 Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner, and we are Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000-year odyssey. So tell me, Muse, of that plant of many resources, which wandered far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel and fiber, cultivated for the millennia. 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, hashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and, oh dear, Uncle Sam. So our odyssey begins. Today, our odyssey is not long ago and far away. It's current and in progress. Hemp. Yes, hemp, an environmentally friendly plant. It's a nature, natural, miracle cure from God for us, for healing. What is seen in hemp is mind-blowing. The complexity, the intricacy of the plant is extraordinary. Over 60,000 products and derivatives have been made from hemp. It is the most versatile material on the planet. There's almost something that's intelligently designed. What can I say? Divine, I guess, is what it was. Hemp seems to be a divine gift from the Almighty. The hemp plant is literally manufacturing medicine for free. Every living plant has an intention, a purpose for existing. A plant consciousness is real and hemp wants to be medicine. So here we are today with a new friend, a new best friend, Tom J. Piper. Now, Tom is the owner of Fishing Moon Botanicals. He's an expert in cannabis and hemp, having traveled and lived all around the world, getting to know multiple plants and how they are used in different cultures. Tom J. Piper started Fishing Moon Botanicals in 2017 here in Honolulu. He's a resident for 31 years and has over 40 years of experience in the cannabis industry. Tom developed tentures and armaments for the medicine cannabis industry in California, having survived cancer, multiple accidents and more. Tom is using Fishing Moon products daily. So, welcome, Tom. Tom J. Piper Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. H. Piper He's got products. He's going to tell us all about hemp. Now, let's talk about you first. You're from Germany originally? Tom J. Piper Born and raised in Germany in 1957. Spent my first 15 years in Germany, became a merchant marine and left for the world early on. H. Piper So you've been all over the world as a merchant marine? Tom J. Piper Not quite. I had a couple of three years just into the merchant marines, but my quest for world travel, see the world and experience, was really much fueled by my three photo albums that my dad had and his possession as a cook working on ships and I wanted to see the world. So I left early and have now logged 46 countries in my life. I changed my nationality once. I became an American. I still travel frequently all over the place and I have experienced hemp, cannabis in several different countries and have experienced and seen how it's been used in different countries. So is there a difference in hemp grown, let's say, in Asia or India and Europe? Is there a difference? Tom J. Piper No, not necessarily. Hemp as a commercial plant, hemp is hemp as a commercial plant meaning for bio-fueled, for fiber. Hemp is hemp per se. Hemp is a great bio-accumulator. So it accumulates and it soaks up, it sucks up literally pesticides, poisons from the ground and such. So it's actually a good plant to clean your ground, so to speak. Now on a medicinal base, we don't want to use pesticides, heavy metals and such, whatever the plant accumulates in its system. So that's where the cannabis industry then, years ago, redeveloped hemp plants that are high in CBD and low in THC because over the last I would say 40 years. So the industrial hemp is different from the hemp plant that this comes from? Tom J. Piper Yes, it is hemp. It is commercial hemp. Hemp, but it's a different product. Tom J. Piper It has been bred, this hemp strain has been bred back to its original cause and its original purpose which is high in CBD and very low in THC. Every hemp plant has micro amounts of THC. This is just the nature of the plant right there. Nevertheless, our most state laws in America prescribe less than 3 milligrams per gram of THC. With our products, we are right under that mark at about 2.5 or 2.8 milligrams per gram. So meaning this hemp strain has been developed in Colorado specifically to be the agent to derive your oils from? H. Piper This is, then the print is so small, heavy metals and pesticide free. Tom J. Piper Yes, we have it. H. Piper So this is, it says here CBD oil 900 milligrams. Tom J. Piper Yes, that means in this half ounce bottle, you have 900 milligrams of CBD of the active ingredient. In our laboratory reports, you will be able to, for example, see that this particular strain of hemp has, right here you can see 69.7 milligrams of CBD per gram of oil. So that means almost three quarters of this is actually CBD. That is quite a bit. H. Piper So the other ingredients makes it palatable or? Tom J. Piper There are no other ingredients. This is the pure hemp oil. H. Piper This is pure oil. Tom J. Piper There's nothing else in there. Tom J. Piper Nothing else in there. As is where it is. Pure oil. H. Piper Pure oil. Tom J. Piper We have, we have CBDs, we have CBDAs, THC and THCA. H. Piper THC is the cannabis. Tom J. Piper THC is the psychoactive ingredient that what gets us high. H. Piper And CBD in itself raises the anxiety level for a lot of people. So in order to, to utilize the CBD oil the way we do it, we want to have very, very little THC in it to again not raise anxiety or such with people that depend on the CBD to calm them down and have them carry out a normal day. H. Piper So let's talk, you mentioned that you had cancer and all these accidents. Then you had cannabis to get you through that? Tom J. Piper Yes, there was a point in my life about four years ago where, where I simply couldn't have any more surgeries in my shoulders or in my knees due to motorcycle accidents and more. I've been a very active person. And I was, I was remembering that, that the Mexicans, that Mexican people to this day take raw marijuana leaves, cannabis leaves, hemp leaves and, and make, make them pack their injured areas in their body and have that, that CBD work on their injuries. H. Piper So they take the leaf, the whole leaf? Tom J. Piper The leaves. This is not very effective. But it does do some job. It does the job somewhat. So, so I started, I started using medicinal cannabis in California where I was active for four years in the medical marijuana industry and teamed up with a person that I met accidentally that worked for a large corporation designing tinctures and ointments. And that lady basically got me into this way of using hemp, cannabis, marijuana to heal, of course. So I started developing with her my ointments. And now, and I use my ointments religiously, meaning, meaning I am not on any prescription drug. I don't do that. I'm doing my oils and my creams. I have been able to avoid two solders, shoulder surgeries now for the after the last three years. That's what got me into all that. H. Piper So you worked in the industry in California? Tom J. Piper In the industry in California, I teamed up with several dispensaries. I designed growing facilities for the medical marijuana industry. I was a consultant for for care growers. In my age, now I'm very happy that I have accumulated such great amount of knowledge so that I can actually pass on to the younger generations that that is very active in this medical field. Now, in Hawaii, if you have a cannabis card, medical cannabis card, you can grow 10 plants. H. Piper So you can grow 10 plants, correct? Tom J. Piper Well, okay, so if I get a card, and they say you can grow 10 plants. A, where do they, where do I get the plants or seeds? How do I know how to plant them? Where do I plant them? It seems ludicrous that they just throw you out and say, okay, go. H. Piper It absolutely is. This is what I do as a consultant and as a teacher. I educate people on how to do that. Our current laws here in Hawaii are just not sufficient enough. I mean people like the Hawaii Dispensary Alliance, they do a great job in our state to propel us forward. Nevertheless, if you look at the straight numbers with 10 plants that you can grow yourself, you're really not getting anywhere. H. Piper Okay. I'll tell you what. We're going to break, and when we come back, I want you to tell me, we're going to ask Tom to tell us about growing plants. For those people like me who, my yard, well never mind. So when we come back, we're going to talk to Tom Piper about what it means to grow 10 plants. H. Piper Let's do that. Thank you very much. H. Piper Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. H. Piper Sounds like scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At Dive Heart we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. Dive Heart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. H. Piper We're back, and we are talking to my new best friend, Thomas J. Piper, who is an expert in medical cannabis and hemp. And so there's, I have so many questions. In our state, there's what now, as of today, two dispensaries on Oahu, a million people. 20,000 people have a cannabis cart, and then they tell you, you can grow 10 plants. D. Piper Correct. H. Piper Okay, now I don't have a card, but if I had a card, I could get 10 plants. Where do I buy the plants? Where do I get seeds? How do I plant it? How do I care for it? And then, above all, how do you harvest it so that it is consumable? That to me seems like 100 miles from here. D. Piper It's a thousand miles from here. H. Piper Okay, a thousand miles. All right. D. Piper So basically, there are two ways to grow a plant. We talk about cannabis, hemp marijuana. You grow from seed, or you take a clone. You have a cutting. This is normal procedure. H. Piper Where do you get that? D. Piper That is the point. That is the point right now. And I don't know where to start right now. Let me try to get this together. 10 plants. H. Piper Yes. D. Piper So you have, if you grow 10 plants and you want to do this on a continuous base, H. Piper Right. D. Piper You always have to have some plants that are just growing up, your seedlings. H. Piper Uh-huh. D. Piper So a lot of young plants die because you neglect them, or the cat gets in there, or something like that, okay? So 10 plants, meaning you have five plants growing. H. Piper Right. D. Piper That you will harvest eventually. You have five plants as seedlings growing. That's 10 plants right there. So you still don't have the mother plant. You still don't have the seeds that can be legally shipped within the U.S. because the federal government doesn't allow that. And here's again where the dog bites its own tail. Where do we start? How do we do that? H. Piper Yes. D. Piper The medical marijuana industry, let's say California per se, common way to do it is you have a mother plant in your possession. That mother plant is your proud, your pride possession. You take cuttings, clones from this mother plant. You root those clones, and then you plant them, and that is your next plant right there. So math again. One mother plant, four clones is five. H. Piper Right. D. Piper And these four clones turn into four adult plants. So now you have nine plants, not ten. You're missing out on one. How are you going to do that? So seeds cannot be legally shipped. H. Piper Right. D. Piper Federal government doesn't allow that, which leaves us to this day at the illegal level of trying to get seeds or plant material clones from existing people here somewhere that... H. Piper Someone that already has a plant. D. Piper Someone that already has a plant. Okay, now there's care growers. We can say in Hawaii now we can have care growers. I believe it is three licenses per one person right now. H. Piper So that's a co-op or something. D. Piper It's kind of a co-op. If you live in an apartment in Makiki and you can have your plants, you have somebody out in the country that is your care grower. H. Piper Okay. D. Piper That can be done. In California, when this year just the marijuana cannabis, marijuana turned legal, the great concern was that marijuana will be flooding the state and everybody is going to be high and everybody is going to be stoned and nobody can drive and on and on and on. What actually happened is that the industry itself raised its level up again because all of a sudden now the person that cannot grow, the person that does not know how to grow, that has no green thumb at all, can actually go to somebody that knows what they're doing and get the cannabis from them. So that means the mediocre growers, the people that use a lot of pesticides, the growers that don't know how to do it properly actually are being phased out by the higher quality available freely on the market. Now if we have people with conditions that ask for more THC for whatever reason, of course you still would have to have the medical card and you would get it from a dispensary. Nevertheless, here in Hawaii right now, we are not quite there yet as far as I know with laboratories and such to have extracts or oils available. Well, since 2000 it's been legal and yet here we are with 2017 and we're still in the dark ages, we still haven't progressed. So the state is making money because you've got to pay for this card and so they don't care that all they want to do is take money. That seems to be the bottom line still, money is money. And if I look at dispensaries in general, every dispensary, and let's say California again, they have their own strains, they have their own product, they have their own way of choosing and growing and you really can venture out and try to look for the best product for you, for your needs. That satisfies your needs, yes. Correct. Now we're not there yet here in Hawaii. No, that's what I'm spellbound by all of this. Not only this, but I firmly believe at this point in life with my amount of knowledge, the amount of strains, cannabis I've seen in different countries in the world and in my last four years, especially Colorado, Washington and being involved in the California, Medica, and marijuana industry, we do not have a superior product yet here in Hawaii. It is a sad story. So that means... How do you get to be in a superior strain? You need to get a superior strain of your product. Right, but how do we get there from here? You have to find the right seeds or you have to be able to get the right clones or mother plant to Hawaii. How do we do that? As long as Uncle Sam says, no, no, no, we will not be able to do that. That is the problem we have right now in this state that our first dispensary that opened up had only one particular strain available for a fairly high price, I must say, and I wouldn't necessarily call it a superior product. Well, I know that there's another one opening. Yes, just open and I hope that folks will get hold on. But I don't know the difference. For the pure use of CBD, let's forget about the THC now. That is the medical side and these folks have to battle out on their own. So this is the CBD oil. Let's talk about this. Finally, we are actually at a point where we don't necessarily always need medical marijuana, medical cannabis, because now we have this hybrid strain of hemp that has been developed in Colorado to provide this incredible number of almost 70% of CBD and a very little THC under the legal law. So for people, people now can readily buy CBD oil from my company, from other companies, without worrying about a medical marijuana card. Now, I would like to point out. So you don't need a card? You don't need a card at all. No. Okay. I would like to point out most important, hemp is not just hemp. You have to be aware of, I would say, products that were imported. CBD oil from, for example, the Ukraine. The Ukraine is a large country that produces incredible amounts of hemp. Spain is another country. And we don't necessarily have insight as to growing conditions, processing and such. And, yeah, and synthetics. How do you tell? How do you tell? So you find some of these, some of the, so my first question always would be, where does it come from? What's actually in there? What's in there, yes. And with our laboratory testing and report, every batch is being tested. Not every batch is the same. Our CBD content is a few percent lower, sometimes a few, a little bit higher. It depends on the growing conditions, of course, as well, right? So that's the first question I always would ask. And most people are after the effects of the CBD for anxiety to get through the day. The CBD activates our cannabinoid receptors in our brains and our bodies. So we have cannabinoids already in the body. So we're going to enhance it with? Enhance and stimulate so that our body communicates within itself. And that's all it is. And so then the body takes care of itself, its own immune system? In a way, yes. There is no medicinal claims at this point. It's not FDA-approved. We know that. Well, for our audience, let me say, aspirin is not FDA-approved. And it's sold around the world. I didn't know that. Excellent. However, oxycodone is FDA-approved. So we don't worry about that. That's out of the question. Good. And in fact, what one person told me that swears by this, they said, this is the best way to get off of the opiate addiction. I am helping several people on this island alone with the ability to get over the opiate addiction. This is a big, big thing in our country right now. It's out of proportions. And just yesterday, I talked to a lady on the North Shore, for example, and she's given her dog three drops in the morning. The dog, the old dog, is doing fine and then not falling over and a happy camper. 80 years of prohibition in general has not allowed for much research. We really don't know exactly what it all does. And I'm using the straight oil, for example, for some skin conditions. It does help. People have to find out for themselves what it and how it helps. I recommend talk to people that have experience with this, find out what their level is of well-being before and after, find out how they react. Usually I spend between 30 minutes and an hour with every single person that would like to get my products to try to guide them through because people do not know how much, when, and so on so forth. Okay, so we are just about out of time. You see people, would you give us your telephone number? Yes. So they can call you? You can call me anytime. My telephone number is 436-5-225. My website is fishingmoon.net. I would love to pass on information and knowledge that these people that have our products get the utmost out of it. Well, thank you. Will you come back and visit us again? Much to join us. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it. It's a real pleasure, and I've learned so much. And we will see you again next week. Thank you very much. Aloha. Aloha.