 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000 year Odyssey. So tell me news of that plant of many resources which wonder far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel, fiber, cultivated for millennial. So as we venture through the past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant from which cannabis derives. The many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, ashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and dear old Uncle Sam. And so our Odyssey begins. Today our Odyssey is not long going far away. It is current and in progress. And therefore we are visiting with two of my new best friends, Miles Tuttle and Dee. Yes. They are on the forefront of the cannabis industry. They were going to talk about all these wonderful products, but they are the go-to people for all of the vendors who are creating product as well as the dispensaries. You have to have something to hold your product in. You can't just say, oh good, I made these edibles. Now what? So that's why we have invited these two people who not only know product, but they can assist you with the legalese of your product, how to go about this, what to do, what not to do. So they are of vital importance to the industry here in Hawaii. So welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for coming. So tell us all about Kush Bottles. Kush Bottles Hawaii. Kush Bottles Hawaii. First and foremost we want to thank you for having us on the show and thank you for using your voice and platform to educate and inform people as we all learn together. My name is Miles Wesley Tuttle and I'm the CEO of Kush Bottles Hawaii. This is my wife, Adi Elani. She's a general manager when we do is we sell and market packaging products, solutions, accessories, etc., to those operating in the regulated medical cannabis industry. So how did you get started in this? Interesting story. Let's see, 10 years ago I was injured at work and my doctor recommended that I go get tried medical cannabis as an option as opposed to any harder opioids. And I found that it actually worked for me. I was in California at the time in Los Angeles and then I started working with different dispensaries. It's like I went in and I talked to the owners and yeah we just started providing solutions because at that time in Los Angeles the rules were very vague and there wasn't very much regulation. People were getting rated times by the DEA or ROB. Here we're starting fresh. So we moved here probably in 2010. We moved back. Yeah so we've been working with the drug policy Department of Health and as they slowly build the industry we're providing solutions and that starts with child resistant packaging that is specific to this product. We sell it to dispensaries as well as to patients because we feel that children should be safe. The medicine should be safe one way or the other or at least in safe packaging. So if I'm a patient and I buy the product from the dispensary does that come with the packaging or do I have to buy it separate from you? Oh no it comes with the packaging. We're here to support the the dispensaries themselves and the industry in a whole. So if I grow the plants at home then I buy the packaging from you. From us directly. Yes. Okay all right so so tell us now so you started with all of these people and you're on the ground floor with all of the dispensaries and the laboratories and what have you. So what does that mean? Let's see the way I looked at it is everyone wants to either be the gardener or the chef but you can look at different opportunities within the regulations within the laws. So right now based on the number of licensees that are allowed to participate in the market only certain people can be the gardener or the chef but there are a lot of other opportunities and that's where we found packaging as a as a viable option. I would think so because everybody needs it. So then you work with the dispensaries to from the beginning how does that work? How do you? So basically in the beginning you know for a few months I think the dispensaries are kind of trying different options out packaging wise but once we work with them to kind of finalize what they like best like in size wise and what what fits their product the best um and type of packaging then we pretty much will stock their preferences here for them so that when you know they call us and say hey you know we're running low on this then we'll be able to go and deliver to them. Now these are right ahead yes yes oh you gotta squeeze these for children oh it's child proof. Squeeze the sides so make a nice pop oh there you go oh once the children find that out it's hand strength yeah it's grip strength actually yeah yeah but once they can read it says but these are airtight yes waterproof so that your product doesn't they'll do or right yeah and that product is valuable yes right yeah so that now what about vials um you mean I guess or like push and twist oh these ones okay so yeah tinctures tinctures yeah so does this come in one of these no dependent on the you mean she means like packaging yeah okay yeah you could put that in here if you wanted to but you wouldn't really need to because this is um child resistant this one's child pushing turn um yeah and it is opaque as well so all of these are opaque and that's part of the so um so this one do the do you put their do you print their labels or they print their labels they print their labels they print them at this time we are capable of of putting labels or even um printing directly onto the bottles um but that will probably be something in the future once because uh let's assume because most of the people that were at the expo there were 60 different vendors selling CBD yeah yeah so if they buy from you do you do the labels or can you do yes we can yes we have our own graphic design team um and they pretty much can customize you know all of our products yeah definitely yeah so this is this is something like a you know a customized exit bag so you can what do you mean exit bag so I know what you can try oh you want to try this this is a bag so the you kind of push so this is what the edibles could come in or is it yeah so pull this out that way push and slide push and slide okay you got the awesome you got the awesome fingernails yes yeah okay so you just kind of slide it out and then this comes out so it's child child resistant there yeah um so this is an exit bag you know when um the time comes that we or that the dispensaries are able to have edibles you know maybe a patient comes in wants an an edible plus some flower we can put it all in the bag and then zip it up and then they take out the bag with all of their stuff in there yeah so yeah and so you print those yeah we can print those those those are print I like this exit bag yeah I like the exit bag yeah right now what they're working out is uh for edibles uh they're considering having transparent or see-through packaging so the patients can see what they're buying and then the goal is to obviously put them into another bag yeah because I was gonna say that yeah we're where these are transparent or opaque for children not to be able to see I don't children aren't going to try and eat grass they're trying to eat a brownie brownie yeah so you got to have that opaque so and you don't want to be walking out of the dispensary and have somebody on the street see what you've got right right yeah so that's that's a really yeah yeah that bothers me really their security the dispensaries are very secure they have security guards there and they'll the parking is safe so as long as you get to your car yeah so so they walk you to your car or if you feel uncomfortable I'm sure they would yeah I'm sure they would yeah they're what we've worked with uh all of the dispensaries on the island also uh someone Maui and uh they're very professional yeah especially compared to some other states some of our other experiences um tell me speaking of other islands the neighbor islands about transporting okay I look at your face and yeah that's the same issue okay how do we do that for the packaging or for the medicine for the medicine how do you you know Kauai, Niihau, Lanai have nothing so Lanai all of those little islands have nothing so how do they go to the closest dispensary as of now they have to probably either have a caregiver or grow on their own island in their backyard or something like that I think it all comes down to the inter-island transfer or getting on a plane or uh going from island to island uh my opinion on that is uh through research I found that there was a case in 2005 which was uh Gonzales versus Raich where they had interstate commerce where someone was going from one state to another to get a good deal on medical cannabis because we're geographically isolated in the middle of the ocean no one's gonna come over here because the travel is so expensive um I feel that there's a an individual like case by case situation where Hawaii should probably be allowed to at least do everything interstate now okay some people have heard over the years say that the waters between the islands should be part of the state of Hawaii and not federal uh so um if you're packaging right yeah then who would know exactly yeah I'm not one to take that type of risk no but I this is a this is a device and it's for if you have a rolled uh a can of a cigarette it's a child resistant and it goes right inside so you hide the smell I wouldn't go uh from on a plane personally it's it's everyone you know your personal risk tolerance yeah yeah I just I just think the state has to deal with that yeah yeah I totally agree because it seems discriminatory that you have people all over the state it is legal statewide yeah and yet they don't have access all you can do is fly to wahoo but you can't take it back or I'm supposed to well they're working on it every year they make adjustments it's a work in progress and they have like a fix it bill the one they're working on this year has to do with reciprocity edibles vape cards employment discrimination uh testing like people who get drug tested uh at work uh you can't actually tell if someone is physically impaired at the time of cannabis but it actually stays in your system for a longer period so if you were do you really get impaired with cannabis I know nothing so I think it's I think it depends on the person yes person reacts differently so um some people don't really get as impaired and some people really do so it's hard to you know have anything set on that yeah they're working on it in other states as well sometimes you know you have the breathalyzer for if you've been drinking but uh they don't have anything so you said there's a meeting today that's right tell us about that all right it's at three o'clock in room 229 at the at the capital state capital and it's the it's the conference committee meeting on the bill to set hb2729 which specifically deals with reciprocity edibles vape cards uh right now and also uh devices should we show our device something like these little uh devices that are you can vaporize so it's a battery yeah that's a vape cartridge yeah a vape cartridge is pretty whatever that is yeah yeah so you kind of you know spend your cartridge in there it's an oil from the dispensaries and and they fill it up they fill it and we're hoping that they do yeah if the law passes yes right now you you you would fill your own but hopefully yeah they would do it for you yeah and that's really pretty well listen we need to take a break when we come back let's see some more of what you all the goodies here okay okay this is think tech hawaii raising public awareness i just walked by and i said what's happening guys they told me they were making music hello everyone ted ralston here a host of our think tech show where the drone leads where we talk weekly at thursday's noon by the way on subjects related to the emerging technology and business of drones as they might apply here in hawaii issues involving commerce and education legislation technology public safety all the things that you might want to hear about we talk about them with local experts and people from across the country so join us at noon on every thursday and we'll have a new subject and we'll have new faces to talk about this most interesting subject area hello i'm marchie joiner and this is cannabis chronicles a 10 000 year odyssey and today we are visiting with my new best friends for everybody that knows i only deal with my best friends so this is d and this is miles and this is their product their business is kush bottles hawaii very good and they are the underpinnings of the cannabis medical cannabis industry in hawaii if you're going to grow develop process sell you need to come see them to package all of your goodies is that right absolutely that's that's right now let's speaking packaging all of the people that are creating cbd products and like at the festival my goodness i had never seen so many people selling cbd it's grown year after year absolutely so do they buy from you also um they can yeah we have a couple people that do um but yeah they're more than welcome to we we sell to the the local companies here as well yeah so if i want to create a product then i and i say well i need to go to you what are the rules what are what can i do what can i not do what is legal what isn't legal can i come to you for that yeah we offer we offer a compliance uh consulting uh most of the restrictions and regulations as far as child resistance apply only to the dispensary so um there are a lot of other packaging companies out there none that are actually here in hawaii so we usually just get phone calls with people who have either been working with companies on the mainland and they realize that we're here we have all the products on island in warehouse and they just call us and say hey we'd like some of these do you have them and hopefully either we do or we can get them oh i so oh where did if you're going to do a cbd product where does the cbd come from i don't know i mean yeah you grow your own it will open i'll open with i'm not a doctor or a scientist or a lawyer or anything but and i haven't actually experimented with the uh the actual manufacturing of cbd somebody they buy it from someplace they grow it themselves i think i think they grow it themselves and they're able to process it yeah it's moving along that fast that people here in hawaii are capable of obviously growing it in their backyard and then processing it themselves and just calling this up and packaging it some people want actual like uh the the labeling on it or some uh branding or graphic design and they're they're building their brands here in hawaii um getting ready for uh tourism or anything else speaking of tourism let's go back to the reciprocity yeah and tourism yeah what does that mean oh okay well as of now and all the rules are changing probably today or as we speak a doctor would be probably pre-approved from another state would have to be pre-approved said that the qualifying conditions match up to hawaii's special list um and then they're allowed to contact a patient or a patient can contact them and say i'm looking to go to hawaii on vacation for this amount of time um and i'm i normally use medical cannabis i'm i'm just not supposed to for the next uh you know week or two while i'm there um and then they uh submit their information to the department of health and they get approved and they get a card in the mail that they can print out and bring with them and how long does that process take let's assume that oh hey let's go to hawaii for the weekend how long does the process take well it hasn't even been set up yet oh so that's part of what's happening today yes at the legislature yes yes and hopefully as fast as quickly as possible that's what we're hoping yeah because they i read that there are about 18 000 new applicants every month you know that write for the to get their card okay so well i know that there's about 20 000 patients currently in hawaii um yeah you mean in other states no hawaii that apply okay that go to the web page and fill out the application and then they only allow a certain amount of them that actually pass i assume i don't know yeah yeah well you have to do that pay your 38 dollars then go see your doctor then the doctor says yes you qualify for all of these certain things i'm going to do my little plug here uh i just recovered from uh open heart surgery six months ago and my doctor dr paul clink actually did all of this for me so the day i got out of the hospital um i went straight to dr clink and uh him and his doctor and his team there set everything up for me and sent me my card in the mail yeah we didn't have to do any of the online anything so if you go to the doctors they can they know the doctors that do this they know exactly what they're doing yeah but i'm just thinking of the timing for the tours yeah to go through all of that i think it's a relatively new new thing coming up so i think they'll eventually get there where there's a fast turnaround time but it won't be quite yet yeah it's got to be at least the same amount of time that the local patients have to wait like it would be unfair for a visiting patient to get their card like that and sometimes the local patients have to wait a little ways would if you have a card already from another state from another state and you're just you're here on vacation can i use my card from another state no you gotta clear it through the department of health pay your fee and then uh and then they'll send it to you in the mail you're pre-approved prior to arrival so then you just show up and you have your special three two nine v visitor card and then you just you can go to the dispensaries and they'll look it up on the database and that's in process it hasn't even it hasn't started yet yeah so now we that this event is today yeah and you are going i'm gonna i'm an observer and an absorber of information and knowledge and it's very entertaining okay so you will come back yes and tell us exactly what happened okay and where we are in the process hopefully everything goes exactly as planned this is a white state it might i'm really impressed with how much got through this year like there were a lot there was a lot of people butting heads but the fact that edibles are available for people who probably can't yeah if you have a child that's yeah yeah yeah yeah and even for medicine at all uh carl bernquist from the drug policy forum he mentioned that uh cherry flavored night well like yes it's cherry flavored so that the the child will taste it will enjoy it or actually eat it so yeah there are children who need medical cannabis and so edibles also patients coming from other states that only use edibles if we don't have edibles here then they're because a lot of people don't want to smoke yeah it's understandable and and we've done this on every show to talk about if you live in a condominium smoking is an issue smoking anything yeah it's an issue yeah so there has to be another way now tell me with a tincture is that a tincture tincture okay now do you how do you ingest this do you or or do you what there's there's different ways so you can actually physically put it in your mouth like maybe a couple of drops under your tongue like for a child a lot of times they do it that way with a child um you can also do it um in your food so you can use it a certain amount yeah yeah in your food make your food that way and then um also you can do it topically yeah so you know you just drop some on so you specific area and rub it in kind of thing yeah oh very good yeah that was my concern about children because you know all the nationwide that all people talk about how well the child has done with this and all of the issues the children with epilepsy and all of the other and what how good it has been for them so I was just concerned about how you ingest this yeah it's pretty simple so if you have a cut or sore or something on the skin you can mm-hmm yeah probably more for like um muscle eggs or something like that I mean I'm not a doctor either so I'm not really sure actually but um I don't know about open cuts or anything like that yeah we used it on my back when I was having some problems after my surgery um yeah it worked I mean that along with medical cannabis was uh much preferred for me personally than all of the prescription the heavy drugs yes yeah so I had I had no problem stopping uh using those although many people do I had never gone to the hospital before so it was a new experience for me and uh yeah and Dr. Klink helped me out the the availability and access of medical cannabis um has been very helpful oh great that is wonderful and he has been a jewel with us and and on the show and a lot of background information and even though he was sick he volunteered to go to Houston for the floods to help out the Red Cross so we interviewed him on Skype from Houston so even though he was sick he volunteered to go so he yes he's been with us all right an awful lot and like I said he took me to you said to meet you excellent we had to talk to you absolutely so you are nationwide and then what each state or island or whatever you own so it's your company yeah we're a local company and we're the exclusive distributors of kush bottles products yeah so you're a what do you call it an independent contractor or distributor exclusive distributor yeah exclusive distributor of a nationwide bottle right they only right now I think they only have two exclusive distribution deals or maybe three Puerto Rico Hawaii and Alaska well that makes sense yeah um and then for the rest of the uh US they have either territorial sales managers uh that are actually working within the company but we're our own independent company well that that makes sense on those those faraway places man what did the president say about that island in the middle of it they didn't know we didn't know we were part of the United States well listen again thank you so much for coming and after this we will call we will make an appointment for you to come back and tell us what happens at the meeting okay after everything will work smoothly okay thank you again thank you so much for being here and we look forward to seeing you again