Panel Discussion on Patient Protections Fearturing Daniel Anthony – Farmer, Activist, Teacher, and Founder Hui Aloha ʻAina Momona, Rusty Tapp – Agriculturalist, Cannabis farmer Founder Kama’aina Gold, Me Fuimaono-Poe – Malie Cannabis Clinic Family Nurse Practitioner, Jason Matthys – Founder Equilibrium Genetics, and Kim Coco Iwamoto – Candidate for State Representative District 25
Moderated by Everyone knows you’re high
The Grow Guru Hawaii
Voices from the planet
all right what’s up everybody Welcome to I’m just kidding this is not the podcast we are here for the patient andcaregiver rights panel um my name is Eric yoshikawa one half of everyoneknows your high my name is k the girl Guru the other half of everyone knows your Highum happy to be here happy to serve the public and happy to get these uh questions answered man so let’s start itoff um if you guys could kindly introduce yourselves if we go down the road um sister over here to my leftintroduce yourself please all right helloava my name is Mayo I’m a familynurse practitioner and a patient advocate Aloha I’m Dan I know AnthonyI’m a subsistence cloth Loop farmer uh patient andcaregiver hello my name is Jason Mattis I’m a cannabis seed maker and a cannabisactivist hello my name is Rusty tap and I’m a Hawaiian farmeragriculturalists and um a cannabis patient caregiver H producer as well hium a good afternoon it’s U my name is Kim C Oto I’m the co-founder of the Chamber ofsustainable Commerce and we are all small business owners who believe instriving for a triple bottom line which is people planet and prosperity uh webelieve we can strengthen our economy without hurting workers consumerscommunities or the environment beautiful very nice U wellthank you again to the Hoy Cannabis Expo for having us and having this panel herewe’re going to just get into the questions I suppose because you guys all want to hear them talkI’ll okay um super simple question on the first one for everyone that wants to chime in um why do we need to protectpreserve and improve the existing medal medical patient caregiver program even if the State legalizes recreationalCannabis so do you want me to start on that one okay I’ll kick it off um ohso I what we have seen in other placesis that when we get adult use it tends to wipe out the um the medical mainlythe farmers who grow uh medical cannabis and the caregivers and one of thereasons why it’s so important is because this level of access access that isreally for medicine is completely different than having it in a acommercial strain so having some form of um cannabis agriculture that’s notdirectly um connected to Commerce that’s really for compassionate use is so umincredibly important to preserve and to preserve the right togrow I just like to add that you know we’re in the state of Hawaii so I don’t know how many years it has been sincewe’ve had a super shete medical program but we all know that the state in the recreational program is probably goingto take 20 years to figure it out what do the medical patients and the communities that really need this do inthe inum so this is I think also important for consistency quality andaccess to those that have nomoney uh I I came out here from California so I think May touched onthis a little bit and it’s it’s something that I lived through um over uh the last 10 years where we had uh athriving medical cannabis program that was essentially deleted uh by thelegislature and that absolutely changed how people were able to access medicineum and um that that is something that we uh as a community here should reallythink about and and look at examples like California um and and figure outhow we can uh uh make sure we preserve the model um in in its in its formhere thanks Jason thanks for the question um I would add that um likeJason’s saying it’s well documented now um that many states approach adult usecannabis and neglect the U medic medical patient Community U when I speak aboutmedical patient Community I’m talking about young people old people sick people dying people the most vulnerablein our society often with limitations on budget income jobs um that group needscare they need compassion they need support and uh the a caregiverprogram provides a path for patients to access the products that they needwithout um going beyond their budget andum it also provides them a safe place and a group of people a community sortof orientation which AIDS in healing and umin the caregiving aspect uh to treating people who who are in dire needum it’s important that we preserve um medical patients rights to grow cannabisand to work with a caregiver and I would even add to expand to um cooperativescollectives as they were um to allow fora a larger group of people to work together to solve the problems and to umoh Advance the uhthe sensibility of and the human rights really uh aspect of cannabis reformcannabis reform should center around human rights right now and later developinto a a thriving commercial Enterprise is my is myview thank you I maybe the only person on the panel who is working with theCannabis reform coalition taking a really close look at the thebill that’s currently in legislature that was drafted by attorney general for the state of Hawaii which is full ofcriminalizing aspects and what’s really terrifying about about the differentProvisions in this bill draft is that it wouldactually catch a lot of patients um Growers a lot of people who are takingcare of each other um within and with criminalize a lot of their behavior sodo know that for myself and the ACLU um and other and medical health groups whoare part of this Coalition we are very clearly looking out um and critiquingand recommending um amendments to these bills uh that would make sure we don’tuh criminalize behavior and that we are able to offer the best but it takes a collective voice of people to bringtheir personal stories say wait a minute are you going to trap me in this and I’m just trying to take care of my health ortake care of my auntie um you know so I think we need to make sure we follow upuh with personal stories during this whole legislative process so I got a reot for Jason umseeing what California has went through uh what would be your advice for usFarmers here on the islands and how we could be aware of what’s happening in the future uh what I would say is I Iwas through it from uh I I moved to California about 2010 and worked at a dispensary calledHarborside Health Center in Oakland and it was a very busy shop um but I was also a cannabis activist and so I wasalways doing things uh um in my own time to be part of the movement and I watchedthe the culmination of the the energy from the community in going intolegalization and what are how are we going to legalize it and we had so manyfactions and PE in infighting amongst the community um that when it actuallycame time to legalize cannabis the people that were doing it um didn’t uhdidn’t really worry about they weren’t from the community that it was a billionaire that came in and passed prop64 in in California and they weren’t thinking about cannabis patients at allit was all about writing a bill for commercial sale of cannabis and and umwhat ended up happening is they they passed that initiative and thelegislature then wrote uh accompanying bills uh to guide how the roll out oflegalization would happen and how the permitting system would work and we ended up with a system that is nearimpossible not even for just patients but for people that were actually running businesses 99% of everybody thatI knew in the industry in 2010 is completely out of business and not cultivating and not part of the industryanymore and um like I had a friend say the other day like we used to see each other at events and give each other highfives now we give each other hugs because it’s like oh you’re still here you’re still around like everyone elseis gone it’s like we’ve been through a war and um the people that are still inare are hanging on by a thread and they set up a system that is was designed toput us all out of business um and um what happened to the patients is theywere completely forgotten and um it there has to be a way for uh people tocultivate cannabis for the people in their Community um without facing thehighest hurdles of being able to be allowed to do it by the state is the thethe state uh needs needs to make the lowest barriers for entry into beingable to be a cultivator for other people in your community uh because most of the patients most of the most vulnerable areabsolutely not able to cultivate for themselves um whether it’s their physical uh Health where they can’t doit or just their living situation where they don’t have a place to cultivate cannabis and so you have to rely onother people who do have the means to that and those people are going to haveto be able to make ends meet if they’re spending their entire day cultivatingcannabis for their community so there has to be some form of legal compensation for those people and that’sthat’s essentially what we took away um we got rid of all the collectives in California and and we got rid of uhpeople’s ability to uh legally be compensated for their work um that seemslike a lot of red tape for just a plant that we’re trying to you know open up as an agricultural crop right yeah you knowwhat it also seems like too is like are you going to change the minds of people that this is a plant and it’s medicinewhen when something like that happens in California just seems like you waiting for it to be legal like this wholemedical program they have was just like we’re just going to stay medical until it goes legal and everyone can have itand forget about the patients forget about the caregivers so how like I guess my question would be how do you changethe minds to show that this legit medicine and it’s not just like a commodity yeah yeah I’ll take on alittle that um well the recent um recommendation from the health and humanservices at the federal level suggest to lower the schedule of cannabis from schedule one to schedule 3 that is in ofitself a sign and a signal that cannabis is um legitimately therapeutic andmedicinal um however I firmly believe that it doesn’t belong on the scheduleat all right and it’s simply non-scientific to have cannabis at schedule 3 um if there was a scientificbasis for these scheduling of can of cannabis alcohol would certainly be a schedule two or schedule one 100% um soright now 100 in any case the good news coming out of this whole scheduling bit is the admission from the federalgovernment that they had mistakenly and erroneously placedcannabis at schedule one for nearly 100 Years or or as long asthis can ofis controlled substance act has been in existence but umso that was disingenuous or just factually wrong right and um now it’sproven and and the FDA has even come to support um cannabis as a therapeutic umplant and um especially helpful for pain and other issues but it’s welldocumented lots of science and research backing up the fact that cannabis is a medicine do you think that a lot of therescheduling was like motivated by Banks being able to do business with cannabis yeah I do I believe that the umapproach to scheduling or lowering the schedule of cannabis is um mostbeneficial to corporations that were seeking access to banking but also the relief from the 28 tax burden um I willadd though that there’s only one industry that does business through the CSA and that’s not tobacco or alcoholbusinesses but that’s pharmaceutical industry and so at schedule three you’rereally setting up cannabis to be treated like a pharmaceutical substance um to bedispensed through pharmacies and to be um approved by the FDA for for use andum as he as Jason was mentioning State cannabis programs arealready mired in red tape and over regulation um an FDA oversight of cannabis as we’vet as we’ve typically been using it in this at the state level in these medical cannabis programs could potentiallyupend these programs um so it is very important that cannabis becomesdescheduled um an incremental step to schedule three is not something to buildon say yeah um and going back toum what Jason is saying about the um the rug pull that patients feel when Statesmove to adult use um that’s directly um contradictoryto a decent society and and allowing forfor compassion and care to be delivered to the most vulnerable in our societytotally my second question yeah actually this would be a good question for you may um what will happen to Ho’s medicalpatients if their caregivers are no longer allowed to grow for them so we actually have a real life umwhere where this is happening now with um all of K Lu’s patients you know they were over uh after the federal raid wesaw over a thousand patients lose access but why this is so important sotypically when we see these caregiver these patient centered medical Farmsthey create products that um dispensaries don’t so specifically theywere doing RSO suppositories um that you know I sawpeople’s PSAs go from incredibly High to non-it iable um and if these productswere available at the dispensaries they would be so incredibly expensive that itwould be completely unaccessible for most people you know when you look atthe dispensaries for their RSO for a half a gram it’s like $70 and if you’re using one of thoseevery day it’s it’s really impossible so you know when we see these these Farmersyou know they really take care of their community in a way that the dispensariescould never ever agreed youunle well I mean I’m just going to say the elephant in the room we live in an occupied State it’s very clear in 1993the United States said that uh they participated in the illegal overthrow of the haai Kingdom so when I illegaloccupying state starts to tell us how we can and cannot live our life um I thinkit we need to think about this right the medical cannabis Community is thelargest unorganized group of farmers in Hawaii how many patients are there now it’s like something like33 look you guys no joke with 33,000 patients we have the power as civilCommunity people and Farmers to hold this system accountable yeah that’s whatit is it’s accountability under this occupational economy under this occupational environment none of it isset I’m sorry that that was me none of this is set for us to be successful yyeah the tourism industry doesn’t have local people successful like show me an industry in Hawaii that is beinggoverned and run by our community and I’ll show you a successful system butthere isn’t any right and where we are heading down the road is with institutions funding nonprofitorganizations to be quiet so you know I I would say that therisks that we Face highly are outweigh the benefits that this legislation willmake when we look at the people behind the legislation and those that have benefited yeah let’s talk aboutdispensaries how many dispensaries were political payoffs I’ll say this [ __ ]because when the you know when the people that owned the dispensaries were a part of the criminalization ofcannabis we know that from the beginning it was never intended for one the patient to besuccessful two the farmer to be successful or three to create a sustainable Clos loopsystem right this entire system that they’re trying to shove down our throat is imported energy is imported nutrientsright what really represents us and so you know part of me wants to be like let’s be activists and go out there andstorm the capital here’s the reality guys here’s the reality at 30,000patients at $2 a month each we have a $60,000 a month lobbying budget thatwould significantly undermine what anybody else is doing in lobbying andultimately at the capital it comes down to who’s got cash who makes plays and who can organizepeople are there any members in our government local government that are forthese kind of reformers that we’re talking about up here that protect patients are there anybody that like we can talk to or or who are the ones weneed to call and change their mind it’s not here’s the reality you guys they all work in blocks so one person in theblock will tell you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but when they go back in their meeting they all vote together the truthis is the system is corrupt the players in order to play you have to be corrupcorupt 100% even the ones we love have had to sell out their integrity alongthe way to hold that space so this is why if we leave it to them you guyswe’re screwed yeah we need to use these politicians like a freaking wrench yeahwhen we’re done throw it right back into the tool case and close it up and say when I have another leak I’ll call youbut until then you know stay in that box and that’s not what’s happening they’re telling us they’re leading us but theydon’t have the capacity they don’t have the experience and they’re not a part of of this Mission and what we’re trying todo let’s not forget they’re taxpayer we’re taxpayers and they work for us right you’re paying you’re paying themto screw you but um but the point you know what’s so interesting on Wednesday bardi and see um the Hulu prosecutorhaving a press rally thing and it’s titled keep Hawaii Hawaii how does itmake anyone else pissed off and it’s like keep the Hawaii they’re kind of wanting they they want to keep is thehighest rates of homelessness the criminalization the the occupationeverything um Steve Al was in charge of the Hope program which was thisbenevolent program that released people and as long as they tested negative onany kind of illegal substance they could stay out but once they got a random call and they had to come in for a test andif they test a positive for marijuana he would have they would that be they would be pulled back into prison um so he’sinvested in showing that he what he did was righteous the whole time so that’swhy he is leading the charge on this maintaining thiscriminalization of this particular substance um so there and like I saidbefore it’s about bringing and not storming the capital in this case but storming Hol Lulu Hal on Wednesday rightwith stories and if you see a if you see a news person there Say Hey I want to tell you my story I want to tell you thereal way this is impacting our community but don’t be scared just go up and politely talk to the media if you seesomebody in front of a camera just go hey can I talk to you about something and be sincere and polite and just givethem your story and that’s how we’re going to you know fight this hopefullywe the Coalition may be doing at the same time they’re doing their rally we may or right before we we may be doing arally around um looking out like questioning what they mean by keep awayaway right and all that if I can just add this you know um Kim’sgoing to run against Scott psyche yeah and one of the things that we haven’t done as a community is flex our abilityto change I say screw it you guys it’s all put our effort behind Kim and takeone of the hurdles out yeah because somehow when we spread our energy we’reless effective than if we just identify the lwh hanging fruit right andwhat that does is that sends a message to the whole system that we’re serious and when I look in this room and I lookat this panel these are some pretty serious people but how can these serious people year after year be ineffectiveand it’s partly our strategy so sorry C I’m going throw that out there but psyche is a major hurdle yeah and if wecould change this one individual it would actually send rips through the whole political system that these guysare organized they have a message and in politics what do they do they quietlypass you so you don’t come back thank you thank you Daniel I’d liketo add something here um we have a few sitting um Congressional members in thestate who have taken on the external appearance of being pro cannabis and umin support of different legislation proposed or even passed over the yearsum what is very concerning and and needs to be um continually brought to mindis that we may be um we may be mistaken in the order of our operations here Kimcoko mentioned a number of times of the that the threat of criminality looms heavy over theCannabis Community um yet we are promoting and advancing oftencommercial policies and were so to reform cannabis prohibition it seemspoliticians mainly aided by national advocacy organizations and perhaps someum local donors or whatnot but um they continue to move beyond the socialjustice and human rights problem and jump straight to commercial aspects ofcannabis leaving this criminal overhang in in our communities that just has tostop if if we want if they want even a successful marketplace where businessesaren’t popping up and going under or or never turning a profit or so on thereneeds to be one market not two or three and currently these policies tend tobifurcate the market at least and create this sort of unlicensed versus licensed andantagonist movement and that just should change um the the key step before anycommercial promation is decriminalization simply put the wordlegalization means the end of criminal right um act uh treatment for cannabisactivity you you can’t have it both ways you can’t have legalization while stillcriminalizing the the activity the the activity aroundcannabis decriminalization therefore is a Bedrock to build any commercial umcannabis programs and um it is it is absolutely imperativethat we we take that step before we take another and and that’s just my my mythinking on this so um I appreciate that and and then I will also add that I’mfrom Puna or I live in Puna now on the big island um to call out some Senatorsuh Joy she needs to do better for her constituency you can’t be putting forth these bills and not having any path foryour constituents to enter Commerce if it’s a Commerce Bill obviously you need to do DM first but to say you’resupporter of of of a of a policy or a bill that actually negatively impactsyour constituency is it is a key problem in in today’s governance and we do needaccountability from our leaders um I call to um representative capella whorepresents a huge uh group of of a farming community on the big island between Puna and South Kona where I grewup um again she introduced the bills last session one of the key bills therewas nothing in there maybe a vague assurance that there might be a path forfor uh for people in that constituency in the future but we need somethingsolid if you’re going to talk about commercial uh bills and in the meantimereally think about decriminalization it’s the only way to solve this problem ultimately and have one unifiedMarketplace well one thing that I would add from my experience uh I got I gotinto the Cannabis movement uh through a group group called students for sensible drug policy um and it and it’s ainternational group of students around the world doing um activism in theircommunities and I learned so much from we would have these meetings where it would be kids from all over the worldcoming and talking about what they were doing and uh it it it taught me a lot ofthings and when I came to California and we started organizing um I actually organized in Santa Cruz Californiaum in response to the county announcing that they were going to ban cannabiscultivation outright because of this that and the other reason why we can’t cultivate and I made up little flyersand I went to all the little shops around and I put flyers on the counter of anybody that would let me put themthere and I literally just started renting a room in a community center and organizing andwe grew and grew into this force that could not be ignoredand I I would say just what it ended up culminating in they passed the ban theybanned cannabis cultivation and in 21 days we gathered 11,000 signatures and overturned their ban on cannabiscultivation uh than you good stuff and so neverunder underestimate what a small group of highly motivated activists can accomplish you start playing their gamethat’s what they hate the most you go to their meetings you go to the state meetings you start getting involved inthe legislation you start getting involved in people’s campaigns you get your people elected and it that is theone thing that a politician fears is reelection and uh you if you can getyour small group of of highly motivated people to start advertising to thelarger population because most of the people agree with us right it’s thesmall group of highly motivated business people that don’t agree with us for monetary reasons and they meet inprivate and they don’t want to be loud and talked about because they know that the people don’t support what they’redoing and so we have to do the opposite is go to the people let people knowwhat’s going on become that channel to the populace of of what’s happening andGrassroots organizing um and and just start playing their game and startplaying it well well said man well said wow okay so yeah you guys all hearthat that’s pretty awesome yes ma’am we will at the end okay all rightyso next question um I think a lot of farmers out here who’re trying to make it kind of this resonates with them butum why did the value and price and the quality of cannabis Falls so much in thestates that legalized recre recreational Cannabis go ahead that’s whatcorporations do you guys yeah they come in they drop the price they kill out thecompetition and then over time they raise the rates and make their profit on the back end this is just an economicstrategy to wipe out all the small guys and put everybody in place yes that’sthat’s accurate um these markets that tend to um be centrally controlled andum that that don’t um encourage free enterpriseuh are all about um profit yes that’s that’s the motivation and what’sfrightening is that um these centrally controlled marketplaces are um again incontradiction to our society a Democratic Society if we’re going to be that are we it’s a good question but ina Democratic Society and in this capitalist country the free market isthe um is the invisible hand that provides the best quality products atthe lowest prices it’s the most efficient way to achieve that um wedemand and and desire to have a free enterprise around cannabis it’s what exists in fact in an unlicensedmarketplace right and that’s why the unlicensed Marketplace is much moreefficient delivering quality at Price can I can I introduct anotherperspective on this it’s um many of you know the the beginning of the war on drugs and here in Hawaii operation greenHarvest um when they did that it obviously took out a lot of the pacala supply and everyone and it actuallyshoved a lot of people into using Crystal math and we had huge addictions and we still see evidence of that todayum so is it wrong to hope that with legalization and decriminalization the price of Marijuanabecomes lower than the price of Crystal Ma I mean I don’t know what the what the ratio is now but do we want it I meanfor me is it is it better to make it more accessible easier to get less um dowe want to like I guess tell people it’s okay to go back to pod instead of that one um I I think that um making it moreaccessible and making it more accessible on like like you said the Grassroots level we have a lot of talented Farmersout here um using that that Avenue I think that’s the best way to utilize our talents here in the islands instead ofyou know bringing it in from from the mainland or the states um that’s the best way because we do have the amounthere you know the capability is to to take care of your aunties and your uncles and stuff like that so question do lower pricesautomatically equate to lowerquality any certainly not and in fact um in a patient caregiver world and in afree enterprise Marketplace there’s room for act for free products you know thereis in many many people in especially in the Cannabis Community the authenticcannabis Community are are um esteemed to provide a service to people that theymay know like or just simply out of the goodness of their heart would be willing to donate certain products to certaingroups and and certain peoples um quality of Canabis is a subjective issueyou know um what’s you know someone’s preference could be somebody’s leastfavorite tot um so what quality really is in in thissociety today is um access and affordability and um these centrallycontrolled markets tend to create the opposite they limit ACC access and they limit qualityright and that’s um ultimately plays into the hands of themarket that politicians and Regulatorsobenson ability that we carry especially stewards of the plant right is like we are medicine men we have we have arespons responsibility that we can take care of this plant but we need to take care of the people who need the plant that can’t have access to the plant solike yeah you’re right you wide open it’s something that we have to do as Farmers is take care of the next personthat’s in need right if I can add guys if you’re buying your medicine from adrug dealer you’re getting a different medicine than if you’re buying it from afarmer and what these regulations are really about are about to eliminate thedrug dealer yeah this is a medicine when you get it from the guy that grew it that made allthe nutrients you’re getting a part of him a part of his love to me when we talk about what keeps Hawaii Hawaii yeahis that no matter where you go the big island one different from the mai one still good different from the morai onestill good different from a Kawai one still good right it’s that diversity inplant in people in community that is actually ourstra that pretty much defines quality in cannabis is there a possible path wherelike one day medical insurance companies would cover and include cannabis as aprescription where cuz costum get exorbitant on all these things right so where they covering part maybe a patienthas just like a copay or something like that that exists now for prescription medicines um so I’ll take that one theclosest one that we have now is California allows um people who are onworkman’s comp um they pay for cannabis for them at the dispensary so that’s theclosest thing that we have um so I think that’s great I think that’s superProgressive um and that happened last year so um I would I would like add tothat um this movement at the federal level to schedule three yeah opens adoor for the FDA to approve certain productsto be sold through pharmacies and I believe that health insurancecompanies are very comfortable um co-pay and or umproviding FDA approved prod products mhm to folks so it’s actually kind of aslippery slope you know um opening up that Avenue right now um could havepretty severe consequences for existing State Medicalprograms and at the same time I would like that I would like patients to have lower prices ultimately to pay for theirmedicine whether it comes through a dispensary a farm gug or a pharmacyright okay last question Uncle Eric take it away how can we as a communityprotect our natural right to cultivate our own medicine for ourselves ourfamilies and our friendsDaniel anyone I mean the hardest thing you guys is to like know your neighborknow what your neighbor likes be friends with your neighbor yeah it seems like it’s so easy to scrap with the peopleclosest to us the beefs are not outside they start in the household so it’s thatpersonal Integrity reflection upon each of our members here and then figuring out how to create capacity to give timeto this this is a battle this battle requires people requires time it’s goodshow up at the capital on opening day but for the 3 months after every singleday we need to have pres how does this community do this I don’t know onceagain standing next to motivated very smart people that have access to networks and relationships andresources how do we use that but not be afraid that it will be used against usand I think this really you know uh I think we have all the ingredients whatwe really don’t have is the leadership to bake the cake so let’s go find ourselves a goodleader you guys you know like in the the old days you know the Hawaiian leaderthat that was kind of yeah he had one eye yeah cuz he wouldlearn yeah and the the holding leaders accountable was was a little bit easieryeah you be like that rock that was the leader yeah he wasn’t so good that rock over there yeah but that one he good hegood after we took out his one eye he came you see better um today how do wedo that because we are in a leadership crisis and medical cannabis is is one ofthe uh casualties of having poor leaders but it is in a list of other things thatwe are facing as a community which ties into leadership so I hope everyone here votesintelligently and hopefully wants to run for office Daniel’s been right on on a fewthings and I appreciate you Daniel um the uh the point that he really nailedwas the fact that um patients need a lobbying organization working fulltimeum you know if if a patients Union were to arrive or just a consumer CentricUnion were to arrive um and and apply pressure that would be very very helpfulI think everybody in here could contribute something to a cause we do need um great leadership involved inthat y um I personally do admire um uh Uncle James Anthony as as one ofour um distinguished leaders on this subject and in the state and uh I fullysupport um the Cannabis hoie and their organization and and recognize that itneeds more support um leadership and funding mainly funding umand that’s that’s really it um we need to put some money where our mouths are so to speak and and really apply thatsame equal pressure or greater pressure than the um uh the block the thelobbying organizations that are working towards adult use commercialization uh surely a tax andregulate model that will stifle the industry B forgate the market cause lots of pain on both sides and um you know weneed to unify um we need the state to become our Ally and a um an assistto the Hawaii generally and to um Hawaii’s cannabis um the business we’llhave no more of the criminalization of cannabis totally um going back to that that’s that’s Paramount thecriminaldecriminalize cannabis activity treat any issue related to as a civil or Commerce related problem um and uh andwe may have something to work with there oh and I will add this the attorney general she should just be busy protectingHawaii’s um Regional agriculture that’s it she should be looking out for Hawaii on National levelyes protecting Hawaii as a regional brand just like we do K of coffee as an example so that would keep her busy andI think it would be a good work so I I want to share that you youactually have some amazing Advocates lobbyist uh in the ACLU keran chirota umas well as Nikon from the Hawaii health and harm reduction um program um that used to bethe drug policy Forum um and it was um a lot funded by um Pamela lii she’s aphilanthropist uh who worked really um who did a lot of investment and umlobbying for um the dispensary model but also for just policy reform anddecriminalization so there is funding um people are taking this message tolawmakers and there is some effort being put I’m sorry that they’re not reaching out to the consumers and the patientsand the caregivers so that you guys know you have them as your your leadAdvocates and lobbyists at least amongst lawmakers but they’re working reallyreally hard I appreciate that Kim and I will say thank you to Niko lence I seehis work um in national press often and he speaks um to the need for kanakarepresentation in any commercial um Marketplace for cannabis um he speaks tothe need to re-evaluate limited licensing over taxation General overregulation and so Nikos is an allyas I consider it and um we appreciate everything he’s doing um to further thecause for kanaka and for Hawaii at large um I hope he hears that thanks niosand I just oh sorry gosh I just wanted to um also say that we have a summary umso we have them available we have a summary of the AG’s bill and we also have a summary of um some of the reallygood patient protection bills that are happening so we have a decriminalization bill that um is hasbeen put up we have um a bill that will protect umuh basically collectives we have two Collective bills um so if you want toI’ll have those available after so you can just um put plug those in for fortestimony and just also some places to get more information awesome awesomeyeah we need that we need um like myself you know there’s a lot of words and bills that’s been written up and for melike I I rarely have the time to even look at something like that let alone comprehend all that verbatim that’s beenjumbled up in front of me so yeah thank you sister for kind of like giving us cheat sheets and letting us you knowunderstand a little bit better the people voting on it don’t have time to read it most times 100% we’re about 10minutes till we’re P so I want to give everybody a chance to like any last thoughts and then open it up forquestions I know we had somebody ask me if they have a question or they said they had a question so any finalthoughts from the panel the one thing I would say is you need to have unity inthe community um sir put the egos aside there’s so especially in cannabisthere’s just so many characters and that’s a beautiful thing about ourcommunity I love it but when we get in a room together and uh we need tounderstand that we’re all part of one force together and U if you if you’regoing to write some legislation you’re not going to get everything you want you know there there’s going to be otherpeople in the room that have things that they want you always have to do your best to meet in the middle and put youregos aside and realize that when you’re divided you’re conquerable and whenyou’re United you can do anything awesome so hell yeah guys oh yeah andyou know like California you’re speaking about things that are happen you know that’s happening already in your stateand you can kind of see it happening in our state so it’s like a you know a glimpse into the future and like a fair warning of like hey beware of what thisis going to happen this is what we need to do to combat what’s about to happenI would just say this you guys live like Co never ended like we’re in a continualWorld crisis that fuel prices are going to continue to Skyrocket that medicine is going to be more inaccessible thatfreaking Plumbing fixtures at lows are not going to be accessible because there is a Global Production Challenge and ifwe keep that in mind and work like we’re in that crisis we’re going to figure[ __ ] out but if we keep thinking that there’s Band-Aids on Supply we can just call up Costco and no problem here we goand someone else is going to bail us out and there’s going to be some type of subsidy we’re going to continue to beled down the path to slaughter yeah there really is a crisis that we’re experiencing every single day that wefreaking normalized how do we get out of that sometimes you get mad at the guy that woke you up but I hope that you dosomething positive when you’re awake I wanted to share one one lastfinal so one of the things that the Chamber of sustainable Commerce is trying to um putout in front on this issue is that when they start issuing an um commerciallicenses to grow non-medical cannabis um that they F give those first permits togrow to Farmers who are actually growing food for local consumption you know likeso whether it’s you know a farmer who allocates one nth of their property togrow um commercial cannabis um that the proceeds that they make from thatactually goes to subsidize them feeding their Community Food you know um becausewhat I don’t want to see happening or is these out main people coming in and buying farmland and then you knowgrowing and then you know taking all the resources the water the land the laboraway from feeding the people of Hawaii so actually go in early and and have adiscussion with people who are who are issuing these grow permits so that’s our jobyeah all right there uh any questions from the P the people sitting over hereyes ma’am you had your hand up a long time so we see you back there greetings everyone all panelists Iwant to thank you for your presentation today Al go ah Hadad emergency walk out of here a couple of times um yourmessage was well delivered and very insightful um I do want to address aquestion that was asked by one of the panelists how can such powerful peoplebe so ineffective and effective change in the industry speaking about yourselves inYour Capacity as activists in the Cannabis industry so I thought forpersonally as a cannabis activist and Advocate um Iwould suggest that in order for that to work that your organization and you asan individual have to recognize that the Cannabis industry laws and regulationsare rooted in a system in in a system and structure of racism and until andI’m giving you like if you think about the history of cannabis legalization here the first institution that wasmanaging it was I think the police or the DEA and then it got switched to the health department both theseinstitutions neither any of the people in there have any more knowledge of theplant how the plant works and the nature of the history of the plan and thereforeshould not be making regulations and legis ation regarding the plants sountil and unless all act cannabis activists in Hawaii in organizationscome together on the issue of really basically reparatory and restorativejustice for the people who whose land that they’ve conquered for the peoplethat they’ve criminalized during green Harvest IE I’m an example right here inthe flesh for you and what I’m saying here our voices count but thedoorkeepers have kept us out for a long time and this is the very firstopportunity and I’d like to thank the um 7th annual Hawaii Cannabis Expo sponsorsand organizers for opening the door for the ganja V Ganja War veterans likemyself and people in my family to come and tell our story in this cannabis industry not just his story becauseright now as we know it cannabis is the largest growing business in the UnitedStates it provides more job than any other industry but when you look at it who owns that industry 81% owned bywhite males who probably have inherited the wealth to enter that business fromtheir fathers who were lawyers and prosecutors and legislators during the War on Drugs so I’m here to say please Iwant to L I want this community to understand that um you know when theblack woman speaks everybody say she’s angry this is not anger this is total passion and love coming straight fromthe heart and pleading with all of you who I’ve seen walking around I only know one person there that’s sister may butI’m pleased to meet y’all and I’ve been here I’ve returned to Hawaii in 2018 andhave been reaching out to the cannabis activist commun community and this is the first time I’ve had a chance towhoie with so many and I’m just soexcited and you do it and do join us and I’ll be here I’m going to do a littleplug for my uh awesome presentation which is coming up at one o00 the topicis reparatory and restorative justice because until there are criminaljustice reforms you cannot have a just cannabis industry here in Hawaii and theAG and all the legislators and they come in here at 3:00 hope you all to go putsome fire out and let them know that yes we do elect you I’m a registered voterby okay and I always encourage people in my community to register to vote and tobe active in their community on a local level we may not be seen but we heawesome awesome thank you I think we got time for one more super fast question somy man over here in the front hello I just wanted to say thank you all for putting this panel together because thisis the only panel that represents us the farmers the patients the caregivers andall the other panels and discussions that are been put together are political and therefore talking about money moneymoney over medicine cannabis is medicine first and foremost and I don’t work with anybody that seesmoney first it’s medicine okay and just so all of you know they’re trying totake away caregivers there’s a sunset deadline taking away caregivers people the farmers that grow for the patientswho kind grow for themselves and especially in a walk where there’s no privacy or L to do it is so hard allright so we need to let them know that caregivers need to stay in perpetuity forever and we need to expand the numberof patients one caregiver can care for okay it having one caregiver care for only one patient is like having one Chefone private Chef for only one person and nobody else that is ridiculous the other thing I just want to add too is thatthey’re trying to put a limit on the number of patients or plants or cards or whatever on a property I understand fivecards or five patients in in a residential zone areas I get that that’s reasonable but we need to have anexemption to allow for more farming more cannabis cultivation on ads own property so please when you get a chance to talkto your representatives or senators let them know let us farm right this is the only way we keep Hawai Hawai this is theonly way we keep country country otherwise it’s all going to be developed okay so support your local farmer whenyou buy from a dispensary that goes to a corporation who pays a barely livable wage to its employees and the profitgoes to the mainland because that’s who owns our our dispens 100% guys keep the moneyin thank you so much guys thank you for coming thank you all for coming to this panel where P umthank you to May Daniel Jason Ry and umyeah we’ll see you guys out there on the Expo floor thank you guys for coming appreciate it somuch