 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is a 10,000 year odyssey. So tell me news of that great plant of many resources which wondered far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel and fiber and cultivated for 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, hashes, cannabis, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and dear old Uncle Sam. And so our odyssey begins. Today our odyssey is not long ago and far away. It is current and it is in progress. And that is medical cannabis. My guest today is my dear, dear friend Scott Foster and Scott has been a medical cannabis advocate since the very beginning. So Scott, welcome back. Hello, how are you? So we're talking about medical cannabis. So let's start with Scott. And how did you get involved? Because you've been involved since, what is it, 02? 20, 02, something like that. So how did you get involved? I was, came from the 60s and cannabis in those days was considered a recreational drug, although many people who used it, including myself, understood that it had a therapeutic effect, that it had a calming effect, that it certainly had a relaxing effect. And so as the years passed, I sort of quit using it. It fell out of favor. And until 1998 when my late wife, Lynn Ellen, Lynn Ellen Ryan, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And someone suggested that marijuana might help her with her nausea. And I hadn't smoked marijuana in years. So I got some from a friend. And sure enough, during her final days, it reduced her nausea, but it also had a dramatic impact on her middle state. The heavy drugs that were prescribed took care of her physical pain, but the medical marijuana took away her anxiety. And so until her final day, marijuana was part of her regime. So you did both the heavy morphine as well as the marijuana? Yes. Well, actually, morphine was the first stage. Delotted, which is an IV drug, was the drug that really worked for the pain at the acute stage. And liquid Ativan was a relaxer, to help take care of the anxiety. But those two drugs usually just put her to sleep. With the marijuana, I found that I could back off, because I was her caregiver at home, I could back off on the heavy IV drugs, and the marijuana took care of her anxiety. And the emotional. So she was able to communicate. Oh, yeah. And watch basketball, which was her favorite game. Really, until three days before her death, she had a good death. A good death. I like that phrase. So tell me real quick, so that's why you got started in this move to move from recreational, something you had to buy on the corners, to medical. That was, Linnie's death was January of 1998. And coincidentally, that was the same time that the Hawaii Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii was being created. I got a phone call from Dr. Donald Topping, who was working with Pam Lickty. Don had passed a number of years ago. Pam is still quite active in the medical marijuana movement with the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii. And so I joined with them to help get that organization started. And then out of nowhere, Don Topping called me and said, what do you think about trying to pass a medical marijuana bill? And I said, sure, why not? And so off we went. And two years later, we had passed the first medical marijuana legislation in the nation that came through a legislature. There were one or two other states that had passed it through referendum. Hawaii doesn't have referendum. So there we had the drug. There we had the bill. And that was 02. That was 2000. I meant 20. Yeah, that was the year 2000. 2000. And so here we are with a pretty good established medical cannabis. Our state is the only one that has changed the word from marijuana to cannabis because marijuana is derogatory. And so we're very happy with where the state is. We still have a long way to go, but we're getting there. So I want to thank you personally for all you've done to get us to this point and for your willingness to share your experience with your wife. I hate to tell you this, but I remember all of that time. But he did do a magnificent job with his wife. It's one of those things that you think, I hope my husband can do that. But again, Scott, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to share that with us and stay on board because we've got a long way to go. I'll be there. Thank you, Marcia. We're going to take a break and we'll be right back. 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. So we do it. Aloha. My name is Mark Schlauwe. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I'd like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Aloha. And we're back. Hi. Hi. How are you doing, Marcia? Great. This is Karmie. Hi, everybody. And Karmie is from Hawaiian Hydroponics and Gardens, yes. I met Karmie at the expo here, the cannabis expo. Yeah, that was our first time meeting. And then, yes, it was great. That was a great expo. But I love the idea that Karmie has hydroponics and aquaponics, so I went to visit the store. And looked around at all of the things there. So what I would like for A to tell us all about hydroponics and aquaponics and about, because this is cannabis chronicles, and there's so many new people that say, well, I've got this card and it says I can grow plants. But now what? I don't know how to grow anything. Right. Where do I start? How do I start? Right. And so when I discovered you, I thought, this is the person to ask. It definitely would be. Where do we go from here? Okay, now I've got the card. Now what? So let me just clarify real quick, though. So we are a full-service garden center. Yes. And so we do soil, hydro, we do cater to people doing aquaponics as well, and indoor-outdoor gardening. Wonderful. Yes. My dad ended up starting the business back in 93. And I ended up buying from him when I was 24 in 2006 and just really taking off with just the multimodality gardening. I've always had ADHD even in my garden. So I let everyone wild there. And so that's what makes me so useful to the gardening community, medical and non-medical alike, is that I have experience across the board with gardening methods. And so I can really tailor the knowledge for every client. That's wonderful. Right. And I also do consultations as well. And I'm very effective just because of my broad base of knowledge from people that want to do soil, hydro, you want to make sure you're using the right organic sprays if you have bug issues. And all this advice comes with our services. So now if a person says, I live in a condominium in an apartment, how do I grow 10 plants indoors? So much experience with condo gardening, because I lived in a condo for so long and grew. And I've had my medical card even with being as young as I am for quite some time because I have torn ACL meniscus in my knee, which has been throwing off my back and my skeletal system and given me pain since I was about 17 years old. Really? Yeah. Back when I hurt my knee, they used to, I was like back in the day 20 years ago when I hurt my knee. They used to slice you open real bad. So I was always opposed to getting knee surgery or the big scar. And so, you know, medical things, they've progressed since then. So. But irregardless, I use it for pain management and I've done extensive condo gardening. And so some of the best ways to do condo gardening is to make your maintenance easy is the best advice. So having a tent, a grow tent, so that you're not spilling anything on your floors, you're not putting any holes in your walls, it's very cost effective to get a grow tent. And what that is, is it's a little tent you can construct. That would be a parameter of two feet or four feet or four feet by four feet or however big or small you want to kind of make it. And we would start with that, you know, generally for a condo. So someone that wants to do 10 plants, it's going to be in relation to how big their condo is. Your condo might not be big enough for you to do 10 plants. Realistically, at least not maybe in flowering. And so what we would do is we would take a look at your space and your budget. And guide you from there. So if your budget is, say, and you have to have a realistic budget for indoor gardening, because we are creating an environment and supplementing the sum. What is a realistic budget? I mean, a realistic budget is probably going to sit you at like six or $700 to do something small. To get you started. Like, you know, a small inexpensive LED is going to be maybe $300. A tent is going to be maybe $200. The LED is the lighting system. It's going to make up a couple of hundred dollars in nutrients, soil, fans. You know what I mean? So about $700 would be realistic. Maybe even eight, depending on the equipment you've got. You know, if you want to do hydro versus soil. And so there is a set up cost. But it is an investment that's not going to depreciate in value for you. Because your garden is going to keep growing. Your medicine, you know what I mean? You might change out your bulb, which is most light bulbs go up. Getting your light bulb, it only lasts for so long. New nutrients once you run out. And so the upkeep cost of a garden is very minimal. Especially when you get into hydroponics where we use a lot less water, a lot less nutrients. And our plants grow a lot faster. With hydroponics. Conventional soil is great for a lot of crops and things. I also do a lot of vegetable gardening as well. I started growing vegetables when I was a kid and graduated up to the canvas. Why not? Why not? And so you definitely I'm going to have to change my thought there for a second. But we're growing in tell me now with hydroponics, aquaponics which would you or what is hydroponics? So hydroponics is growing without the use of soil using alternative growing mediums. And so what that looks like is instead of soil I have a medium that's very dry. Think of cinder. It's porous on the inside. And we take it a step further with that and we have the stuff called hydroton which is a clay medium that is also renewable because it's clay. Not like our cinder cones. We got to keep digging them, right? It's porous on the inside just like cinder but smooth on the outside. So it's easy to reuse for planting. It's reusable medium. And you can water this once an hour without over watering your plants. So I think I can clarify on the show it's let me talk about how to properly water really fast and what over watering really is. Don't cover up your microphone. There you go. Hello. So over watering is not watering your plants with too much water at one time. Over watering is not allowing the oxygen to be present. So over watering is actually suffocation of the root system by lack of oxygen. Yeah? So if we were to have a plant we would have a 5 gallon pot. Regular 5 gallon pot. And I were to dump 2 gallons through that pot and I have another pot I can put 10 gallons through that pot. As long as I let them dry out the one that has 10 gallons going through it will not be over watered as long as I let it dry out where the oxygen comes back in. And then I water again once the soil gets dry enough and it creates this breathing effect. Yeah? We water the soil the old oxygen goes out as well and dries up and new stuff comes in and so you have a very healthy environment for your root system and the bacteria that should be there. So if you're watering your plants if you were to give it 2 gallons of water 2 gallons of water, 2 gallons of water all the time you would actually over water it by giving it 10 gallons every day 2 gallons for 5 days straight and you continue to do that you will over water your plants. So now what is aquaponics? So aquaponics is the cultivation of plants through use of aquaculture which is producing fish and so it's I find it to be more still in its infancy in ways that people are doing it it's really grown leaps and bounds in the last like 5, 6 years with people getting interested in it and it's more just in the areas of people giving the fish proprietary blends of food so that the excrement coming out is more satisfactory to the plants because generally fish waste is just ammonium nitrate that gets broken down and is high in nitrogen after it goes through the bacteria process of breaking it down and it's released as nitrogen and things like that for the plants to eat but plants require more than just nitrogen there's phosphorus, potassium and your secondary macro which are your main elements calcium, magnesium, sulfur and micronutrients as well iron's the first one that aquaponics people will come into my store to get liquid iron supplements I do not recommend cannabis growing with aquaponics I have not seen anyone I've seen plenty of people start them great I have not seen too many people actually I haven't seen any people yet as far as I know on a first hand basis there might be some experts out there that can do this of course, absolutely but on a regular consumer basis I wouldn't recommend aquaponics because it's just not going to flower right for food production, leaps production, kale, things like that absolutely I saw a picture on your web page of the little fish and the plants on the top any kind of fish? no you tilapia are better you can even throw some crawfish in there and just make the water mucky, biggest thing with aquaponics one of the biggest things you want to remember is you need to have a way to catch the waste in an environment that is conducive of the bacteria growing so that they can break the waste down and make it edible for the plants because fish waste in its raw form is toxic when it builds up for both them and the plants the fish in the plants is toxic for them unless it breaks down it's like if you had a fish tank with no filter on it so with aquaponics what you need to have is a way, we call it a bio-filter you have to have a way of collecting it, having it catch a lot of people use their grow bed for aquaponics as their bio-filter to catch the waste break it down and as the plants eat it I like external bio-filters better it's a lot more effective an efficient way to do aquaponics is having an external filter the same as you would have for any pond or fish tank, external filter catching the waste, pumping the water back in and so having an external filter will allow you to use less water in your grow bed and also you need to clean something out you're not washing all your bacteria after a while and so that's my recommendation for that so which you're recommending for hydroponics, for beginners soil? would actually be better or if they want to dabble in hydroponics I recommend cocoa growing mediums so cocoa core is a coconut growing medium it's kind of like between soil and hydroponics where it's planted up in pots not quite as big as soil would go for space for roots because you don't really need it it will, the specific pots we generally use for a lot of cocoa to keep the pots smaller are fabric and they're called air pruning pots which allow the roots to grow out air prune and not get root bound and keep growing it's amazing and so you can plant up a bunch of cocoa pots with coconut fiber and your medical cannabis plants and you can automate the watering on this because coconut is a very dry medium now we can't water it like a cinder medium or a clay medium because the mediums are all going to have a different water to air ratio and this is something to be aware of when gardening is know your medium and what you're working with in any situation so know what you're working with know it's parameters so with cocoa you're going to water maybe when they're young once a day you know what I mean twice a day you have to keep low nutrient levels make sure you get a good flow going if you water not enough and it sits and kind of dries out you're going to have solidification of nutrients that can build up in your pot all this is why I'm here all this is what I'm for come to us for consultations and things like that so now of course here in Hawaii that afternoon sun burns up everything midday wilt called midday wilt yes everything including me my office my office I have some recommendations for that as well midday wilt the afternoon sun comes in like anyway so in exciting we're back to in work I mean a small place in your condo or O'Neill and I or whatever so do you decide or should the person decide where it should be in morning sun, afternoon sun so cannabis specifically needs or most all plants are going to need a minimum of light to complete a veg cycle so plants going to have a seedling stage, a veg stage and a flowering stage anything that flower is going to have those three stages anything that doesn't flower is going to have the two stages seedling, veg, lettuce, leafy greens, herbs so seedling, vegetative stage pre flower I think seedling to veg is like from baby to adolescent and then maturation adult so you're going to need about five hours of direct sunlight minimum with a full day's light of 16 hours so what that means is there's intensity period versus photo period photo period is the amount of light hours a plant will register whether it's intense or not if it's more than a full moon's light the plant will register at its daytime street lights, you know, light pollution from the house, so light pollution things like that can be bright enough to affect your plants and keep them from flowering yeah I had this problem in my condo in Waikiki I had my plants on my lanai this is why I had to go indoor it was great to veg on my lanai I could veg beautifully, it was gorgeous gorgeous because I had southeast facing, you know but when it came time to flower it was so bright and Waikiki that my plants from the top were just in perpetuation of veg and the bottom kind of would butt out but not really, you know what I mean and it just, the light pollution really screwed up my whole my whole growth I'm just saying you're planting back to photo period and it helps when they need so you've got the plant 5 hours is for veg with a 16 hour day cycle that 16 hour day cycle lets them know that it's summer and they're not going to flower and Hawaii is why people actually will get little lights to come on on their garden even the outdoor guys when it's winter if you have lights come on in your garden you can do a veg if you want for light, you know what I mean for late winter and catching that last little season going on here we have light assist there they have light deprivation so on the lanai as long as your plants only getting at least 8 hours direct sun for flowering 5 hours direct sun for veg this is the amount of intense light it needs to make the amount of energy it needs to do what it's got to do and then the rest is just minimal light so on a 16 hour day you can have 11 hours in minimal light and 5 hours direct sun that's the minimum on a flowering you can have a 12 hour light cycle maybe 7 because it's really intense here and that's the cycles that you need to have happening regardless of where do I put it, where do I place it as long as they get that much direct sun with a photo period conducive of what you want to do do you want to veg them out flower inside is it winter can you keep vegging them outside have a couple lights come on and then move them into a flower absolutely and so that's what I end up doing is having a couple lights come on in my garden at 5 o'clock at night till 9.30 so I can give them a 16 hour photo period to let them know that they can still veg and they're getting the sun for the intensity to look gorgeous but I'm increasing the photo period so I can veg them and then I move them to the tent inside and so and that's how I kind of balance that out between doing some on my lanai and absorbing some of the cost of the how much light costs here in Hawaii it's 36 to 30 that's a kilowatt hour for electricity and then I can flower inside so I don't have to have both going with lights in indoor and I can buy it inside so then again we're back to okay now where do you get the buds the plants to begin with so procurement is a little bit of a gray area just more because of the federal laws I believe where people are selling seeds as what's the word you use I don't know at the cannabis expo there were a lot of people with seeds but you would buy the t-shirt and they'd give you the seeds right and that's a bit of you know gray that's a bit of a gray area and that's also a bit of a loophole and to be able to work the legality of what stipulations you're able to work in in the same way they've worded the terminology from medical to medical patient you can do donations you know what I mean so you donate it you don't there's nothing else going on there and so being able to novelty they sell the seeds as novelty and you know you buy a necklace with six seeds and you pay $60 for a necklace and so you're not technically you're just giving the seeds away with it and so they're not selling it and so that's the only way that they're able to work around it whether you go to the UK which is ordering seeds and stuff like that and they sell you a novelty because Hawaii didn't have seed breeders way back in the day but there were seed banks and you can go online you can order seeds and they send you a shirt with three seeds so it's the same thing that happens I know I saw so many even somebody from Norway was at the cannabis expo because I know Adam there and Bang Bang with Pakalolo seeds Molokai guys so the Molokai seed guys are amazing and then I think Sirius seeds might have been I can't remember the guy's name I'm blanking on it but there's a couple of really nice local guys that are working with companies and trying to bring the genetics to the population I myself recommend people to go along the lines of like there's like Pineapple Chunk and Pineapple Express and as much as people think the Pineapple Seeds have been played out they're such an easy grow and they're so okay with having humid and warm weather that those are strains I recommend for beginners those are beginner strains they're just a pleasure to grow they're just easy when you look at my yard you think she knows nothing about this things to be aware of now with things to be aware of when you're doing condo gardening to your budget and then just kind of I really consider myself a garden stylist so and I use the word vibe on this but see what you vibe with do you want to go with soil, do you want to do hydro just because your friend does a method doesn't mean you might like it so sometimes I run to issues where they're like my friend is it this way so pick out what you think you're going to like and what you really are interested in because you're going to push harder for that if you really are interested in it and just come to us for some advice on how to easily change reservoirs and water and all it releases consistent feeding knowing your atmosphere so when you have a grow space you want airflow, ventilation and basically just creating your environment you know a quality light that's going to have enough intensity okay now speaking of vibes do you talk to the plant, do you love the plant absolutely, I give them my ha I give them my breath I breathe my CO2 onto my plant and I like put my face in them anytime I make a wound on my plant I use my own spit actually to cover that wound and I don't know why I do that that's just something that came along and I have a very personal relationship with my garden and I had this one plant that was a mother of mine that I had for a while and she was amazing and I used to put my crystal in front of her to meditate with my plant and and I'll never forget all of a sudden in the middle of the stock all of a sudden you saw two eyes a little nose from a stem and a smiley face and she had a face and I was like oh my god of course yes of course so I just, and I get pretty hippy with that no it's wonderful but I have a very personal relationship with gardening I come from a long line of gardeners I would think because I do too I don't have any cannabis I just have a myriad of different plants and what's your favorite vegetable to grow any of them the orchids moved in with the collard greens that would be gorgeous they just wrapped around each one so the pots were next to each other and they just moved in orchids are parasitic plants they don't usually exist by themselves you always see them attached to a tree style but they're actually, they're a parasitic plant and it just moved in with the with the collard greens and when I moved it everybody was upset the orchid kind of so I had to put it back it will kind of reach out to get its nutrients from other places and then there's companion planting other root systems and different microbes being there because of them and so I didn't think orchids and collard greens would go together that's pretty cool I'll show you a picture but anyway I am so delighted to meet you and so happy to have you here you will come back and spend some more time with us I would love to I'll have to keep you guys posted on any future workshops I have done Medical Cannabis Workshop we started kicking them off with Malia Clinic and so that was I guess, yes but she's in class now on Wednesdays but I was delighted that she was here but again, thank you so much for coming, this has been a real pleasure and we look forward to seeing you again I look so forward to seeing you again, aloha guys aloha