 Aloha, I'm Marsha Joyner and this is Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000 year odyssey. So tell me, Muse, that plant of many resources was wondered far and wide the ancient plant food, fuel and fiber cultivated for millennia. As we venture through the past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant for which cannabis derives. The many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, hashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, and cannabis and Uncle Sam and thus our odyssey begins. Today our odyssey is not long ago and far away, it is current and in progress. It is the needless age old dance with Uncle Sam. Is the current drug policy protecting our children from harmful drugs? Is putting people in prison really solving our drug problem? Especially for an ounce of marijuana, taking up space when violent criminals don't have room for the prison, is prohibition any more effective now than it was in the 20s? Over-criminalization and over-incarceration, combining with equal enforcement. Does it do more harm than good? There's a growing nationwide consensus that the law enforcement approach doesn't work. Meanwhile, the exploration of alternative approaches have been hampered by misinformation, absence of intelligent debate and our guests today. Is Carl Burke-Kwist, I hope I got that right? Executive Director, the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, a non-profit organization that's been with us since 1993 and they have worked to deal with these very questions to minimalize this whole nonsense about the misinformation, what the federal government has told us, which is a total lie, and working with the people of Hawaii to get decent, normal approaches to cannabis. And so Carl, thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us and talk to me, talk to me about this whole nonsense, especially now that our Attorney General sessions is trying to turn back the clock of all the progress that our state and other states have made in medical marijuana and some of them in socialized marijuana. They've created industries, whole industries around cannabis. Now they want to turn it back. Talk to me, tell me. Sure, well thank you, Marcia. Thank you for having me and for the Drug Policy Forum as well. Yes, I think right now, this moment in time, we need to focus on both the federal government, represented in this case by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He is a long time, what we call a drug warrior. He is the proponent of the war on drugs. And when he was in the Senate, that was one of his big issues. He has two issues, anti-drugs, lock people up for drug use, particularly cannabis, which he says that only bad, he doesn't know any good people that use cannabis. So that's one of his big issues. I might add that he's from Alabama, a real died-in-the-wool racist, and he equates drugs with minorities. Absolutely, absolutely. I represent a 501c3, so we don't take a lot of political stances, but when it comes to this issue, he is a representation of the war on drugs, and he admits that he is. He likes the war on drugs. He wants to continue it. He wants to escalate it. And the war on drugs over time has been shown to be a war on communities of color. So you put one-on-one together, and you see what he's up to. Most recently, he's tried to change the guidelines that President Obama put out to stop targeting people for minor offenses when it comes to drugs. President Obama and his attorneys general, first Eric Holder and then Loretta Lynch, they began to kind of write the ship a little bit. There were some data released from the FBI just yesterday or two days ago showing that in 2016 under President Obama, we hadn't seen as much progress as we would like, but a lot of the nationwide arrests when it comes to cannabis are done by state and localities, like police in Alabama. So when you have the highest law enforcement officer of the land, Jeff Sessions in this case, sending a totally different signal than President Obama, they're going to be emboldened. We saw an increase from 2015 to 2016 in cannabis arrests nationwide. And now we have an attorney general who's not saying let's not do that, let's not our focus, that's not our priority, that's not important. We shouldn't lock people up for something that is not detrimental to their health. And I mean locking people up for something that's not detrimental to their health. And then having them become criminalized inside the mass incarceration system, it creates a problem when there wasn't one to begin with. So we are very concerned about these signals being sent and how this is going to change over time. It's already bad enough, but it looks like it's going to be getting worse. Now how does that, how does his presence as attorney general affect where we are in the state of Hawaii? I, since 2000 when the bill passed until now it seems like they're dragging their feet. You know people have a card that says that they have a condition that they can be treated with medical cannabis. Yet there's no place to buy it. They say oh well you can grow 10 plants at home. Where do I get 10 plants? Where do I get seeds? How do I grow? I don't know anything. I'm not a farmer. I don't know how to grow. No exactly. This is ludicrous. And I think that you know what we don't want is our local politicians who as you point out, 17 years ago recognized the beneficial use of medical cannabis for patients who are suffering. And over the years we have increased the number of conditions that patients might have to get treatment. Most recently PTSD. Oh that should go to the top. That should go to the top. Yes. And before 2015 patients with that condition could not be treated with medical cannabis legally. Now we have over 1,200 people in the state being treated legally and I'm sure there's many more that are going to come out of the woodworks once as you point out that they can actually just go buy the medicine rather than grow it. And so yeah. And the attorney general I think and just to answer your question about the attorney general he's the signal he sends is he's trying to to stoke up fear and reluctance among states to not only improve the medical cannabis system sort of saying well I'm not so focused on medical cannabis I'm more concerned about the recreational cannabis but if you don't do your medical cannabis well I might come after you as well. So he's sort of like putting this uncertainty out there and I hope that our politicians you know they they will continue to stand up for what's right for our citizens our residents our patients and improve this system and not use that as an excuse to do nothing. Well I noticed that since 2000 the numbers of our local politicians almost to a person have supported this industry the governor is totally on board so and I'm sure our Doug Chen our attorney general so how do they stand up to sessions well I mean we accept our health department. Well so so you know if you look outside the the drug policy realm for a second Hawaii has been standing up to this president when it believes he's wrong and the most prominent example is the the Muslim ban. Yes. And that's an ongoing battle that's been going on for basically since this administration started so I think what we've been advocating is that you know be consistent be if you're in favor of one policy make sure you stand up for that against the president and his attorney general and I think you're right that the governor has been supported the legislators have been supported and they do stand up for it but I'm I'm we are concerned that they're sometimes too cautious. So you know we have a medical cannabis system that is very regulated and sometimes to the point of making access for patients problematic and and you know we want to see if we can loosen that up we only have eight licenses in the state right now and we only have two dispensaries open and the patients on the big island the island with the most patients over five thousand have no dispensaries open and none you know there's no prospect of them opening within six months. Well okay so would they have to fly over here to go to the dispensary? So there's a that's a that's a good point of course that is absurd that they would have to do that but not only are we putting them in the position of you know let's say they can't grow on their own well we have to fly to Oahu or Maui where the other open dispensary is we also put a needless prohibition on their traveling with the medicine. That was my question yeah. So unfortunately our state law in the and this this happened under President Obama actually when he was in power our legislators and the governor have been so careful to say we got to create a very regulated system so as not to incur the wrath of the federal government and so that's why they're very cautious and one of the things they put into the the dispensary law was you cannot travel with your medicine between islands there's this explicit prohibition and that's a very unusual prohibition because in other states there's not such a prohibition if you buy your medicine or in one end of Arkansas you can travel to the other end of Arkansas. But the the issue and I don't know because I haven't read the bill the issue is traveling over open oceans. Sure over federal waters. Over federal waters. So that's to me that's the issue. That's what they that's what they say so when patients within Oregon fly within Oregon they fly within Oregon with their medicine or a recreational cannabis. They go through TSA. If TSA finds cannabis on those individuals they call local law enforcement. They say local local law enforcement is this person in compliance with state law in most cases they are. They either have a medical cannabis card or they have another an amount for personal use. They can they can fly within Oregon. But that's not federal that's still Oregon. It is within Oregon. That's within Oregon. Sure. But it does go through this federal agency there. But the idea that we have to cross the ocean. Sure. But again you know we are absurd. Exactly. There is no other option. That's the geography of our state and we are just talking about patients traveling with minimal amounts of medicine. So you know that's one of the things we're trying to advocate for changing. We think that is a needless prohibition and the idea that changing the law would incur the wrath of Jeff Sessions is sort of over playing things I think. Oh yeah well I'm sure but he's got enough to deal with otherwise. I would hope that he would look not even know we're here. Isn't that what they said about some island. Yeah some some judge on an island in the Pacific right. Yes yeah. No and they haven't they haven't just to be clear they haven't set a policy on the adult use the recreational use of cannabis yet. They're looking at that and you know all estimates are that that's what they would target. They would go after Colorado and Washington. But as you pointed out earlier that is that's a growing industry and to target that seems also very very problematic for the federal government so we'll see what happens but I'm not I know that our legislators are concerned and they they don't like to hear me say that but I'm not as concerned. Okay we're going to take a break when we come back let's talk about what an industry there's a way needs a new industry so let's talk about sure we'll be right back. 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 dot org and imagine the possibilities in your life. And we are back and we have Karl Burkwist. Okay I'll get it right. Karl is from the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii and they do all kind of wonderful things and Karl was just telling me about this whole nonsense of who is targeted for an ounce of marijuana so. Yeah so so our in our state the when it comes to cannabis arrests we're actually seeing a couple of different trends. It's been pretty stable at about 800 arrests a year for adults it seems to be going down for juveniles it's about 400 a year but actually went up quite a bit from 2015 to 2016 so we'll see if that if that continues and the problem with these numbers is the the disparate impact on communities of color. Now on the mainland we see that mainly for African Americans and Latinos who are three to four times more likely to be arrested despite using cannabis at the same rate as white communities. Here we see especially among juveniles Hawaiians Pacific Islanders especially Samoans and Filipino Hawaiians are among juveniles about 62 percent of the arrests whereas they they represent you know half of that in the population so that disparate impact we're not seeing them being incarcerated for that but what we're seeing is that they're they're being criminalized they have a criminal record yes and that has any manner of repercussions in terms of you know getting a job yeah the rest of their lives when you fill out a federal student loan application the last question they ask is do you have any offenses under the controlled substances act of the federal government or your state yeah so and if you lie on that you're in big trouble so they have to be honest and then they don't get the loan of course yeah so we continue to see that you know the fact that we don't incarcerate people for cannabis that's a small step that's happened over time because we're criminalizing so many other people that was a priority they decided to change but we're still criminalizing the people and ruining their lives so that's why we need to decriminalize cannabis possession and legalize it so tell me then local locally is it still criminalized I guess for recreational use it is well it's yeah exactly if you don't have a medical cannabis card so that's about 20,000 people I think 19,000 are the latest figures from the Department of Health anyone else in the state who has any amount of cannabis is breaking the law oh and depends on the amount but the smaller amounts we're talking about are petty misdemeanors so we're talking about a potentially a minimal prison sentence which doesn't happen in practice but but a fine and again a criminal record which is very detrimental with you yeah exactly so let's let's talk about this industry when we look at at California and Colorado had its boom the industry is huge we could use something other than tourism you know it's nice to have tourists but but tourists use water electricity cars on the road all of that kind of stuff where if we had another industry here that local people can work in where we can our cost of living is so high because we have all of this extra stuff if we had an industry hemp cannabis I mean if we look at hemp alone the possibilities of what you can make from hemp when you grow hemp the industrial hemp you could have jet fuel you can have fabrics you can have medicine you there's so many things how do we go from just this conversation into having a real industry I think I think it's an excellent point and I think Hawaii is poised to both grow hemp on a large scale and also cannabis right now the cannabis growth for the medical cannabis programs is very regulated it's limited to these eight licensees that won this bidding it's it basically cut out a lot of the other actors who could have been growing a lot of other states have systems where you have one person selling one person growing one person making products etc etc that creates a lot of jobs and I think we you know the state decided to go for one model but I think as we move forward we need to consider involving more more members of the community in this industry yes especially when we go for the recreational the adult use and I think the lessons we've seen from other states California has is just getting started so they they have they just passed the referendum last year and the adult recreational industry hasn't really started but it's happening one of the great things that California did was that they're trying to involve the very people that were are impacted by the war on drugs the communities of color they're trying to make sure that they aren't excluded from the industry whether it's because they have a criminal record or and for any other reason so unfortunately our state has some prohibitions on people with prior convictions being involved in the industry and to me that's incredibly sad that on the one hand we want to legalize these things but then we say well if you were in the past we're convicted of an offense that now is legal we will exclude you because of your past and I think the model going forward is to involve the impacted communities as much as possible and then also to have this more diverse system where you have different growers producers retailers and that's what we need to think of yeah and back to hemp when we look at places like Molokai, Maui, Maui lost the last sugar you know the big island just shipped wood from trees to Korea imagine all those trees when if they were growing hemp they could ship to Korea and we wouldn't cut down trees so I'm saying there's the possibilities of real industries to make fabrics to to do all of these things that that this plant can do again I think the state has been moving a bit too cautiously here we currently have a research project affiliated with the University of Hawaii that is looking at the hemp possibilities and there's a this pilot project happening that's out of concern again for federal law but you know at some point when we created the medical cannabis program in 2000 that didn't stop us we basically said this has medicinal use and we will let people grow so I think given what you said about all the uses of hemp no one denies that and the fact that the plants that the the strains that you use for hemp haven't have no hallucinogenic properties it does seem very odd to be so cautious when especially given our local economy and I think we have on that issue a lot of legislators are actively looking at that and they do push for these bills but leadership is cautious and sort of holds them back but I hope we can make progress on that because when you look at the polluted area at barbers point what used to belong to the navy and the navy walked away and left it if you grew hemp it would clean the land and then you could use the hemp for something else there's nothing okay if I grow hemp then what am I going to do with it how do I sell it who do I sell it to what certainly we should have all kinds of industries around this it just makes no sense no and I think I think we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time I think what we've been seeing recently is oh we got to wait for the medical cannabis system to be up and running and make sure that's perfect then maybe we'll do hemp then maybe we'll do recreational cannabis I think that we need to start right now and look at what other states have been doing I think you know the data is coming in you know we we were one of the first states to do medical cannabis we provided the data to other states that then followed us proving we were right when it comes to recreational we are seeing data and we should follow it we're seeing that it does not have a negative impact on crime does not have a negative impact on children's education does not have a negative impact on driving all these myths that were put out there are simply not borne out by data from the states involved in the federal government so the recreational experiment is ongoing and we are lagging behind yeah I I read that that no one has ever uh been died correct from medical marijuana that's exactly that and how many people die from alcohol from tobacco all of which are legal it's it's that you can even put those together and sadly you know we have this theory out there that cannabis is a gateway to those more dangerous substances where the reality is that cannabis is an alternative to treat ailments pain and it's being shown to be an exit substance for people who are taking prescription painkillers at risk of overdosing on them very much so and instead they could be using cannabis which is less risky and no risk of overdosing wonderful well there's so much so much to 10,000 years of course is a long time there's so much we have to learn which is why we're doing the program this whole 10,000 years there's so much to learn so I'm asking you if you will come back spend some more time with us because like I said we're just getting started there's a lot to learn I'd love to thank you so much and thank you for being our guest and this 10,000 years and we'll see you next week. Aloha.