 This is Stink Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are here today to talk about cannabis, a 10,000 year odyssey. It has been around since the dawn of creation. So tell me, Moose, of that plant of many resources which wandered far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel, and fiber cultivated for millennia. As we venture through the past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant which cannabis derived the many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, ashes, cannabis in 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. In fact, it's right here, right here, currently in progress in Honolulu. Cannabis which is a part of the hemp plant has a long history as an aid for complementary and inspirational in art, philosophy, music, and any number of human endeavors. Art and cannabis all go together. We've seen that for hundreds of years. The use of cannabis as a medicine can be traced back 5,000 years. Interest in medical cannabis is currently on the rise in many parts of the world. Cannabis was and is a sacred plant to many people and historically has been used in religious ceremonies in many cultures from Southeast Asia to North America. The United States government, however, incorrectly and arbitrarily placed cannabis into Schedule 1, which is a forbidden category of controlled substance under the Control Substance Act of 1970, based on old myths and political ideology. So, here we are today, looking at yesterday, with today's eyes into yesterday's issues or Uncle Sam yesterday and now we in the state of Hawaii have passed the law in what 2000 saying that cannabis could be used for medicine and we're still, this is 2017, at the end of 2017 and we're still trying to get it right. However, let me read this to you so I'll get it right. The World Health Organization is working to reschedule the drugs and it is fighting to get CBD, which is a derivative of hemp and CBD is part of the plant that does not make you high. And so they're trying to get that scheduled from 1. Now, just to let you know how arbitrary this is, oxycodone, which will kill you, is a scheduled 2 and it's legal. So anyway, that's a plus and what else we are looking at and we're going to talk about all of these issues with my dear, dear friend, Senator Will Esparro. Now, the senator has been a senator of what, 20 years now? 15 years in the Senate, three years in the House for a total of 18 years. 18 years. Yes. Okay. Have we really known each other that long? Probably longer. Yes, that's right, because you were working with the city. Yes. Yes, it has been longer. Mayor Frank Fosse. Yes, I worked for Fosse, so, oh my gosh. And so you represent the 19th House District, Senate District. So that is? Hava Beach, the west side. The west side. How large is that district? Because it's growing. Are you Kapolei? No, it's just the Hava Beach area. Actually, I used to represent all of Hava Beach and a part of Waipahu, but because of reapportionment after the census, my district shrunk. So I represent about, I'd say, 95% of Hava Beach, which equates to maybe 60,000 plus residents. All right. Yes. That's a lot of people. Right. And our population is just continuing to grow, and that figure will probably increase in the next census. I'm sure it will. I'm sure it will. And all of them are on the highway in the morning coming to town. Now, when I met you, the city was talking about the second city, which was what is Kapolei, that, your area, and they were supposed to have the jobs and houses and every school, they've done the housing, the schools, the highway, and no business. Well, actually, there's a lot of business now. But not enough to keep people off the road. Well, we're never going to have the jobs in the second city to keep people from not driving into town because Honolulu, Pearl Harbor area with the military, and Waikiki, those are the major job centers for Oahu today. So from the west side, in order to get there, you have to go east. And can we replace the same number of jobs between those three areas into the west side? Not likely. But we are growing and building many. We have UH West Oahu, which is becoming an employment center, the new shopping center, Kamakana Ali'i shopping center. I believe that will have once completed out to the 3,000 jobs and indirectly 5,000 jobs. You have coal in a resort and the Campbell Industrial Park, thousands of jobs, and an area that's still not yet developed, which is going to be part of the future growth, is the old Barber's Point Naval Air Station now known as Kalai Lua. I mean, we actually have a working airport there. And the plan eventually is to have the rail go into the airport area and then into Kapolei. So if you drive out there today, it has changed significantly compared to 20 years ago. And you could see definitely the makings of a new city and a new area. But that's why we're building the rail because you're going to continue to have traffic going eastbound because of all of the jobs in Waikiki, downtown, and the airport area. Well, let's talk about jobs in a different industry. And that is the medical cannabis. Yes. That's big. And you have been a proponent and a supporter for all of these years. So what do you think about rescheduling or descheduling? Which is a better word, deschedule, reschedule? Probably rescheduling. This is an area that the federal government and Congress has to take up. As you mentioned before, cannabis was legal and abundant for thousands and thousands of years. And one of the reasons why it became banned and illegal was because of greed. And this was the greed of American businessmen in the 30s and 40s. Because cannabis and hemp was competition to William Hurst and his forest, so the paper aspect of his forest versus hemp. So you can make paper out of hemp as well as trees, so you don't have to cut down trees to make paper. Exactly. Can you imagine how many trees you have to cut down for a roll of toilet paper? Exactly. And at that time, hemp, well, Hurst, as everybody knows, was the newspaper tycoon. And so that was the source of a lot of paper. And hemp was a crop that would definitely hurt his bottom line. Then you have the DuPont family that was researching and developing synthetic fibers, in particular polyester. Oh, yes. And the polyester, again, was in direct competition with hemp and hemp fiber that was being made. Which was made for thousands of years. Right. And the Gulf Oil Company, the name eludes me at the moment, but that family... The Rockefellers were standard oil? Yes. And Gulf Oil, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I'll come up with it. But hemp biofuel was being discussed and talked about. As a matter of fact, Kenry Ford wanted to build a car out of hemp, out of hemp, and have it fueled with hemp biofuel. So those three families and industrialists, the millionaires, were part of the conspiracy back in the 30s and 40s that first led to the taxing of marijuana and then eventual banning of it so that they can create monopolies in the fuel, in the clothing and fiber, in paper in order to just earn more money and pad their own family fortunes. And it came full circle from now to then in that eight states have legalized marijuana, although I believe the governor of Maine, didn't he veto the legislation recently? I think he vetoed it. And so they were the last state to pass it. But still you've got California, Alaska, and all the other states that have legalized. So now the pendulum has swung back and polls are showing now that the attitudes of Americans are changing and they are accepting of marijuana, although it needs to be highly regulated and treated like alcohol, like cigarettes, and for adult use only, unless of course it's medicinal, which 30 jurisdictions have already passed, 29 states and the District of Columbia. And I think that's a good idea to regulate it and tax it, just like we do cigarettes, alcohol, whatnot. And when you look at California was on course to be a billion dollar income this year on that industry, wow, just think of what we could be with that kind of income for Hawaii. Right. I do believe that once we do have that serious discussion about adult use of cannabis, the revenues are going to drive that discussion. Because governing is costly, it is not cheap, and the needs of the people and the wants overwhelm the annual revenues that we get from general excise tax, income tax, business taxes. We just don't have enough taxes to deal with every issue and problem out there. So if we don't want to raise those taxes, we're going to have to look at another revenue source. In the past, you've heard conversations about gambling, and that has come up at the legislature, but we haven't had the votes and the will to pass any gambling measures. But another one that could come up in the near future, I believe, will be legalization of cannabis. And I think we're probably looking at a serious discussion within three to four to five years because of the federal government schedule one. Everyone is waiting to see, or many of us are waiting to see exactly what the Trump administration will do. Our little elf, Jess Sessions, has already made it clear where he is on this. Right. But whether that will equate to a crackdown or strict enforcement, especially in the states that have legalized, remains to be seen. Well, yeah, and given that the Supreme Court already ruled that there are states' rights, can they override that? When the Supreme Court made a decision that states' rights come first, the states have a right to regulate their own communities, tax their own communities. So that will be part of the discussion because you see many businesses, the banks, for example, which is a big issue nationwide, nationally, where none of the banks want to become legitimate partners with the dispensaries because they're afraid of the federal government. Right. And they are regulated by the federal government. Exactly. So they're out. They don't want to roll against the government and then possibly be fined or be penalized or whatever the case may be because of the... So can this issue end up in the courts again and at the Supreme Court? Definitely. But we're not yet at that point in time and we will see where this conversation goes. Maybe within the next three months to 12 months. Okay. We need to take a break and when we come back, Senator Sparrow will talk more about what is going on with this legislature and what we can look forward to in the legislature. Okay. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Greetings. I'm Martin Despang, the longtime host of human humane architecture here on Think Tech Hawaii. Think is important to our community because think about how awesome our natural environment is here in Hawaii and we need to make our built environment equally awesome, exotically and inclusively. So because of that, for the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. If thanks to Think Tech will run only during the month of November and you can help. Please donate what you can so that Think Tech Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine. I've already made my donation and look forward to yours. Please send in your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website, thanksforthinktech.causevox.com. On behalf of the Think Tech community and rich by Think Tech Hawaii 30-plus weekly shows, thank you so much for your generosity. Aloha and we're back and we are talking with Senator Will Espero about that hot button issue of cannabis and where we go from here after, what is it, almost 20 years of dealing with this subject and now we find there's still more issues. So let's see where we go from here. Now the World Health Organization is looking at de-scheduling or rescheduling the world anti-doping agency just removed hemp-derived CBD and we're going to talk about that from its 2018 list of prohibitive substance freeing up athletes in the IOC, FIFFA, major sports like UFC, NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB to use CBD infused products to treat pain and inflammation. So that is a good thing because I understand the CBD will treat pain and inflammation but it doesn't make you high and it doesn't leave, you don't get a dirty pee test. Right. And what the World Anti-Doping Association has done has certainly been a positive movement in terms of cannabis because as everybody knows we're looking at CBD and THC which are the two main elements of the cannabis. The THC is what gets a person high. But CBD you do not get high and actually CBD is sold throughout the nation today and it's even sold in Hawaii in terms of waters, oil, ointments, other products. But the question that comes up is is CBD legal because it is a derivative of cannabis which is illegal as a Schedule 1 at the federal level. And depending on who you ask the answer will differ. The most recent answer I heard at a forum just last week was, you know, that's a gray area. It's not clear. So this next legislative session from the perspective of Hawaii I will be introducing legislation and maybe my other colleagues will as well. That would make CBD legal and so that there would be no question from state law that bringing in and selling CBD products would be a legitimate business and would be okay. Okay. So can we count on you the day, the opening day which is the 17th of January. Opening day your first bill will be to make this legal. I don't know. We're going to count on you now. We're going to be there. I don't know if it'll be my first bill but it will be within the first package of bills because we're already, I've already got about a stack of bills already done. Really? Oh yes. And we're going to be introducing them or filing them on the first day, on that one day. Yes. Well the reason I say that is that we the public, if we're going to do this we need to support that legislation and there needs to be a sense of urgency. We can't just sit back and say okay that's a good idea. We need to be out front on this issue because when we look at the money that other states are bringing in, the billions of dollars, we could use that tax revenue and okay so you don't want to smoke it. It's not a big deal but we can, everybody can benefit from the taxes. Definitely. And the employment because that opens up a wide area of employment. Right. Right. And that's an area we're going to have to tackle and look at in the very near future. Our system today is a vertical system where one license will allow you to grow, to create product or manufacture and to sell or retail. And many of us are looking at making that system horizontal versus vertical. So instead of what do you mean vertical? Well one license, one person, such if you have a license, you can grow, manufacture, make a product like lotions and tinctures and sell under that one license. But is that the dispensary? Right. That's the system today. There's been discussion on making that vertical though, however, so that instead of one person being able to do all three, that means then in a horizontal system, if you just want to grow, you can get a license to grow. And if you just want to make a product like an oil or a tincture or a lotion, you can get a license to do that. And then if you want to get a license to retail, you can just do retail. So there's less money involved and it creates more entrepreneurial opportunities and that's where more people get into. Because when we created the dispensary system, I believe the minimum financial investment that was required to have in the bank was over a million dollars. Oh my. That kind of low limits. Yet we know so many individuals out there today who are just working class, middle class people who know how to grow, who know how to make products. Eventually, if we allow edibles like cookies and brownies. We don't. Not right now. But if you have a child that has epilepsy and we know this cannabis helps with the seizures, you don't have anything for them? Well the law doesn't allow it. See that's the dispensary law that we created in 2015 doesn't allow it. But that's how many patients do take it into date. They grow, then they make, you know, their batter or their cookies. So for personal patients, you can do that. We're talking about it in the dispensary law though. It's not allowed. Oh I see. And thus dispensaries cannot sell. That's the issue. Dispensaries cannot sell. It's legal in California. Could they import? No, no they cannot. You cannot import. You've got the federal laws on interstate commerce. So that's one of the issues we want to take up this year, that you can have edibles or drinks even for that matter. Because the Department of Health has a policy there, anti-smoking, which is fine. So from my perspective and many others, if you're anti-smoking, then you need to be able to tell a person they can ingest or take in the product on another means. So the way I'm looking at it, logically, they have to support edibles. It makes sense. It makes sense. And then there's a discussion on vaping. What do you mean by vaping? Well vaping is different than smoking in that vaping, there's a certain temperature where you can vape and you don't have the carcinogens and the dangerous elements in smoking. It's a fine line between vaping and smoking, but I was informed that there is probably going to be legislation that would allow vaping. And see if that's the case, then the dispensaries would be able to sell vaping tools and allow a person who buys flour from them, for example, where the THC is, to vape that flour and other forms to ingest the product. Oh, okay. Now one of our guests told us that it was $500 an ounce at the dispensary. Who can pay $500 an ounce? So most individuals aren't buying an ounce and spending $500. So they're buying in allotments of maybe $50 or $70 or $100. But when you add it up accumulatively, it does come out to $500 an ounce. And that price point will come down. It must come down. Because for starters, I believe on Oahu there's only two dispensaries open and eventually there will be three and each license you can do two. So there'll be six stores open. So right now there's only two. So the supply and demand is a little out of whack and balance. So just like any other product, when the demand is high and the supply is low, you can charge more, whether one is buying a ticket to go see the Beatles or whatever the hottest group today is, or any other precious commodity, plus if the price point does not come down, then people will revert to the black market, which is out there today. So I expect that you will see an adjustment in the next 12 months as more product comes online, as more stores open, and as people feel comfortable going to the dispensaries. Well, yeah, the day they opened, the line went around the block. People were in line the night before to get into the dispensary. Now tell us exactly, we have just a few seconds left, what we can do to support your legislation. Well, what's most important is to contact your own legislators. You can go to our website, capital.hoaii.gov, and it has all the legislators, it has the committees, and eventually all the bills will be there, and people can actually testify online from this website. But notify your lawmakers that you support certain legislation, especially relative to medical cannabis. And then when these bills do come up for hearing, not all of them will, but some of them will, it's important that individuals do either come to the Capitol and testify or submit something online or via email. Okay, well, we will do that. You can count on it. Very good. And you will come back and talk to us some more. And the closer we get to the opening day, you will let us know that it's time to get out there and get something done. Exactly. Anything before then to support you? Well, it doesn't hurt to, you could just email or contact your legislator today and say, hey, you know, I'm a supporter of cannabis or I'm a patient or I have a family member that needs this product, and I hope that you are helpful. So the lobbying and advocacy can be year-round, yes. Great. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you, Senator. It's always a pleasure to spend this time with you, and you will be back. I will be back, and just let you know too, medical cannabis and adult use is also part of my platform. We're running for Lieutenant Governor in 2018. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.