes with and they confiscated it and guess what even though I'm not guilty do I get that money back no it's gone that's administrative forfeiture and talk about what do you call that conflict of interest guess who gets the money the cops do the cops get a quarter the prosecutors get a quarter the other 50 cents now we'll talk about the conflict of interest so my point is why would they ever decide not to take your stuff when not only do all they gotta do is decide they want it get to take it but they get it personally they just did an audit on administrative forfeiture last year and it was a scathing report because what they said was they don't even keep track of all the stuff that they steal until they auction it there was millions of dollars of stuff missing and this is important because you gotta remember that the cops that arrested me in this case of the evidence room whoa I don't mention his name because he's currently under the gun and I actually feel sorry for the poor guy and he doesn't have that excuse me we are down to 43 seconds we will we will we will we're trying to fix it right now we're gonna run this up to the supreme court they just passed a new law that said questions of statewide concern can go up to the supreme court there's a lot of violence today there's 10 patients transferred to each other Mike Mike hey we are about to run out of time 13 seconds you will come back and we'll finish the story next week and we'll see you next time