 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000 year odyssey. And as we know, the hemp plant produces lots of wonderful things. It's a God-given plant. It's a weed and it just grows. However, the part of the plant that is for medical cannabis is the flower. And then there is the hashish and then there's the industrial hemp. And all of these wonderful things that God gave us. And then we have little dwarf, which is named Sessions, trying to, oh never mind, let's don't go there. Anyway, today we are going to talk to a beautiful, beautiful, wonderful friend of mine, Tanya Johnson from NOAA Botanicals. Now, NOAA Botanicals is one of the newest dispensaries to come on board. And as you know, the state made all of this legal in 2002. And they're just getting around to opening the dispensaries. Oh God, if you'd been sick and waiting on this, just, anyway, let's do it. Welcome, Tanya. Thank you, Marisa. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here talking to you. Thank you, thank you. So tell us exactly what is medical cannabis and how does it differ from recreational cannabis? So the plant itself is the plant. There's some difference between industrial hemp and the cannabis that is regulated federally by the government. And it relates to one component of the plant, which is the THC content. Right. So what's different in Hawaii from the rest of the mainland is that we're medical only, which means you have to meet a qualifying condition and have a medical card to possess, grow your own or buy from a dispensary. The components of and the plant that is used for medical and recreational are the same. It's just different laws. The only difference in states in the mainland that have adopted recreationally says, well, is as a medical patient, you can continue to see discounts on taxes and you in some states can buy higher dosages of the same product that cannot be purchased on the recreational side. Oh, great. So now, since this is Hawaii and is medical only, do you grow your own or how is that done? So that's, it's a unique situation. So I came on board with NOAA after the license was one awarded. And so a little bit, I'm not, I've watched some of your other videos and who you've brought on. What's unique to Hawaii is that we're a vertically integrated model, business model here. And so when the regulations were being put forward and the number of dispensaries was being decided, I wasn't involved in any of that and I wasn't even exposed to the industry at that point. So there are a lot of different business models for the cannabis industry across the United States. Hawaii chose to adopt a vertical system at this point in time. And so what that means is each licensee has to grow, manufacture and sell our own. So when I came on board, standing up this company is essentially standing up four companies at the same time. We're bringing a brand new team together. Once the license was awarded, we had to build a company. And then at the same time, we were a construction company building our facilities. And now you're an agricultural business growing a plant and you're a manufacturing operation taking that plant and turning it into your any product you see, right? Your tinctures, your lozenges, your vape oil, any of that. And then you're now opening and running a retail location as well. Yeah, so we've been open since October 9th. And one of one of the areas of education that we work with the most with our patients who have maybe been to the mainland and been exposed on the mainland to a horizontal model is just that. That anticipating what patients may want and need with a plant that takes four months to grow. And not only what types they might want but the volume that they will purchase. And then the amount of time that it takes once the plant is ready to sell is flower to then go through a manufacturing and extraction process and all of that testing and then put it on the shelf is incredibly challenging. It is. Now you said okay that's four different businesses. All at once. Each licensee has to do that. And so that's why you that's why you may see variety amongst the licensees and when we're getting open what we're opening with what we're able to keep in stock and the frequency with which you know we can restock. So do you let's say that I am a farmer and I know how to grow your particular plant. Could I then just work for you to put this business together and then here's another dispensary that needs my services. Can that person grow? So you know I'm just saying that to create four different businesses. Right I see what you're getting at. So from an ancillary support right service right. So no so when it there are a lot of ancillary businesses that support our industry here in Hawaii that have created new businesses that didn't exist before which I love. I'm sure about that I would think right. So we the company that we get all of our bottles from our local startup that started through UH Shidler that supply all of the dram jars and everything that we need to use. So everywhere we can we're encouraging entrepreneurs who want to attach to the industry somehow to help them figure out how they can do it and service the industry. There are some areas that are very very clear in the law that we cannot. So the plants is a good example. We we cannot sell clones or seeds or even donate clones or seeds to patients or anyone else and we we can't take them either. I was thinking more of another dispensary not not patient but another dispensary. If I say I can build this for you and now I have built this facility for you. I can I like any other contractor go do it for someone else. There is that would depend on each licensees confidentiality agreements right and then there are some things that state regulated during the startup process of whether a particular person or entity could be attached to do two dispensaries at the same time. Yeah just because it's you know there's concern and you know this several business models were presented as the business model that would be right for Hawaii's beginning part of the industry and there are you know benefits and drawbacks of any of those business models. And I was just thinking of all of the allied businesses that can support this because I've since in July I had no idea of any of this and I've just watched it grow just since I've been doing the program and it seems like there's such an opportunity for so many new businesses to support that. Yeah and I agree and I definitely can see a path forward for that and for me personally what this industry itself can do for the economy in the state of Hawaii in a variety of fashions over the next three to five years is encouraging to me it's the amount of time it may take to have that happen. So right now today what can happen are those ancillary businesses can come up. For example there are things that either don't financially make sense for each dispensary to do because we're doing as much as we can to keep the cost as low as possible. We already have so many challenges by being vertically integrated and being a startup still a startup industry right you have to remember that the state got this all going at the same time we all are and so we're working well together but we're all still this is year one right really of anyone being in operation and the majority of the dispensaries aren't open yet we don't even have we have four open right now two on Maui and two here on Oahu. And the two here are so close together across the street from each other and if you live in right what if you're not sure why not but then you've got to so that's a whole day trip. It is and we have patients who you know they plan doctor's appointments or whatever in town I used to live country I grew up in remote remote country and you know you go to town once a month into your Costco shopping and whatever else and then you don't come back again so that's definitely a challenge and we are allowed each a licensee is allowed to have three retail locations but this year in particular will every year in any new business and particularly new industry is a little bit of wait and see with how much risk can we take and so the card the patient card counts are not increasing at the rate we we would had hoped to see and so looking at the expense of opening a second retail location producing enough volume to handle both locations and looking at the number of cardholders currently on the island of Oahu it's a matter of you know of economy now the state says that they issue about 1800 a month so that includes renewals unfortunately right now there's not a way to know whether they're new patients or existing patients renewing so if you were to open a new place that would be retail only yes wouldn't be the growing so each licensee can have two grow centers up to two grow centers and three retail locations so that you could conceivably grow where you are right and just have a storefront absolutely and on the North Shore right so we chose Noah chose to go ahead and build a production facility to handle the capacity of plants and inventory we estimated would be three to five years from now so we wouldn't need to construct our second production facility for a while and could just ramp up the number of plants were growing in our existing facility to handle different retail locations that makes sense to me that yeah rather than build a whole thing out which would increase the cost right so if you just had another retail outlet yeah yeah and that's that's where we all want to be right all of the licensee is want to be able to provide medicine to as many people as possible there are very strict requirements about where our stores can be located in terms of distances to schools or public housing and we're on an island right so all three of the current licensees on a while who our first storefronts are all within a mile of each other and we didn't even know it until we all got close to opening and then we were like you're there oh of course but if you think about it especially on an island you're so it really restricts where you can even have a shop so so while we're all allowed to basically we could eventually have nine dispensary locations on this island nine storefronts right between the three of us where are they all going to go are there even nine locations on the island that fit in all of this criteria so can't be near school can't be public housing public housing it cannot have a lien or a loan on it because you can't have a bank or loan or a mortgage attached to it because it's federally legal so yeah once you go through the whole list it's really very restrictive it's absurd yeah there is you know it is convenient for the patients though to be able to just you know be especially if they're coming from out of town you know they can they can just shop through you know like we do at Alamona so and you know it is I think it's an interesting industry for me to come into having come out of the one that I did so I see it a little bit differently than I hear people speaking about it and working with the regulators so it's it's challenging but I'm also very very glad we're here now today and that we are open we are able to start providing you know medicine to patients well Tanya we need to take a break and we will be right back and with Tanya Johnson from NOAA Botanicals this is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness some say 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 dive heart org and imagine the possibilities in your life aloha my name is Mark Shclav 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 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 I'm Marsha joiner and we're back with Tanya Johnson from NOAA Botanicals and this beautiful lady you wouldn't think was a CEO CEO CEO so tell us about you tell yeah yeah sure so I grew up in a small town in northeastern Wyoming my family are cattle ranchers my parents were very young when I was born and then we I actually finished school high school in northern Nevada my dad was working in the gold mines I got married very young had a couple of kids very young and then struck out on my own and went back to school I moved to Idaho and so my formal education is actually in anthropology and archaeology and business so I came out of that experience and moved to Utah and it wasn't actually practical for me to be an archaeologist in the way they worked at the time because I was a single mom and I couldn't be gone for days and weeks on end so because I had some business savvy and some other skills that I had accrued along the way I immediately went into the business side of the organization so I was in environmental consulting which covers everything water plants animals everything and so it was just an amazing opportunity a melting pot of regulatory environments and law and statute and all kinds of things that I grew up in for about 15 years and along the way I really attached to the inner workings of the business the company was quite small when I started and they were all interested in being scientists and not running a business so I got a lot of free range to just figure things out and run with things and so I wound up where the last five years that I was there I was turning around failing operations starting new ones bringing large-scale pipeline projects and very contentious very in the media in the news projects you know back on track or out of litigation or deciding whether we were even going to stay attached and so I moved to Hawaii in 2011 I came here on vacation and decided I needed to live here so I went home and packed up my kids and came out so I continued in the environmental world when I moved to Hawaii the scope changed of course from archaeological projects to ocean work and a lot of water work at least like that but the thing that's interesting so when this opportunity came up for me to come in and help start up this company and in the I knew absolutely nothing about cannabis had never even consumed it I just had no reason to have an opinion about it right and so it's been an amazing learning curve but from more from the perspective of sitting at a table with six or eight regular leaders with laws that have been in effect for 30 40 50 years and you can't get anyone to budge on anything and so trying to affect change at any kind of a scale is just embryonic the pace and so coming into this industry while it's super sexy and exciting and it's what everybody's talking about right now for me it's it's it's really nice to just have one regulator at the table and what I've seen in Hawaii with this industry also being a new industry for the state standing up the dispensary system is the willingness to sit down at the table with all eight licensees and talk through things that were written into large statute before any of us were trying to actually make this work right and so now that we're operational we're able to sit down and say this is working this isn't here and now that we're open being able to take feedback from patients back to them and say for example pre-filled vape cartridges currently when there's a pre-filled vape sure so you can smoke the flower you can have a tincture you can have an edible cooking oil we're not allowed to sell edibles in the state right now the other area we are restricted that you won't see in the mainland as we can't sell anything that contributes to contributes to the smoking of cannabis so we can't sell any of the paraphernalia that they would need to consume it and that includes if you've seen like vape pens or e-cigarettes people walking around smoking the electronic devices oh yeah so you can create a distillate of a oil that goes in that cartridge that people prefer to use to medicate rather than having to grind flour and smoke flour and all of that and so particularly for patients that have seizures or room toward arthritis or Parkinson's right now we're not allowed to sell those cartridges already filled with the liquid so on the mainland you can buy the whole cartridge you just screw it on the pen and you can inhale here you have to get this kit and then the way you buy that oil from us as a syringe and so you have to very carefully hold the syringe and slowly fill it because it's like caro syrup consistency into the cartridge and then screw the top on and you have to get it on right and all this stuff has to happen oh my before you can use it so if you have arthritis yeah good shakes or anything else and so there's some limitations there that you know the intent was there when it was written and put together but now that we're on the ground boots on the ground if you will with the stuff we're starting to see where there are some limitations so the other thing about the state that I appreciate is that every year a cleanup bill goes through right and so last year what was most significant for the dispensaries was we were allowed to increase our plant count in our buildings and also add a third dispensary what was significant for patients who homegrow is they were allowed to go from seven plants to ten plants and also the period of time they can continue growing their own extended so I think you know it's progressive even though it feels like it's slow and it's been a long time coming well I know the big issue for some of our regular listeners is de-scheduling yeah and hopefully that can happen yeah so many of our legislators do not understand that in 2006 the US Supreme Court said the states have a right and it kills me to say states rights but we do yeah and so many of the legislators do not understand and so that's a big issue yeah and I think that for me and and because of how we know each other we've met you'll you'll understand this right I I spend space in my life thinking and planning about how what I'm doing today can affect things tomorrow but the truth is the most power I have is what I can do today with the with the tools I have available to me and so and maybe I can say this because I was not attached to the industry before I also had no opinion about cannabis before what I had was a passive opinion and I didn't see that until you know six or eight months ago when we were developing our mission and vision statement and what I mean by that is I learned somewhere along the way in school that cannabis was a gateway drug into opioids that Reagan era right this is when I grew up and I just never decided to think anything other than that I didn't educate myself I didn't inform myself so when this opportunity came to me that I sat down and I did a bunch of research to decide whether it was something I wanted to be a part of from a business perspective yes starting up a business from scratch yes bring it on but I have to believe in what I'm doing as well and the goal of what I'm doing and so as I I mean the cultural you know the defacing of different cultures by using it in that way to break apart different cultural groups and just the history of the criminalization of the plant just blew me away right and yes and that yes it does and so yeah so for me moving forward now the biggest thing is educating people and asking people to educate themselves I mean you have a smartphone Google spend five minutes googling you don't have to be out there waving a flag like I am but at least be supportive that if a family member wants to explore this as an option for medicating themselves you know whether you want to be supportive over that of that or not even if you don't want to use it because there is still a lot of gray area and dark area and people feel like they're doing something wrong or bad and you know we don't want that what I've noticed is those people that still even the attorney general sat right where you are and said he knew of his bias and it came from his parents telling him this was a gateway drug he said while he knows better but there's still that part of him that's still there that still recognizes that that gave me hope at least yeah that he recognizes that it's there and that's what it will take is more people talking about it in a different way and I personally what happened when Jeff Sessions did what he did is I appreciate when things like that happen because things like that ignite actual activism right and so something that may have been talked about for a long period of time it infuriates people enough to actually step up and take action and force and voice right so I'm encouraged you know even going on as a result of that even in the Congress this is hard to believe there is a cannabis caucus and it was created by Republicans which is really hard to believe that but they would take a stand but most of them are from states where the hemp grows and it's industry and they see what what it used to be and how they made money and what not with the industrial hemp but yep since he has taken the stand yes I have seen more people talk about it more people write about it so I have to believe that that will have a good outcome well for me it's economics right as and even for the state of Hawaii and when people come to me when I do talk story sessions and come to Brian you know we don't need a dispensary we grow around I I respect that there is a culture and a group of people in the islands who have been doing this for a very long time and I wouldn't want to take that away from them and you know we're another option yes for people who choose to choose to have that the the financial the ability to make money generate jobs create another industry in the state of Hawaii outside of tourism that will keep a brain trust of people in the state and provide money to education it seems like a no brainer to me I I totally agree like I said in the months I've been doing this and just watching it grow and the people I've met it is so different than what they would lead you to believe some dark dingy you know right somebody on right right well we're fighting the pop culture yes vision of cannabis right I mean that's where we are today because you might one response I get is oh yeah I did that in college yeah and the other is oh you know it's it's a gateway drug it's a bad thing yeah and the fact that Hawaii is the only state that in legislature last year changed the name yes it's very encourage marijuana to cannabis yeah medical cannabis while medical marijuana has a certain lilt certain ring but for the state to spend the money to change all of their literature to say medical cannabis well darling it's been a pleasure it's always a pleasure and you will come back yes of course thank you so much thank you Marsha and we'll see you next time