 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner, and this is Cannabis Chronicles. And we are on a 10,000-year odyssey. But we're not going 10,000 years back today. Today we are looking forward. Today we are going to talk about a stand-down for veterans. It is called a 329 stand-down. Now, for those of you that were not in the military, you know, a stand-down was originated during the Vietnam War, and it was a retreat. And it was time to give the veterans the spirit that whatever they needed, because war is hell. Trust me, war is hell. And so this was created to give the veterans what they need. So today we are going to talk with some veterans and a non-veteran about their idea of this 329 stand-down. First, we have next to me is Theo Alexander, and he is the co-founder of Camel. And next to him is Helen Choi, and she is the director of the apothecary. Aloha Green Dispensary. Aloha Green Dispensary. I like apothecary. I like that. And James, and he is also a veteran and co-founder of Camel. So tell me, what are we doing with the stand-down? What, why, and where? So what it is, as you say, is a 329 veteran stand-down. It's a play on the 329 card or the registry program here in our state for the medical marijuana cannabis card. So what we found is that a lot of veterans can afford a doctor's visit. So we've gathered a group of doctors who are going to volunteer their time to have veterans and waive their fees. Come and get their card for only $38.50 that the state charges to file your record before you participate in the program. So it's going to be food and entertainment. We're going to have Ron Nartis Jr. He's going to be there playing and we're going to have some food and plenty of things happening. Of course we have all the dispensaries out of supporting the veterans. So right on for doing that. We have a list of, I think we have, yes we do. Yes. A list of, so keep going. I'll come back to the list. Well, I'll pass it to Helen. Helen has been so kind to help us out and sponsor the event along with Noah Botanicals. Helen is one of the very first people that I met when the day she opened. And it has been, Helen has always been, every time I have a question I can call and she answers and I've been begging her to show up so here she is. So, but we'll come back to what an apothecary does. But let's, James? The event on the 14th is very exciting. We have a couple guest speakers coming. We have Dr. Sue Sisley is going to be scouting again. Oh wow. Ed Rosenfeld is going to be scouting again also as well for a conference. I think we have, Wally Amis is even scheduled to show up. Special parents. Wally himself is an Air Force Veteran. So it's really good to have him on board as well. We have T-shirts we're looking to give for the veterans. We're covering the venue, we're covering the entertainment, the food. Where is the venue? 110, New Iwanu. 110, New Iwanu. What is that? It's formerly the Rio Office Centers. They renamed it to the Honolulu Office Centers or Hawaii Office Centers. Where is it? On New Iwanu. So you know where the, it's by New Iwanu and Hotel. It's where the little strip of restaurants that opened up that and there's a pizza place and there's a Mexican place. It's the building above that. Oh. Okay. It's got the corner to Chinatown Gateway Plaza. Oh yeah. And what time is it? It's going to be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. That's a long day. Yes. We want to get as many veterans their court as possible. As we know most veterans we are on fixed income. So we have families take care of another expenses. And so it's kind of hard to make the choice to go outside of normal healthcare that you have insurance for to do something holistic. And so it's all out of pocket expense. So we want to take the, kind of alleviate the expense from the veterans' aspect. So, but this is a one-time thing? No. Hopefully not. No. Okay. We're going to keep doing this. All right. But let me ask you this. So they come to you. Can they apply for the card at that time? Absolutely. So you have the computer and they can apply for the card. So there's a process. Yes. In order to be part of the Hawaii cannabis program, medical cannabis program, you have to have a qualifying condition. Right. That legislators and regulators have chosen. So we've got a list. It was recently upgraded. We added ALS very recently. So including ALS it's about 14 or so condition. What the evaluation, what's going on at the stand down event. What the evaluation is, is a doctor or an APRN who will certify that you do in fact have one of those conditions. Then they help you fill out the application and you pay the 3850 to the Department of Health and then you wait for the process to get your card. Usually those certifications, the evaluations, they range from 150 to 200 dollars. That's the fee that's being waived by the physicians. So the doctor or the nurse will see you at that time as you fill out the form. Yes. And then they certify that they have seen you. And that you do in fact have that. Have whatever it is that you said you had. Usually you could go to a certifying physician or APRN and they can go over your health conditions with you and they can confirm then without you having previously brought any medical records. However, for this event, because everyone is a veteran and they do have medical records and we don't have that much time, we're asking all veterans that do want to get an evaluation for free to bring their medical records that show that they do have that condition and they will sign off on it. So you really made a big push too so that they know that they have to bring, so they don't show up and say, oh, I didn't know I had to do that. Right. Yes, yes. We consistently promote the event and when we talk to the veterans who are interested in coming, we do make that clear that, and most people know that they're interested in getting the card that you will have to present some type of medical information to the doctor. What about the VA? Are they helping at all? The VA has support, but of course the VA is dealing with Federal Schedule I situation. But what about the state? State VA has committed to being there. They are very interested in what we're doing to help educate veterans on what is a good health choice tonight. So, yes. Oh, that's good. Well, at least that's something, yeah. Yes, yes. And we're working on it. For our audience, there are two parts to this veterans, and that is the federal part, the Veterans Administration. And then there's the state, which is funded by us, the taxpayers. So, I am glad to know that they will be there to assist you, because they are the first line of the veterans. That's where the veteran goes first. Yes, and they are very interested in what we're doing. Of course, the medical evidence needs to come forward. What we're going to do with this event is become a catalyst of understanding of where the patient is. It's not so much of where the regulation is, but where the patient is. For the veterans, we still are dealing with 22 suicides a day. Oh. And now we have an opioid crisis to deal with, which is 30 accidental deaths a day. So, we have over 52 veterans who are, you know, we're losing them. We're fighting a losing battle. Cannabis is offering an option for us to holistically improve our outcome. Tell us how cannabis assists with the opioid crisis. How does that work? Well, there are studies right now that you want to... A lot of patients, when they're going through their pain, a lot of them are now taking what are the ROCSA sets, the BRCA sets, the heavier opioids. That's awful. A lot of them don't like it. It is, because not only is it altering their mental status, it also is slowly deteriorating their health. And a lot of them are very, you know, they want to live longer. And we don't want medication that's going to further debilitate us. So, with the cannabis, especially the CBDs more so, they help to repair different things, some just the neurons. Some of it is muscle. Some of it is just overall emotional, whether it's from the PTSD, the depression, the anxiety. Some of it is just helping them to further, you know, get up and stay mobile, you know. So, if they are addicted to the opioid, they can... Yeah, help wean them off of it. Oh, well, that's a great... The side effects, the side effects. There are studies that it does help people become less dependent on opioids. To my understanding, the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, they are going to put in a request to the Department of Health to list opioid addiction as one of the conditions. Oh, great. We don't know if it's going to go through, but it's a signal, right? Because, essentially, if you're on opioids, you're dealing with a certain amount of chronic pain. And chronic pain is already a qualifying condition, but it's a signal to the rest of the country that Hawaii understands that marijuana and cannabis, cannabis can help with the opioid crisis in this country. Well, I think the one thing that the state did that I haven't heard of any other state doing, and that is to change the name for marijuana to... Legally, change the name. Even though the state has to spend a lot of money to reprint all of their literature, the idea was that marijuana was a derogatory word, and so they changed it to cannabis, and I thought, wow, they did something right. It's a big statement. It is a big statement. It's a big statement, yes. And we are back at the legislature. It opens pretty soon. For more to move forward. And also the VA Choice Program closing this year is another hot button item for it because a lot of patients go to civilian doctors to receive another benefit, and with the VA Choice Program closing now... What happens? With the VA Choice Program, it's where you go, if you're a patient of the VA, instead of waiting on the waiting list, so many vets do, you can opt to choose a civilian doctor instead. That program is out? It actually closed. My birthday was on the second it closed. The schedule closed on the second, but they might push it to... The second of January? Yes, ma'am. Yesterday? Yesterday. Yes, ma'am. Right, but they might push it to the 9th or the 19th. I think the second week in January is probably the longest they can hold that out, but it's on the chopping block as well. Yes, there's been a lot of cuts since we know a lot of tax cuts and things, and so like $490 million has been removed from the program for whatever reason, and of course the VA Choice Program was not meant to be a permanent program. It was meant to mitigate the backlog of patients who are continually not seeing a doctor or not getting the proper medical care, so that program may not be extended this year. Now, you know, I am a political junkie. One of the things that bothers me most is that since 1774, the United States has drafted, encouraged young, healthy 19-year-olds to go to war, and never, never, never have they taken care of them when they come home, banged up, bruised, PTSD and all the other things. It is sinful what the way the United States has treated its veterans. I know we sing songs and act patriotic and all that kind of stuff, but when you look at it real, and like you said, now they're cutting out programs that don't care for veterans. I'm almost in tears, but I do applaud you for taking a stand, for taking this stand. I think this is marvelous. We'll do whatever we can to support you. Because I just think it's criminal what they do to the veterans, or don't do is more to the case. So this means that as of the 9th, they can't just pick up the phone and say, doctor, I need an appointment and bill it to the VA. They can still go, but they can't bill it to the VA. It's been an ongoing situation of trying to, I don't know, close a program but not making it available or not letting it function the way that Medicare, the reimbursement from CMS, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services has been reduced to nearly 75%. So for a civilian doctor to see a veteran, one, he's given his time, you know, there's a stigma to seeing veteran patients. What do you mean stigma? PTSD, they consider... A stigma to the doctor? Yes, if you have a family practice physician seeing a person who's had multi-symptoms and mental health may be one of those symptoms, he's not really trained to do mental health. So he has a stigma that something may happen in his office. There may be something that he says to... Say something wrong to the veteran, you know what I mean? There's a stigma. We see this suicide rate and homicide rate when veterans meet their demise, you know, sometimes. So, rightfully so, the doctor may be concerned with his safety. And that's because that's a picturesque pain. This program was meant to fail, I think. Of course it is. Because if you look at the opioid crisis to cover up some of the things from Asian Orange and Gulf War Syndrome and now PTSD, systemically, they've tried to put a band-aid on it. It hasn't worked. No. But now they're removing the band-aid for an open wound to be revealed again. So we're going to see what's going to happen. But this is why we're here to do these things, to provide an option. Well, the one thing that I have asked our audience repeatedly to make sure that we lean on the legislature to reschedule cannabis in Hawaii. In the state. The Supreme Court says that we have state's rights to do that. We are leaning on Doug Chin, our attorney general, because for the audience that may not know, opiates are killing people. And they're scheduled to. Cannabis who is not killing people has not had a history of killing people. It's a schedule one. And it makes no sense. It's very illogical. So, okay, so we know the feds aren't going to do it, but the state can. The state has the right to do it. So we are leaning on the state to do that. And full support. Yeah. Full support. We appreciate those. You know, we can lobby, so we're not a five-on-one. Well, I'm not a five-on-one. We can lobby. And that is our whole goal. So that people can get the care they need. Yes. And right at the point in time where civilian physicians are starting to look to see veterans as patients, their reimbursement is cut and now the program is trying to be cut. So we have some difficult times in front of us. So this is why this event is so important. We get as many veterans assistants or an option to have healthcare at home versus fighting to see an appointment for a doctor. So the doctors that will be at your event are who do, can you say who they are? Yes, sure. We've got Nurse May. She's medical director of the Malia cannabis clinic. One of her other nurses, Abby, is also going to be there. And then we've got Dr. Thomas Cook of Mended Minds, Hawaii. Specifically with veterans with PTSD and certifying them for the cannabis card. So those are the three doctors that will be available or the three medical professionals. Right. I did try to reach out to Dr. Cook. Well, they're all, they're really busy. Nurse May was supposed to come but she's actually working with Chris Garth of Hawaii Dispensory Alliance, organizing the event. Good. Well, Wendy Gibson told me that she was sure to talk to Dr. Tom. Yes, he's a good guy to help on the show. He's come on to Cannons Clinical Studios. Yes. So now let me go through this. This is the Hawaii Dispensory Alliance is one of the sponsors. About Steep Hill, Hawaii. Steep Hill, Hawaii, they're the testing lab. Yes. And Aloha Green, that's you. And Noah Botanicals. That's the other dispensary. And weed, weed maps. Now what is a weed map? Weed maps is actually an extremely popular website. It's kind of like the Yelp for Just Cannabis. They're extremely popular on the mainland and it's kind of like Yelp, there's a map and there's ratings. A lot of dispensaries have their menus up on there. It's extremely popular and they've been sponsoring a lot of things on Hawaii as well. Tell me, you mentioned menu. What is on your menu? For dispensaries, it's a menu of all things you can buy. So right now at Aloha Green, we've got cured flour. We've got some keef. We've got rosin. And we are beginning to come out with other concentrates. Well, what about edibles? I hear a lot of talk about you can and cannot have edibles. So we cannot have edibles. Edibles, it's... So there are many ways to consume cannabis. One of the ways is to eat it. And it gets broken down a little differently. It lasts longer. It takes longer to set in, but it lasts longer because it's broken down by the body in a different way. And it's one of the most popular ways of consuming cannabis. A lot of times because cannabinoids bind really well with fatty cells, it's usually baked into cookies and other baked products because there's a lot of cream and milk and butter and those things. Legislation has prohibited all Hawaii dispensaries from selling edibles. There is... There's a lot of people who, if they don't know how edibles work with them, a lot of times they'll take too much because it takes time to set in and they're like, oh, it's not working. They take more and then by the time it's set in, they realize they've taken too much. So dosing is an issue. Now, if you have a patient who is a little child that is having seizures, how do you get the medication to them? How do they ingest it? There are lots of different ways. Of course, as a parent, you wouldn't want them inhaling it. There are capsules that you can put oils into and you can make your own edibles. Hawaii law does not prohibit individual patients from making their own edibles. It prohibits dispensaries from selling edibles. So at our dispensary, we've got oil infusers, we've got cannabis cookbooks, we've got resources that will help you create your own edibles at home. Well, that makes sense because the thought of, oh, gosh, I've got this child and they say I can use it, but now what? Right. What do I do? So I'm glad to know you have a cookbook. Yes. We've got a box actually. Oh, good. So you will bring us some cookbooks and we can take a look at what it looks like. Well, maybe we can do a edibles workshop. Yes, let's do that. Let's do that. That would be great because these are the kind of questions that people ask me. Well, and so I'm asking you what all of this is so new and there's so many questions. My goodness, when I started in July, I guess it was July, I knew nothing. And the questions that people now stop me and ask, what about this and what about that? It's like, okay. But we will come back and have some time with you and about all of the various things that go on with the dispensary. I just want our audience to know that we did go to the opening of the dispensary, but the state won't let us go in with the camera. Yes, that's right. No, we didn't get to see all the wonderful things that go on in the dispensary. What is that about? Is that just security that you can't take a camera in? It's a DOH regulation and it's for the security of both the dispensary and the people who are inside as patients. Now, tell me this. This is a cash business, which is another crazy thing, but that's the fed. So you've got a patient that's not well and they bring cash. Now they buy the product. Now they have to go back to their car or the bus or whatnot. Are there safety precautions for them? Well, we do provide parking in the building that we're in, so it minimizes the amount of time someone is outside walking around in public. We've got safety precautions and safety measures within the dispensary as well. For people who don't want to carry around cash, we have an ATM inside and we have a security guard that kind of makes sure everyone's safe. We've got multiple doors so that if anything did happen, it would be easy to keep people safe in different compartments of dispensary. Yeah, well, that's my issue about the security of somebody walking around with and people know that that's where you've been. You know, that's now one the black market. What is this now with people being able to buy good quality cannabis? How's that affecting the black market or do you know? I couldn't answer that question. We have the 329 car program so promoting that and promoting the prevention of access in the black market because we don't want to criminalize anyone that's looking for medical care. It does a good job of that. They do a good job of criminalizing? Yes. I just want to make sure that it should have been decriminalized before we went towards the dispensary bill period to keep everyone in the industry as well as patients safe. Right. Hopefully they can get that done this year but the black market existed was here before the dispensary they're still here and people respect that. To go into the dispensary and shop but this is why we hold our event so people can have access to the dispensary. At least the dispensary says a good example of what to do right. This is what we're kind of counting on promoting with the veterans and with any other patients. So that they have now after this event is over will there be a place for them to go? Can they come back and reach you and consultation with you? Yes. The whole point of doing this is to create a patient base of advocates as well as patients so that we can send our communication to them when we have events like this educational seminars. A lot of times we just had a recent event coffee and cannabis. I think you attended that and sometimes people don't hear about those events if they're not getting information in the circle of people. It's a small organization of people who are doing this and doing some large leaps. So we would like to be able to send out information to the public that comes to our events so they can continue to get good information. Yeah. I don't want this to be this one day. I want... We're hoping that we'll be able to hold it regularly. Part of it is not just ensuring that they get the help to get the card but they have supporting help even afterwards. Once they have the card they can always go into the dispensaries they get consultations from our patient consultants. Oh, you have consultants? Yes. So each of the... we've got four patient consultants at the dispensary at any given point. They are physically there and they're the ones that will help all patients whether they're veterans or not with which products are best the ailments that they're trying to treat. A number of our PCs, our patient consultants are in fact veterans themselves. So those people are specifically capable of being able to connect with vets and the things that they... They speak that language. That's exactly why we hired them as well so that they can connect at that level. My understanding is no botanicals as well but Aloha Green definitely, we have a separate account program. They get 20% off of everything at any time on all products. So that's in the effort of supporting veterans. So, okay. We're winding up to the first let's show them exactly what it is where it is and when. Okay. January 14th, once in Uwano at the Hawaii Office Center and it's from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Please bring if you have your medical records current state ID and can't wait to see you there. We have food and music and doctors and nurses and... Is there an entry fee? There's no entry fee. Fees waive we're covering that we're currently fundraising now for that we're covering all those fees. So the 3850 for the state fee, that's it. And this is Chinatown and it is Sunday which means on-street parking is free. Yes. And it's open to all people can bring their families, their children there will be food, there will be entertainment there will not be any consumption at the... No consumption of cannabis. Or at the... Oh, of course not. It didn't occur to me to say that, but okay. And the Honolulu Office Center is a very nice venue. It's a lot of nice restaurants in that area as we see the building of Chinatown bringing the quality of the venues out. But yeah, so we look to see you guys out there. Well, thank you so much for coming and we will be there. And you will come back and keep us updated as you move along as the whole process moves along. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I'll see you Sunday. I love her.