 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are with Cannabis, Chronicles, a 10,000 year odyssey. Don't tell me news of that plant of many resources which wandered far and wide, the ancient plant of food, fuel, and fiber, cultivated for millennial. Historically, dietary use of the raw cannabis plant brings us in line with 34 million years of cannabis evolution. So while we are looking at all of this nonsense that has come up, if we but take a look back and see the phenomenal use of this plant hundreds of millions of years ago. And so our odyssey begins. As we venture through these past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant for which cannabis derives. The many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, ashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, and dear old Uncle Sam. As you know, the cannabis industry in Hawaii is growing by leaps and bounds. In 2015, a dispensary program was established with eight licenses awarded on four islands. The dispensaries are vertically integrated, whatever that means. They will produce and distribute all of their own medical cannabis products. In 2018, we will have a reciprocity with other state license holders, and they will be allowed to, if they're on vacation, to go to the dispensary and get what they need. Now, but the Department of Health issues about 1200 medical cannabis cards each month, and that number is growing. Hawaii's cannabis industry is facing more setbacks as the state struggles with an understaffed program. Seven of 11 positions are vacant at the Department of Health, which oversees medical cannabis patients registry and dispensary licensing program. The registry is down to three of six people, three of six, while the dispensary program has four vacancies out of five. What is there to say? What can I say? So, without going into a diatribe about cannabis and Uncle Sam and the state and whatever. So, I have asked our dear friend and who's really stepped out of his program and came over to visit with us. Paul Klink, and for our audience, you might remember that we talked to Paul while he was in Houston. He volunteered to go to Houston in the flood, and in spite of his own medical issues, went to help the other people. So, welcome back, Paul. It is a pleasure to see you live. Thank you for having me on your show. And it is just such a pleasure. Paul has been with the cannabis project program as a patient as well as a caregiver. And so, talk to us. Tell us all about it. How did you get started in the cannabis project? I got started learning about medicine and the use of non-synthetic, healthy, all-natural solutions for medications I was given at a young age that I knew were causing more side effects than they were mitigating the symptoms or the ailments they were supposed to. And so, immediately, my sights landed on cannabis. In my case, with cardiac, pulmonary, cancer, a few different qualifying diagnoses, I learned that with chemotherapy, with the heart medicines, the blood pressure medicines, the dietary issues, I was in a lot of trouble with traditional, synthetic, man-made, chemical-based, non-natural solutions, most of which would be the opiates at one time, I was on, coincidentally, 420 different psychotropic pills a month that were prescribed. Oh, my. So, 240 oxycodones, 90 morphine, 15 ERs, 90 Xanax, and on and on. Who would prescribe that? Our pain clinic. Once the regular doctors have written you off for their ability to mitigate your pain symptoms, one of your rights as a patient is not to experience pain. So, they hand you to what's usually called a pain clinic at one of the big hospital chains or HMOs. And then from there, they do whatever they can off-formulary without looking at the books and try to get you to whatever you need to get to get rid of your pain. And that's what it took to start scratching the surface of my pain. I have countless heart implants. I have pulmonary issues that make it difficult to breathe. I have severe pain in a couple areas of my body from ailments and accidents. So, what I found was I could, for me, replace all the opiates over time. It took me a few years to get this accomplished to where now I use cannabis as my exclusive pain relief when I need it. And so, for me, it saved my life. 20 people die every or one person dies every 20 minutes from an opiate overdose is what I've read. But at least 20,000 people die a year from opiates. Known in the history of man has ever overdosed from cannabis. And if you could have, I probably would have by now. So, I can tell you that that's the case. In Hawaii right now, having the openings at the Department of Health that need to be filled are not as easy as it sounds. I offered to go and volunteer. I'm already a volunteer for the State of Hawaii Department of Health Medical Reserve Corps, which is an army of people like myself in the medical industry that want to volunteer for the state for emergencies. And at this point, I believe this is an emergency. And I think they should activate MRC or allow volunteers because the state's process to hiring people, which is in its fashion because needs, I get it, but they start off with civil service. So the process to being hired is insanely long and arduous. And even though some positions may be exempt from this process, it's still obviously taking months and months. Whereas a few months ago, they were pretty fully staffed and cards were arriving for all patients in about seven to 10 days. And now it's going on just interminably, but they are triaging the application. So my cancer patients get their card within a week. Same with hospice. But okay, it's $38.50. Is that the price or the $38.50 fee? Okay, but you're doing $35 plus $3.50 fee. So if you're doing $1,200 a month, isn't that enough to pay for that? I don't think budgetary issues are the issue. I think it's their systems and procedures for hiring people. And there's going to be some apprehension in the state. If I have a cushy job at the state working hard and earning my living and doing everything I'm supposed to do and I'm working okay, which I'll assume most employees are, why would they switch? Because they have to offer it to internal staff first. And there's a period of time it must remain like that. Again, there's a process people don't understand. So they jump to why aren't they hiring people? Well, there's a process. Now, if I'm already working at the state and that's a long part of the process is hiring people within, why would I switch to the medical cannabis registry when reasonably to believe in the next few years it'll be recreational and that office won't exist anymore. So it's a very temporary assignment in that sense. If we go the same route as every other state that's bringing medical and shifting to recreational. So I understand the apprehension for existing state employees from moving over to the registry, but there's people outside like myself. Well, recently, one of the officials said he came back from the mainland for a tour and he was jokingly saying he was offering positions saying we need to hire people in Hawaii. I took a little bit of an offense to that because I'm here and I want to work. I would love to have that position as an employee or as a volunteer. It'd be a great opportunity to help that many more patients on a daily basis. And I'm sure and I know the people working there and I know them well. They really have our best interest at heart and they're working as hard and fast as they can. I mean, they have to have some part of a life outside the office, but I believe they're working a lot of overtime right now to do as fast as they can, but they're way understaffed. Well, the health department got dinged, a lack of a better word, for they failed about their compliance with taking care of nursing homes, hospital complaints, things like that. They had nine employees, nine employees, and they've got hospitals and nursing homes on every island. And I was at a workshop and I asked the gentleman that's in charge, same one that's head of the cannabis project, why don't you hire people on each island? Why do all nine inspectors live on Oahu? So if they're going to inspect the big island, that's $300 a day. You can pay somebody that lives there. There was no comment. There's usually no comment to questions like that because there's so much going on behind the scenes. By definition, it's a political situation with appointees and working under a government and in the state of Hawaii. Thank God in the cannabis division, they're way beyond employees. They're very compassionate individuals who are there now and have been there. And I know them personally. They're amazing people and they're doing the best they can with what they have. The scariest thing to me is that we have patients out here dying, waiting for their medicine that are following the law under a microscope to not touch the medicine until they have their card and now they cannot get their cards in a timely fashion. I just recently, I have a handicap placard for my car and you have to do renewals through the mail. So I mailed in my application. I got my placard back in four days in the mail. Four days. In four days, I had my placard back. So someone got my application, keyed it in, got it in the computer, verified it, did the printing, did the letter shop, did the mail services and got it to me in four days for a placard. That's not going to save or lose my life. A medical cannabis card, if my same medical cannabis card could take multiples and multiples of those numbers of days. And again, depending on my condition, but people who are in pain, they'll be triaged to the lower part of the list because cancer patients and hospice patients are being triaged to the top of the list getting their cards the quickest. But I venture to say that most people who are in severe chronic pain that qualifies for the card are in just as much of an urgency to get it as those triaged patients. So it must be a tough decision to decide who gets their card first because they all need it desperately and cannot get their medicine without it. So what can we do to assist? There must be something we can do. Yeah. I really believe it all starts off with your elected officials. It's your vote. Whether you voted or not, and everyone should please vote, register and vote. But more importantly, if you're a citizen of the state of Hawaii, find out who your representative and senator are and send them emails immediately. If you want to know who they are, there's resources like the Hawaii Cannabis Expo and there's also the Hawaii Dispensary Alliance or get ahold of us at Honolulu Wellness Center and we'll definitely give you the contact information. So because there has to be, and we can't put fresh on them. So there has to be a way to streamline that process. You know what, Marcia? This has been a bugaboo or a pet peeve of mine for quite a while now because originally back in 2000, the program was such that you'd apply. The application was sent through the doctor. The card came back to the doctor and the doctor delivered it to you or the doctor's office, a clinic, a center like mine. Why they have a process right now where the only thing the state is doing when I click the button to send the application to the state for processing, all they're doing is verifying the ID and the spelling of the name that the address for the growth site, if there is one, is applicable for a growth site. Some people mistakenly put a PO box. You can't grow too many plants in a PO box. So they're checking on that, which all can be automated. And then that's all they do. Then they send it to a printer, then to a letter shop, and then to mail services, and then to the post office during the holidays to get this very, very critical piece of documentation. Well, does it go to you? No, it goes straight to the patient. Straight to the patient. Oh, to the patient. That's what I meant. Instead of talking about reciprocity, instead of talking about all the situation with the Department of Health, what I propose and have asked more than once now from the Department of Health is that they streamline it. Yes. All we have to do, these are 8 1⁄2 by 11 sheets of paper with the card printed in them. They're perforated. You can peel it right off. Just give us those documentations and access to the database. Right now, the dispensaries all have access to the database. The laboratories have access to the database. There's no reason why the doctor's staff and the clinic shouldn't have access. So for that reason, I think we should streamline it. And the clinics hand the card to the patient the same day they come in for their appointment. Why? But the card goes to the patient, not to... Right now it gets mailed directly to the patient. Well, that's even better. The best way is just for us to hand the card to the patient the same day. So whether they're a tourist or whether they're a local, because we can't treat tourists differently or more nicely than locals, of course. So they have to have a qualifying diagnosis. They come to us. We vet their medical records. They bring with them or send to us in advance, same as a local. And we can go through international certifying boards to make sure those doctors are certified, verify they're exactly like a local patient. But instead of us hitting submit to the state, we just print and it prints and we hand it out. We hand it over. As a pastor, I can marry people. As a notary, I could sign things worth billions of dollars. As a representative and a volunteer of medical reserve corps, I facilitate and help thousands of kids to get immunized shots in their arm. Our children. Why can't I hand someone a card? It just doesn't make sense. So if we could streamline it to where we're handing the card to the patient the same day they can go straight to the dispensary, because dispensaries can't do that as a conflict and get their medicine right away. Well, we need to take a break. And we will be back in one minute and talk to Paul Klink, who has been so gracious to show up today. I love you, Marcia. I'm here for you. We'll see you in one minute. This is Think Tech Hawaii, Raising Public Awareness. This is Think Tech Hawaii, Raising Public Awareness. Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic. We identify those areas where we do have problems in the state, but also the show is dedicated to trying to find solutions, not just detail our problems. So join me every other Tuesday on Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm Tim Apachella. And we are back with my dear friend Paul Klink from the Honolulu Wellness Center. And we're talking about, my favorite subject, of course, is cannabis. And there's so much to learn. As we said, this is a 10,000-year odyssey. There's so much to learn. Tell us now this, can you see this cannabis? Will there will be a cannabis expo in February, right? So tell us about that. Yes, some amazing local talent have put together this expo. We are in our third year. I can say we, because I've been a sponsor since the first year. I'm one of the lower-level sponsors, but a sponsor, not all the same. And definitely an integral part of their team, because they're very patient-centric. They're very concerned about making sure the patients who need the medicine can get it and make sure we appreciate all the freedoms the Cole Memorandum gives us. The federal government, Department of Justice, has produced a document that's renewed every year that allows states to have medical cannabis programs or cannabis programs. And as long as the citizens of that state follow the rules of that state, the federal government has documented they will not prioritize or fund the prosecution of any patients. So it gives us the freedoms to have this industry. Right. In that same light, the expo brings together people, I call the lifestyle people, the people who maybe do it more for anxiety, stress, insomnia, without a medical card, say, and just our self-medicating. A lot of people with anxiety who we hope we get to help to get approved in the future. Actually ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, was approved yesterday. Yes. But generally, anxiety wasn't unfortunately. They just need more information. But at the expo, it brings together the lifestyle, and for me, more importantly, the medical side of the industry, all of the clinics like mine work together. Again, for me, I don't compete with anybody. I collaborate with everybody. When I was in Texas helping out after Hurricane Harvey, I forwarded my phones to what they would consider my competitors. And they're like, you're what? I said, well, we got to take care of the patients. Right. And they did a great job with my patients that I sent over. I checked with each one of them. But we all work together. It's very collaborative, not really competitive. So an expo like this is a lot of fun of learning new technologies. People don't have to smoke the cannabis anymore. Putting ash and smoke in your lungs, I don't feel is a good idea. And as a medical professional, I'll never allow my patients to do that. So we help people learn how to make tinctures, cells, DMSO rubs, and vapors. And the vapor technology has just exploded. It's amazing. And it's especially children. With Keiki, we do almost exclusively edibles. Some children might have an issue with being NPO or not being able to put something through their mouths. And then we can do suppositories. Or we also do DMSO rubs, so the medicine goes into your blood system, through your skin, especially some cancer patients who can no longer ingest things through their mouth. And this usually brings them back to the point where they can't eat again, and they get hungry, and they're happy. Because the one side effect we all get from this medicine is giggles. It's amazing when you go into a hospice and you're helping people with cards with their medicine and their self-professed cremations on their deathbeds. And within a half an hour, they're setting up telling you jokes they heard 30, 40 years ago, and giggling like little kids. And many of these people actually end up leaving hospice. They get to go home because the medicine gets them to the point where they don't, they're not palliative care anymore. And that's happened quite a few times. It's a beautiful thing to see. So, instead of my daughter, for instance, is a hospice nurse. And so the patient is struggling. She calls the doctor and he says, give her morphing. And then said, well, that's not helping. Or give her more. And pretty soon, it's terminal sedation and the patient's gone. So she is the reason that I'm even learning about this. Because she said, Mom, if they did this, we wouldn't have to do more things. Exactly. I saw a patient this morning who's stage four, end stage cancer, a lung cancer, hospice bound, horrible catechia, which is wasting syndrome. He's wasted into a skeleton with stretched skin over it. That's a sin. It's a shame. And he hasn't had his taste buds or a hunger pain. And months since he started the most recent chemo, when he got his card, and I gave him some tincture and put it under his gums, and his assistant called me and just told me that he just ordered a big lunch. That's great. This is a miracle. So he's got to pace himself because he hasn't eaten much lately. But the good news is that he'll get more energy into his body to try to get through chemotherapy, which is necrosis. That's terrible stuff. Whereas cannabis creates an environment of apoptosis, which is much more healthy. And in my experience of everything I've seen, and I'm not making a claim, is that I've seen many, many times people have taken the cannabis medicine and pulled themselves out of hospice, pulled themselves out of the deepest despair. And like I said, the worst side effect is going to be giggles. And so they get their appetite back. They get their energy back. Their body becomes more unfriendly. So I've heard to cancer and a scene with my own eyes many times. But legally, you've got to be very careful because the regular doctors who don't want to participate in cannabis will quickly pounce on anyone making claims that aren't FDA approved. But the FDA is not God, and it's not all mankind, because the rest of history and the majority of humans will say clearly that cannabis has very many medical benefits. Well, and just for our audience, anyone that's paying attention has heard me say this. Aspirin is not approved by the FDA. I did not know that. Yeah. So we're in good company. We're in good company. Yeah, and actually cannabis is much safer than aspirin. And aspirin was created by the bark of a tree. So just like cannabis is one of those... I'm embarrassed. I don't know that, but I'm glad I do now. Thank you. This is one of God's gifts to us because... Save my life. But it's been there for thousands of years, and you can just plant. It's a weed. You plant it anywhere and it grows, and it harvest three times a year. At least. So it is a gift. You know, there's Anne. The reason I bought this, there's a great article in here about Satchmo, and everybody knows who that is. And he attributes his ability to do what he did to cannabis. Wow, that's beautiful. To have the lungs to day after day after day. And he was an artist. The guy was just a legend, a myth and an amazing. My gosh. But it helps me breathe. It helps my heart relax, helps my blood pressure stay down. It mitigates almost most of my pain. And there's different ways of doing cannabis now. So before people just roll it into a joint or put it in a bowl and smoke it or in a bong, which has never been a recommended way of doing it for patients, especially patients with lung cancer. So we very quickly learned about vaporizing the actual butt itself. So there's devices you can buy now where you put the actual flour into the device and it's got a ceramic or quartz kiln in the device safely. It heats it to pre-combustion temperatures where it vaporizes the medicine, the cannabinoids, the terpenes, the medicines of the plant, and you just inhale that at a lower temperature, there's no fire. And it fits in your hand. And so you don't need to do anything to the medicine. You just put it in this device. When you're done, you can even cook with it or do other things with the leftover because it's not vacant of medicine, but it's a much more efficient way of doing the medicine when you're smoking it. It's been said that you lose about 75% of the value of the flour. Vaporizing, it keeps about 97% of the medical benefit going to you from the flour. It's also very easy to teach people how to make their own tinctures, to put under their tongue or drink with their tea. It's very easy to teach people how to make a DMSO, a salve, you can put on your skin and get the medicine through your skin or into a certain area like for sciatica or other diagnoses where it's locational. But there's very interesting ways to teach people how to do that once they get their cards and they can get the medicine and make it legally and they can grow it themselves. Anybody can grow up to 10 plants for each one of the medical cards. So that's very helpful. Now, if I get my card and everything checks out and they tell me I can get, grow 10 plants. Okay, now what? What am I gonna do? Where do I get a plant? What do I have to do? How do I do the soil? Can I do it inside? Can I do it outside? If I live in the condominium? What are the rules? What are the rules? The rules are really spelled out clearly at the state website and also on our website. If you go to Honolulu Wellness Center.com, because growing is not as easy as this house. No. Getting the plants and getting the seeds, it could be a challenge. We usually recommend people go to a website, Seedsman, S-E-D-S-M-A-N, and there's a link from our website for that. But one thing that growing teaches people is they don't want to grow. It's really a pain in the butt. Yeah, I know with my own yard and it's like... Well, once you have your card, you can get into the dispensary and the dispensaries are amazing. There's two open now, Aloha Green and Noah Botanicals. They both have amazing staff. They have great knowledge bases and something we do for our patients, and I actually do for other doctors and clinics patients. I'm happy to go with the patient into the dispensary the first time or whenever they need me, because I also have a card and I can enter. And that's been really useful for the patients. To meet the people at the dispensary. I introduce them around. I show them the different options that are available, some things that are coming up soon, and get them acclimated to going to a dispensary. They're very comfortable, very convenient, lots of parking. There's waiting areas in both, and so there's a very comfort. But once you go there the first time, it could be unnerving. So being there with someone you know could be helpful. Well, now, can anybody go to the dispensary? As long as they have a card, you have to have your medical card, and an ID. People can come and wait in the lobby, but they can't come in where the medicine is without a card. So I meant if I escort someone. If you're a caretaker for someone, when someone gets a medical card they can ask to add on a caretaker, then you and the patient would be allowed in. If they have an ambulatory issues, or they can't get around on their own, in that case we can get them to the door, but they would have to have someone with a card to get them past the door into the dispensary the way the law is written right now. But there's always going to be someone there and I go with my patients much of the time. And I don't charge extra for that. I treat people the way I want to be treated and I remember how freaky it was going the first time and it would have been nice if my doctor offered to come with me. I probably wouldn't have believed him. And so I actually meet my patients and the dispensaries are very close to one another. So we meet in the parking lot or at one of the lobbies and I go with them into the dispensaries and introducing the security and the staff and the dispensary and the medicine and the ways to take it and give them a good idea of how they're going to use their medicine. Then we give them all their information. All our patients write their own notes and so they can learn about titration and dosing. How often? How much? How should I do it? Which variety should I do? For which symptoms? And get the varieties you need and hybrid them together and put them in the device and inhale the vapor or make your medicine. So it's pretty simple when you're with someone who's already done which is we walk you through the whole process and we actually see the patients for the price for one appointment, so it's better than anybody's. We include two more appointments during the year to do follow up because we want to be an ongoing doctor and clinic patient relationship. Great. So again, thank you Paul. This is Paul Klink from Honolulu Wellness Center. Marcia, thank you. And your website address? HonoluluWellnessCenter.com or if you're lazy like me, we got a shorter version, the number four and then H for Honolulu, W for Wellness, HonoluluWellnessCenter.com for HWC.com Very good. Well, again, thank you so much. That's my blessing. And you will come back. Anytime you call I'll be here for you. Thank you so much. Aloha and we'll see you next time.