In this episode, I sit down with Rusty, a multi-generational cannabis farmer from Hawaii. We explore what life is like away from the mainland, the recently failed “legalization” initiative for cannabis in Hawaii, and the rich history of cannabis in the region. We also discuss the state of cannabis legalization in the United States, industry limitations, and more.
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up leave a comment or share it with your best friend today is April 4th
2024 and we’re going off the mainland in this episode um with my friend rusty
rusty how’s it going today I’m doing great Cole thanks yeah and where go
ahead introduce yourself uh tell us where you’re calling from and tell us a little bit about yourself right um I’m on the big island
of Hawaii um we I live in Puna the district uh in
East Hawaii near Hilo which is the major city town and capital of our County um I
was raised here on this island for the most part I was born in Chico California but raised here since I was about eight
years old in South Kona and um I’ve always been close to the land and
farming and building and so you know you know that’s been uh it’s been like a main focus for me in my life um uh my
main source of income has been building um and selling real estate uh
so um yeah I’ve been around the island a lot I mean I’m in East Hawaii now was
raised in West Hawaii so I uh fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time around the big island and know a
lot of people and really enjoy it here really happy to and you know we’ve
everybody’s heard of the California Cannabis culture so you probably experienced that in your time in California but I’m just curious I get
the impression that there’s a cannabis culture in Hawaii but I don’t feel like a lot of people talk about it can you fill me in what’s it like there yes
that’s great great Point um Hawaii’s was sort of a a Mainstay in cannabis Society
in uh early prohibition days you know between the 70s and 80s Hawaii was a really bright spot on the on the global
cannabis scene um and yeah in the late 9s and early
2000s um a lot of attention was spent on California rightfully you know
California’s been there all along as well um but Hawaii does have a really strong
cannabis uh culture um I believe it’s tied to um yeah I would what I would
call a fairly laid-back lifestyle um surfing obviously um a sort of
counterculture movement uh born in Hawaii but popularized of course here
and in California so Hawaii is like sort of a twin to California in a lot of ways
about um the past of of cannabis um
especially up into around 2000s when California started to make some really
big gains in um creating Marketplace for medical uh
cannabis and um there’s always been a bridge between Hawaii and California I
mean I’m a part of that bridge in fact my being born in California my father uh
and mother met in California though my mother was from Hawaii um and in those
times that was the early 80s or late 70s um you know cannabis was thriving in both
places but um you know in the shadows you know in in the hills in in in the
countryside uh you know and um I’m grateful to uh have uh basically my
entire life spent among a cannabis Community uh that you know exists
between California and Hawaii uh you know it’s it’s it’s been so
prevalent in my life it’s um something that it wasn’t a choice to be around
cannabis I was born into it you know um in this community I’m from there was just uh it was an activity that you know
the back to the land movement really took up um and so you know in an area
like Chico California or in an area like the big island Hawaii um these places
were like hot beds for cannabis um growing or for um you know really kind
of building the culture I think even uh reg music is probably a part of that culture you know some Pioneers in regae
music um always spread um a message um
to promote cannabis as a healing plant as a Sacrament and uh and kind of
Incorporated it into a healthy lifestyle you know so I mean I’m very fortunate
I’d say to be raised in both places California Northern California and Hawaii and um
experience a lot of um and meet a lot of people who are passionate about cannabis
and have been for Generations now you know so yeah well before we talk more
about cannabis I have what might be a silly question um I’ll tell you you know
what it’s inspired by first so I recently was in the middle of the desert in Nevada in this town in the middle of
nowhere and I remember going to a gas station and I was like craving some candy and like all of the candy just
[ _ ] sucked because it’s like it’s like the idea that like one truck went out there and it like it dropped off all its [ _ ] and they ain’t getting more stock until they’re all the way out I doubt it’s that dramatic in Hawaii
because of like the tourism and everything else but is there like again just before we get into cannabis like
are there certain things you have to deal with as a Hawaiian like I’m thinking like Amazon just general
shipping of orders like is like [ _ ] like that just inconvenient there or uh no and largely no you know what I mean for the most part no but you do run into shipping problems I mean big and heavy items you know definitely cost a fortune or can cost a lot of money to be brought here like uh there’s that there’s also um certain manufacturers of things just won’t ship to Hawaii um for one reason or another it’s just either you know a business decision that some are making but it’s like if they’re offering free shipping you know to the to the 48 or whatever sometimes Alaska and Hawaii you’re kind of left out there uh in no man’s land so yeah it’s it’s there’s some challenges definitely unique to Hawaii and um it’s distance from the continent but um I mean it really does affect the cost of living you know largely because everything does come here or I should say lots of things are imported here you know and uh they all have to tack on this import sort of fees you know that pass on to the consumer so um it’s part of the reason why Hawaii’s notorious for having a generally High Cost of Living um building materials food most of our food is shipped here um yeah and your items things like automobiles you know I mean sure they’re a lot cheaper in places in the mainland like uh we call it the mainland too that’s kind of a funny thing I don’t know if people use that word anywhere else but interesting okay so I got that kind of right you guys do call the like like the main part of the United States the mainland that’s it it’s the mainland here we say that often you know it’s it’s kind funny thing I don’t know if it’s um common or not but it’s classic we use that um yeah Hawaii Hawaii is very unique you know and it’s um Graphics too you know um yeah we’re a Melting Pot you know there are lots of um different groups of of people from different um ancestries you know um collecting here um it has an interesting culture that is kind of open and receptive to a diverse group of people it’s um an interesting mixture you know lots of Asian folks lots of um um what do I want to say Pacific Islanders you know from like Samoa Tonga Micronesia Etc um Tahiti so it’s just an interesting I mean it’s like the main city or the you know the largest uh City in the Pacific is probably I mean in the central of the Pacific is Honolulu yeah and uh so it attracts a lot of people from all over the Pacific region um and yeah for that it’s an interesting makeup of people here and and there is this sort of a melting of culture um Hawaiian culture is the sort of backbone of course of this place you know our place names are Hawaiian um we have a strong Resurgence of Hawaiian language um more recently this week is actually um the marry Monarch Festival is being hosted this week down in Hilo which is sort of the main cultural event in Hawaii every year um it’s it’s incredible it’s it’s almost a full week of um activities and performances and a celebration about um Hawaiian culture hoola specifically and wow and that goes along with hoola which is a lot um lay making um there’s parade um lots of family reuniting you know or coming together and uh it’s just it’s a big deal for for Hawaii island and for the state and for Hawaiian culture for sure we’re we’re really happy about it we we always donate some flowers from our flower farm to uh groups that are looking for special flower perhaps for their lay making or for their pahu or whatever they’re doing and it’s always very uh ornamental it’s like a you know it’s it’s very decorative this kind of event so people put a great deal of care and time and effort into making um the merry Monarch week something special and we we really enjoy it that’s super cool I wish I could say I like planned that out like oh yeah that’s why I invited you I knew that that was really important this week um but no uh that that’s like that’s a a funny coincidence I was I’m happy to be able to have learned something that’s like so culturally significant to to the island of Hawaii you know um that’s really interesting so I’m curious uh so you mentioned before I guess we get back to cannabis I just wanted to give you the space if you wanted to talk about it I feel like we kind of breezed over it do you do you do a farm of some sort or right yes I’ve been a farmer all of my life basically because I was born on some farming activity in California Chico is a is a pretty robust agricultural scene and Community there um but the one of the big pieces was Cannabis um for my family family back then and in Hawaii um I was raised on a coffee farm when my family moved to Hawaii um I eventually we eventually settled to a coffee farm and which is more of a diverse Farm but definitely coffee is a main focus we plant a lot of things avocado Citrus Mac nuts flowers food Gardens obviously cannabis but yeah you name it we were growing it just about um and um and now I mean so as an adult like after I left my family’s home and went to college here I moved to Hilo to go to school from Kona and so I’m a uh Hilo um student um in the past and since moving out of the house I you know was just a starving college student basically for some years and um got involved in um reggae music promotion and stuff like that in college got got a little business started with some of my friends and did some retail work and some some event promotion and you know cannabis has always been around me so we were always dealing with cannabis in some level way shape or form um medical cannabis came about in Hawaii and like 2024 no no sorry about the year 2000 so we’re about 24 years deep into a medical program here in the state that allowed patients to grow their own uh cannabis so there was a lot there was participation in that um and like I was saying earlier my main business has been um building and selling real estate so one of the things that I’ve done a lot of is building Farms that’s really what I’ve been building I’m not I mean I’ve built some homes some structures and so on and but the big picture for me was always developing a farm uh to a to a level that somebody would want to move into it and get a little you know just like a step ahead from taking raw land which is what we see out here a lot of raw or overgrown or fow land and my my forte has been um selecting properties and improving them uh building some Farm infrastructure and then eventually selling them um in the doing in the building of farm infrastructure there was a lot of landscaping so there was a lot of Nursery work related to just moving landscape plants into um uh you know into a landscape so there was I’ve just been playing with landscape plants a lot of course edible plants like planting edible plants on these Farms you know is has always been there a big uh positive uh sort of value creation aspect to any real estate that I was um playing around with so and now I’m settled on this um what was like a defunct antherium farm and fler farm and that’s been my project recently and and that kind of coincided with the our entry into hemp so we got into this piece of property um and I see opportunity to improve the the working aspect of the flower farm which one which once was and it’s being restored now and um it came this uh Venture came with another part of land undeveloped adjacent to the farm and that’s where I’m building now um a purpose-built facility for hemp production and processing and um yeah we’re just you know expanding what is already a diverse Farm you know so yeah it’s just farming is what I do building is what I do and selling real estate is what I do and uh cannabis happens to just fit really neatly into into that uh Endeavor hell yeah that’s super cool um I just I’m so excited yeah to talk to you about this I didn’t really even realize it until you started going through it and and I had to Google yeah what you said like you say in 2000 Hawaiian Governor Ben Kayano I hope I didn’t butcher that name nice signed into law act 228 allowing medical cannabis card holders to grow their own cannabis or appoint a caretaker to do so so they became the eighth State uh but the first to do so through an active State Legislature oh that’s interesting yeah Illinois always says they’re the first to do to legalize cannabis uh adult use via legislature but that’s probably accurate yeah because we can’t get that part done around here yeah we can’t seem to get over that hurdle um but but I want talk go ahead sorry well it’s a shame because we we were an early mover um in in some ways um in cannabis reform and like you know I mentioned earlier just that Hawaii has this really deep long history of having this plant a part of our community and a part of our Lives um and it’s been disheartening and disappointing that Hawaii has sort of dropped the ball and allowed um allowed the state to kind of fall behind you know in in in making Progressive steps forward to um uh help move this uh this legalization movement um you know into a better place so it’s it’s a bit it’s lamentable yeah I’m curious though so is it today is it the same situation where it’s like a mostly a caregiver grow your own type of situation that is mostly where we are you know um I think it was about 2015 or something but F you know about six to eight years I can’t remember the exact dates but in the mid uh 2010s uh we enacted some policy to allow for vertical dispensaries a vertical um licensing program so we got eight licenses throughout the state um which uh has been under Serv you know the medical patient Community um it’s yeah it’s left the state you know in the Lurch as far as building infrastructure to um Supply the demand local demand for cannabis you know um but is there a vibrant caregiver scene to supply that demand yeah there there is there’s there’s a lot of folks in my and I’m one of them who have been a caregiver for a patient um for many years um we are not alone in that there’s thousands you know I think there’s about 30,000 U member uh participants in the medical program so patients registered patients uh that number might might not be perfectly accurate but that’s close I think and um so it’s not a huge number you know it’s not it’s not like hundreds of thousands of people here um that number is kind of um it might skew a little bit uh in terms of not really truly representing the number of people who are you know choosing to access cannabis grow it for themselves otherwise like so um yeah we have this medical program that’s kind of mostly I would say depending on caregivers and personal cultivation there are the eight existing licenses and some will say that they’re getting maybe 50% of patients into those doors um uh throughout the state that number I don’t know if it’s accurate or not I don’t know what what we’re really looking at some I earlier you know just a couple years ago I heard that number was 30% of registered patients were actually um regularly accessing their cannabis through the dispensary program so in any case it’s basically not a complete program uh in terms of providing safe and affordable access to patients uh the most affordable thing for patients to do obviously is to grow their own or to have a caregiver grow their cannabis for them um and that that does suit a lot of people but uh we are you know it’s an interesting place because it’s un like like Northern California Cannabis has been so prominent you know prior to any of these policies being enacted that there’s is just a um fairly massive Legacy um Marketplace I guess you could call it but it’s basically it’s a uh a culture of cannabis is growing like common place you know like right been easy to come by it’s not expensive you don’t have to go to a shady corner of a shady Alleyway to find it in most cases you know what I mean it’s obviously Shady elements in the world you know but um for the most part Hawaii is um it’s like a community oriented place it was a small place you know um people know each other you know there’s like two Degrees of Separation on this island you know and so people can you know just find what they need you know through their friends family um Community you know co-workers or whatnot and and that is what the Cannabis Marketplace is in in many places like in um prior to any reform uh and um yeah and so we’re kind of stuck in this limbo now in Hawaii where we’re kind of um you know half stepping in the direction to create a medical Marketplace like literally about half of the medical Patient Group is seeing a Marketplace for it um and we’re just not quite even ready to to approach adult use cannabis apparently uh which is which is absurd you know because again it’s just commonplace there’s no way that this toothpaste is going back in the tube you know like that there’s no way for cannabis to be eradicated you know in uh and only be provided through a legal Outlet in the near future you know what I mean like it’s we’re far from having a mature unified Marketplace here in Hawaii and I see the is sort of a theme across the country you know the that cannabis policy has bifurcated the market and there’s a lot of finger pointing um and uh I think that’s that’s a problem that needs to be um addressed like headon and I don’t believe that um like enforcement could possibly be a solution for that uh being here in Hawaii on this island in particular like we felt the brunt of like what and in Northern California it was the same way but the drug war was waged heavily out here you know eradication efforts enforcement efforts were were were quite strong and um and it wasn’t really able to make a big dent in in the supply it just raised the price of things you know because there was this sort of um risk uh tax if you will attached to doing anything related to cannabis touching the plant at all you know um so yeah I think that’s that’s something you’ll see from me um on Twitter or anywhere where I go to speak it’s just trying to address um this discrepancy between a licensed and unlicensed Market um what some call legal and illicit Market um you know I don’t I’m I’m really interested in in in working with people like yourself or any others who are who are willing to begin to face um these problems with new approaches and I don’t mean smart approaches like but I do mean smart approaches I just mean like really smart approaches right so um yeah I just think that’s it’s wonderful to be able to speak about cannabis like we are it’s Wonder wonderful to be able to participate in cannabis in in the ways that I am with the medical cannabis program here with the hemp um legislation that’s moved forward at the federal level and um so we basically just take as much of an active role as we can to um be a stakeholder um through the paths that are available to us in the industry uh and and then agitate for change that we believe is is necessary for a sustainable and sensible policy world around cannabis yeah and just in case people were unclear because we’ve referenced it twice uh smart approaches to marijuana is well they’ve been on the podcast so check them out I’ll say the episode number in a in a moment but they’re I would describe them as anti-legalization just to put it simply and um they said Hawaii State House wisely rejects marijuana commercialization protecting public health and safety and they talk about how uh the Hawaii House of Representatives reject a proposal to flood the state with marijuana and high potency THC drugs um so I’ll again these people they they we’ve had them on the podcast a few times now um the most recent episode is 74 of the Cole memo if you want to check it out I am just curious um so it looks like it was Senate bill 335 based on this article from MJ Biz daily uh it looks like it would have created a new regulatory agency it would have created a social Equity program um do you know would would hom grow would have still been legal yeah I think there was talking about it says that right there up to 12 plants on a property or something to that effect interesting cool so it would have allowed sales and personal cultivation for all adults I guess yeah yeah we’ve seen this we’ve seen this uh movie before I mean this is what we see across the country you know every state is um you know waving their hands and they’re calling it legalization we take some issue with that because I believe it is about half legalization at best um it’s basically legalizing the um the buy side you know of things it allows often we’re looking at things that allow people to buy it and possess it and and grow uh a tiny amount or an amount of it but it’s it’s very um restrictive and narrow in terms of what’s being legalized and uh so that’s my that’s my uh probably my big stick is that you know we’re getting half truths from both sides of of the um of the of the policy discussion at large I believe you know like you got what you would you maybe describe as prohibitionist rhetoric coming from groups like Sam which are really heavy in the fear mongering about you know what was and basically reer Madness tropes you know and uh but they’re I think you know like accurate in in other words in terms of describing the bill as a commercial iation bill yeah instead of actually a legalization bill so there’s these are the kinds of things I think I think a lot of the people on um both sides of this um policy issue are you know just uh yeah telling it’s it’s Pro it’s propaganda and I’m afraid to say it it’s just it’s half truths and um um it’s a lot of entrenched interest that are that people are working to protect it’s a lot of that you know and I take a lot of issue with this movement because um the I don’t think we’re getting to the root of the problem you know I do believe we’re chasing the effects of prohibition around and I don’t think that like it’s really helpful for anyone I don’t think it’s helpful for the people uh who claim to be legal operators well they’re ferally illicit so that’s again why I think it’s really scary to use this uh dichotomy like legal operators versus illicit operators you know that to me is sort of a um that’s a loose way to speak about um this issue um similarly you know from groups like Sam I think it’s very loose um um intellectually to be a to be like harping on these um uh social fears that grown around cannabis um in its years of Prohibition so that’s really where I feel like I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because on one hand there’s a corporate narrative um they’re always championing what they call legalization I don’t believe it’s actual legalization and then there’s the other end the criminal justice side of things that are just like you know we like to be able to arrest people for cannabis basically you know we we think cannabis is like Public Enemy Number One and like uh we don’t like the smell o you know what I mean like there’s there some really shallow um thinking when it comes to addressing the depth of this um human problem which is prohibition this is this is a this is a it’s more than a commercial issue it’s more than it’s more than Commerce you know but uh many Advocates and activists have been able to point out um that we’re we’re legalizing money before people exactly and it that becomes that just kind of I don’t know it’s emblematic of what I think is a crisis you know in public trust right now um related to our government I think that you know that’s one of the reasons why I find Cannabis policy fascinating aside from me being a long time um uh member of a of a of a cannabis Community a cannabis Society here in Hawaii and in California the um and and recognizing the the fallacy of these laws like knowing that you know we’re the government is kind of forcing people to do the right thing the wrong way you know like it’s can is always the right thing you know like there were communities like I’m raised in who are like you know we don’t want you drinking a lot we don’t want you you know doing um white powdery substances that you don’t know about or know where they’re from you know what I mean like there’s there’s um this plant you know what I mean and and it’s it’s always been a good companion to humans and it’s it’s a it’s a better way to um deal with your uh with your stress I mean ha you know life is a stressful uh event largely you know and I I believe humans gravitate to things uh of substance like coffee or tea or sugar or uh cannabis or alcohol or tobacco to cope with our lives you know we’re we’re living human lives and none of us are perfect the world isn’t perfect but I do think you know America took the wrong step you know in in prohibiting hemp and cannabis um and then took a really bad step in waging a drug war and and using cannabis as a tool to easily prosecute people uh and I think it’s just way past time that we Rectify th those those big criminal justice issues and social justice issues um I think that we’re doing ourselves as a society a huge disservice by Advan in commercial aspects of cannabis um prior to addressing these these horrible social traumas and yes you know I have to admit and even apologize for my own trauma because like I didn’t I don’t want to be traumatized by um by cannabis but in fact I am and was you know and being um a second generation actually I’m a fourth generation my grandfather who’s from Hawaii was touching cannabis my mother touched cannabis I’m touching cannabis so I’m a third generation grower I’ve got a son uh and I want a future where he can use cannabis you know grow it if there’s a business to be had then that would be great too but uh we are a cannabis family if you will um and uh it’s been traumatic you know I mean I feel like the drug war was waged on me and my family I mean I didn’t end up in jail thank gosh um but it was always uh a threat you know and um it just really builds distrust um with um our institutions of Law and um and the people we put in power to change laws you know to build a better Society so you know you s you can sense my frustration even my trauma you know and I’m not proud of it at all but uh it’s it’s where it comes from it comes from a place of pain there is a pain body inside of me that’s been that’s been um afflicted by by these laws um so yeah you know that’s where my inspiration to work on this problem it comes from and um I hope that maybe we’ll be a part of making this a positive change it’s really stubborn yeah dude that was so well said I just had to kind of let you go cuz you’re yeah you’re talking about all the issues that that I really care and I know you’ve shared one of the videos that I had made with representative Carol Ammons and her kind of talking about from Illinois her talking about like the shortcomings of legalization and I always say in air quotes legalization here in Illinois um one of the things she said which is exactly basically what you just said uh before legalization was let’s look at this not she said I know the state is strapped for cash let’s look at this not as a revenue issue but as a social justice issue yeah and that’s exactly it what you just said and like you say the the folks at Sam it’s interesting because they like you say they’re just disingenuous when they argue but when I have them on they they truly do understand the issue like I was talking about corporatization and commercialization they truly get that issue but they just take it in a disingenuous way so it’s like like you say you when you look at that press release that they made or whatever you want to call it it’s not wrong but it’s also like the way the direction they take it in is just disingenuous um but uh yeah I I like you say um I don’t know how we get people to look at this issue in that way and unfortunately it seems like history is repeating itself um box Brown has this you know the comic artist box Brown he has this really good comic I’ll try to find it really quick just so I can display it uh for our audience that’s watching um he basically says that you know Amsterdam oh here it is I I’ll share it right now um he says one of my concerns is losing momentum for legalization let me I can’t assume this in unfortunately um the Netherlands has a small hobbled together cannabis Market riddled with major problems and it has a little arrow pointing to a person on a bicycle and it says illegally transporting weed from illegal grow to Legal shop but they’ve lost the political will to fix it the average person sees the Cannabis issue is over I mean even see it in like movies like Harold and Kumar like they travel or they try to travel to Amsterdam because the Cannabis issue is over there right right everybody thinks the Cannabis issue is over there and it’s like no it’s not like yeah you can go and buy it in a store right but it’s still like illegal outside of that and to your point um had an attorney on and he said he’s brought this up to different prosecutors and everything else and he said the attitude that he’s gotten it’s like well how hard is it just to obey our rules which has always been the case how hard is it just to not smoke cannabis how hard is it just to not possess cannabis you know and it’s just like but if we’re going to say we’re being Progressive on cannabis if we’re legalizing cannabis and if we’re even talking about social equity which it sounds like both of our states every state I was having that conversation I’ve just been saying like look I’m all for social Equity I’m all for addressing the harms that have been caused I’m glad we’re all acknowledging them now right yeah yeah uh but I think we should also also acknowledge like let’s address it but we should also end it so that we don’t have to address it again in the future yes it’s like that’s the part I think you and I are just like I’m you’re over there going amen yeah right no you’re right on you’re singing the song and that’s the right song the um yeah I just don’t understand that I don’t understand social Equity from a from the point of view that like we’re going to help someone who was harmed like we’re going to handpick a small number of people that’s that’s like window dressing in a lot of ways for me and I don’t really buy that but but also like the whole society was harmed you know yeah certain people went to jail like that’s that’s a that’s a that’s a measurable harm um but I’m afraid that social Equity as we know it now as it that has been you know rolling around in this country related to this topic is is is not a fix at all it’s um it’s a it’s problematic and um and know I’ve said for a while that it’s it’s a it’s a token concession that the corporate um Lobby is willing to make in order to FastTrack commercialization um via the high reg High tax model that’s that’s just the one that’s sort of copied and pasted all across the country um it it it is not it’s it’s not it’s not the right way to do things from my point of view it’s it’s very much the half step um and it’s it’s it’s one thing that I point to the legalization side of the movement uh and say that’s not the right way to do things that’s um yeah that is not going to solve the problem it may exacerbate the problem and and it is to me like salt in the wound you know it’s like oh wait so you’re still gonna like handpick you know what I mean Market participants and I just find that absurd I don’t know why I find it absurd probably because I was raised in a society that I was taught was Democratic and capitalistic and free market Enterprise was sort of our right you know a driving force in American entrepreneur uh and Entrepreneurship and um and I don’t think it’s necessary uh e you know so I’m just like confused a bit by why people grab on to that idea as if it’s something that will take them to a really great destination um yeah in the society so yeah I try to push back on that that concept you know that’s again one of those places where the um I believe the corporate Lobby has been successful you know in in using this um language to um steer public opinion you know into a belief that uh there’s something just you know there’s some some actual Justice being um delivered here in into this marketpl and I I think that’s a that’s a Hal Truth at best from the legalization side of the um movement here um yeah I think the big issue and this gets really to the point I think it’s like we have no we haven’t seemingly found any other enforcement mechanisms other than using the criminal law and that’s that was explained to me by an an attorney he was saying like he said like he deals in the criminal law but there are like different ways to deal with offenses he’s like you could deal with this is a business offense instead of a criminal offense so like if somebody’s practicing without a license let’s say um and that’s I think that’s a good way to look at it or an interesting way to look at it um and another thing that you were talking about like the whole idea of yeah another thing that box Brown said actually I’ll try to find this one now is uh you know we want to vote with our dollars legally but we can’t until everybody’s on the ballot this idea of limiting the market uh you know and they’re it’s all it’s all about money really everybody wants to try to to dress it up but really when you get people down to it even our governor himself says we limited the number of licenses so that the price wouldn’t get so low that people would not get edged out of the market um yeah that’s that’s that is really scary I think I think it’s really scary to want to maintain a Prohibition premium for your quote unquote legal businesses that’s that’s some really scary things so you know what I mean like so you’re G to continue to drug war that to to fix prices right you know in what is supposed to be a legal market and that’s for me where I just think man this whole industry is running up against antitrust and Monopoly or um uh you know racketeering like as to put it Point Blank like if the state is going to use its enforcement arm to threaten anybody who’s not buying or you know participating through their sanctioned you know licensed Outlets then they’re marginalized to criminal stat and that is really scary I I I think that’s where I think that cannabis policy really needs to like people who are looking at cannabis policy from a big from a from a bird’s eye view should be able to call that out um I mean it seems like it’s easy for me to see I mean I know what I don’t understand why smarter people you know people with larger voices and larger audiences aren’t really um really hot on exposing this is this this um flaw it’s a it it’s arguably like the Fatal flaw of the industry it’s I think it’s a form of incrementalism I think it can be like you know uh you know explained away you know what I mean when people like to say oh but it’s incrementalism and that’s the only way things change you know like um I I get that there’s a tough road ahead politically and I see what politicians do with the horse trading bit that they’re they’re supposed to be uh doing I guess you know but you know when you have a lock like a such extreme views and such partisan politics in our country that um that you can’t find much Common Ground you know I believe that lends to a dysfunctional policy environment for sure and it’s more than cannabis this is just sort of a cannabis is a microcosm of what dysfunctional policy is taking place in our country at large and um uh that that’s concerning it’s really concerning it’s troubling um that the public and this is why these meetings are important this this is an important conversation for me because it’s it’s it’s not easy to move the narrative and it’s really entrenched because there’s there’s a lot of funding backing up the the official narrative like corporate media like our state newspapers you know they they won’t they won’t likely print anything that um you know conflicts with the uh status quo of of U The Narrative today and so you know I I I I remain hopeful but I realize the difficulties here um you know Cong the the the lawmaking bodies are they’re they’re they’re they’re bordering on um collapse some people would say you know what I mean like we are we are in such some we’re in some troubling uh political time times and uh and cannabis is now a political football and I do think that you know it’s just being played and played and and the voters are fairly apathetic unfortunately what what what Brian yeah Brown says is unfortunately true that I sense it when I go around and talk to people in my community and gather their feelings about like the legalization bill they just they’re like really excited about it you know I’m like well are you excited because you want to go and buy cannabis from a store or something and it’s not that it’s like they’re excited about just the word legalization right exactly and then I’m like well are you excited about the business opportunity and it’s like I think a lot of people think that they are but they aren’t really looking at what that quote unquote opportunity actually is and as we’ve seen in other states like if you’re a small operat smaller operator it’s challenging like extremely challenging and it’s not uh a walk in the park to be operable no matter what you what you do whether it’s a retail operation or a distributor operation it’s it’s just a really high barrier to entry and when you look at that barrier and you relate and you compare it to what my options are if I were to like go to a community college and and get a trade certificate and go right into the workforce and start making 50 bucks an hour or 100 bucks an hour as like a union electrician or something like that you’d be like or or to take that money and find a piece of real estate to in in other words when you compare the cost of the opportunity to other opportunities it might not be your best option you know you have to really love what you’re up to you know and this is hard work this is moving physical matter you know in a lot of cases it’ be a plant- touching business you know it’s like lots of Labor right so much regulations and red tape and taxes right and so then all of a sudden you’re you’re kind of just no guarantees no guarantees right that’s one of those things that I’m full uh fan of is like enter it your own risk thank you yeah no matter what your business is you know what I mean like I don’t care if it’s a coffee shop or if it’s a dog walking business or if it’s a you know a tech company startup some something of that sort like I’m not interested in the government being your back stop right I’m not interested in the government constantly changing the rules to help you succeed you know what I mean like like an individual company or a group a small group relatively small group of private companies like that that’s where I get really turned off by lots of policy measures especially I can speak about this in Hawaii um like going back to the 2015 2016 or whenever that was that they started this medical dispensary program um the state since then every session is dealing with some kind of law or Bill or proposal I should say to like encourage the growth and support these eight private businesses so our taxpayers like all of the tax taxpayers are paying for our Congress to commit time and energy on subjects that only benefit eight private businesses and and their customers you could say maybe their customers are benefiting maybe you know what I mean I think they would benefit from options right like you know I think I think when you’re when you’re proud that your best option is a $50 e or a $100 half gr cart or whatever you know what I mean like that’s a shame yeah we know that doesn’t exist in in a competitive Marketplace that is the prohibition premium that’s being maintained by the state uh and its threats of enforcement or its limited uh options related to um you know safe and affordable access so we have some pretty huge problems and we’re pretty pretty deep into it like we’re so far into it now that well I came on to Twitter like three years ago um and I feel like the game was already almost lost you know what I mean like in terms of corporate takeover corporatization is already so far ahead you know these publicly traded companies are um are an easy way for people in the public sphere to feel like they’re a part of uh this industry you know and in one hand that’s great and I’m not not here to say that we shouldn’t have capitalism via know corporate stocks and on and on that’s great I I actually I love that you know what I mean I I bought some shares in in cannabis stocks way back in the day because I was like Hey same yeah I may not ever get the opportunity to participate in this market the way things are going you know what I mean like this might be the only chance that I get to capitalize on this change you know like and you know that so yeah I mean everybody’s looking for a great opportunity and I don’t knock people for working hard for their interests you know I just expect more ethics and and and morality and and more of um I I I expect from this Society um the love of Liberty the love of free enterprise that those are the things that I thought were um like bedrock in our society um and and this cannabis uh movement has really shaken that belief in me um I you know I’m now wondering like how much central control can the public accept you know like and and it seems like that might that is probably a bigger question than related to cannabis you know we see the pharmaceutical companies in the pockets of um you know our politicians we um we know the military industrial complex pulls heavily you know and we’re just seeing this such a such a consolidation of wealth and power that it actually threatens democracy and the principles of uh what I was raised to know about this country yeah this you know so it’s it’s been real tough it really H yeah it really has been and uh you know I just want to bounce off a few points he made uh I didn’t realize this was going to be such a box Brown eccentric um uh episode but he’s just great so so uh and it’s great for visuals so um I wanted to show this because to your point I recently gave a presentation and I used a a graphic from box brown or a few Graphics I kind of put them all on the same page and I said does this look familiar and then I showed the food supply yes right and then I could also show the media for example and I just wanted to say that like one the only form of license limitation or cap that I think I accept and I think is uh an American ideal that maybe we’ve lost way with is the idea that we control how much one entity can control I mean the head of the Federal Trade Commission was just on uh John Stewart this week uh last week maybe and she was talking about how you know they work to prevent monopolies and one of his questions was well aren’t we seeing oligopolies it’s like how do we how do we uh prevent that and that’s what we’re seeing in cannabis that’s what we’re in food it’s like this it’s it’s like this presentation of choice right you know this illusion of choice I like to call it um but it’s not you know you’re you’re kind of buying from the same people and to your point it seems like it’s a much bigger issue and and it that’s why I’m like I always make the cheesy joke and I don’t even think I came up with it I probably heard somebody else say it I say that cannabis is a gateway drug to politic to politics and just understanding how the system works works because yeah it’s been my first really intimate view of how the sausage is made and as you said man like one of the big problems that seems to be bigger than cannabis is that politicians don’t even write their own bills they don’t read their own bills it’s always this omnius Omni buus like sandwich at the end this big rush I mean in Illinois for example we’ve got some like lobbyists that will come on the show and they they will talk about the fact that yeah like the the elected representatives technically the legislative session is six months long but they all just show up in the last month like yeah you know and it’s this like big clamor of you know throw me the money and just write my [ _ ] bill and I’ll sign it off and it’s like it’s happening at the state level it’s
probably happening at the local level it’s definitely happening at the federal level dude we just did this thing where
we extended the federal government like I don’t even understand how that works but it’s been happening throughout my entire childhood it’s like the
government’s going to shut down and they scared the [ _ ] out of you if you happen if you’re happen to be young and you walk by the TV and then the adults inform you like oh this happens like every year don’t worry about it they’re going to just sign this bill this blank check and everything’s G to be fine and I mean yeah it’s just like you say it’s I know we’re it seems like we’re almost being like lost hope but I I think it’s like you say this is an important conversation to have to acknowledge these things yeah I think it is and um you know one thing that um that I feel confident in is that government Will Never Wrestle away the cannabis plant from people that’s that’s one of the things that I’ve learned because I grew up with as strong of an enforcement as the public could imagine you know like when you have a hel and I mean this is it’s it’s not understating the um the force that was used to Search and Destroy and uh enforce cannabis laws here like a helicopter was flying so often like there that it was like it was it was frightening the sound of a helicopter was so regular and routine and it wasn’t like a helicopter high in the sky flying by we I’m talking about like helicopters hovering over your house like close enough that you could throw a baseball up and hit it you know what I mean like hovering all over you and landing in your yards in many cases like they have you know and that and then jumping out with guns of course and you know the whole the whole thing was very military it it was like it was like a military style and can I just say like I don’t haven’t even lived your experience but I had a neighbor that had a helicopter which I know that sounds crazy but whenever he would land that [ _ ] thing it was so
[ _ ] loud so it’s like this sensory overload you’re like what’s going on and then people are rushing in I just wanted to paint the picture a little bit yes oh it’s intense it’s like being in a war sort of you know what I mean and especially if if you know that that these these agents you know have the will and desire to like hurt you or hurt your family you know what I mean and like that is that is really heavy and um I don’t see our society going back that way you know I don’t I don’t think that’s in the will in the hearts of the public at all but I when I so I hear the the quote unquote legal operators or the the stock owners or the financial interest in big cannabis as it’s described by Sam you know like really raising the flag for enforcement I wonder like how much enforcement do you really think you’re going to muster you know what I mean like and and how effective is that to be because it’s going to be ineffective you know what I mean if you’re not going to go back to the you know 80s 90s when they started camp or green harvest in Hawaii and like with that level of fin uh Federal money and state money being spent on eradication like to support some businesses like I just don’t see how that makes sense like to me that’s just like it’s it’s it’s a unrealist istic you know to imagine that the cannabis plant is just going to disappear off the face of the Earth and only exist in licensed production facilities like that’s just not going to happen you know from my from my accounting um so what makes a lot more sense is to not really worry about a lot of small farms like you know what I mean like if you’re you know unil lever or you’re not really worried about the guy who’s you know making some homemade ice cream and and serving at his birthday party you know what I mean like I I just don’t quite understand their fear I don’t think that I I think that big business like large corporate businesses and really small localized operations are really non-competing right in a lot of ways like you know I think that there’s definitely room in the marketplace for both and uh and and I think consumers deserve that I think consumers deserve to be able to go to McDonald’s or to you know go to their favorite Gourmet joint you know what I mean or to a hole in the wall or or or a street vendor for whatever you know what I mean I just think that we need optionality and I don’t it’s actually a problem I think in order for the so-called legal Market to mature that there needs to be a unified Market I think as long as there’s a bifurcated market and now we may even say it’s trifurcated because you got hemp you know which sort of in this like questionable and not so questionable but just sort of gotten out a little bit in front of itself probably in front of the intent of the lawmakers I think maybe but in any case there’s there’s like three markets perhaps you know like and I think it it makes so much sense if you want to see a mature Marketplace if if investors want to be able to really chart the course of growth going forward that there is a unified Marketplace because I think this you know these these three separate markets are not conducive to maturing the marketplace it’s not conducive to maturing any business model within those three uh sections so this is why I think it’s a little bit um concerning that we continue to build policy that would would maintain that you know um I I think of cannabis as such a relatively safe thing like with without it’s not a it’s not a lethal substance you know there’s things that are killing people in the world not all of those things are illegal you know like I don’t think I think humans should have some freedom to choose what they do what they take risks with and in terms of consuming things like if you want to eat a diet full of sugary drinks right you know or or heavy in fat or cholesterol then I don’t I don’t think that should be illegal you know I mean like I think you should choose what goes into you I don’t think that we need to um I don’t think the government should have a role in that um and in fact if I could just really quick I feel like if Sam would let people do the things they say they they hate they would have more data to point to to make their point yes said that like you know like like a not you know they they’ll say oh that’s a sick human experiment but it’s like but you would be able to make your point and maybe prevent people but if you keep just like picking at straws sorry I didn’t mean to cut you off though no no I think you’re completely right I think our data sets are incomplete yeah like you know even when you when people are talking about the market you know like in the CT on the on the you know in the corporate side of life they’re saying oh you know we’re getting x amount of the market share and you know x amount of the market wants this and that the other thing it’s like and that’s just not a complete picture um so I just think we are missing on quality data because of our halfhazard approaches and you know half half measures to um create a Marketplace yeah I wanted to reiterate something you said earlier but I’m going use the I’ll be more cons I’ll be like more concise than I would in my own words because I’m using Ed rosenthal’s words I tend to be a little bit long-winded one of the points he made reminded me of something he had said in the past and I just wanted to underscore the point he made because it was brilliant he said um the model for cannabis legalization is already out there it’s Tomatoes more tomatoes are grown in America by home gardeners than are produced commercially yet there is a robust commercial market for tomatoes and tomato products of all types canned Vine ripened organic sace soups ketchup Etc at the same time small scale specialty cultivators do well selling their produce at farmers markets and home gardeners with their extra tomatoes share the Bounty with their neighbors as gifts in trade or through informal sales marijuana could be handled in the same way commercial Growers can Thrive side by side with home and Specialty cannabis cultivators that is just so well said yeah very well said you know and and I think some people will claim like you can’t have a free-for-all you know like you can’t you can’t just like you know decriminalize it because it’ll be a free-for-all and it’s like isn’t that what we have right now I mean you know what I mean like when people talk about the unregulated market or the unlicensed market like is that not a free for-all like right believe it is you know what I mean and it’s a big it’s not a small thing you know what I mean like it’s probably equal and I mean I think I’ve seen recently some some stat like three out of four cannabis sales in California maybe maybe the nation I don’t know but three out of four cannabis transactions are happening outside of legal regulation and I don’t know if that’s accurate but I know that there’s a healthy amount of cannabis transa outside of the legal Marketplace um and what a point somebody made on the show quite a while ago but I just was randomly recently reminded of it it was actually a professor at the University of Illinois he was saying like we were talking kind of about this idea you know this it’s kind of like an under it’s always an undercurrent the legalization discussion from like Po politicians they’ll be like we’re going to replace the illicit Market with this legal market and he made the point he’s like dude there’s still an illicit market for milk and eggs and stuff and I was like oh wow so the basics that you would get from a store there’s still a thriving elicit maret market for you know if there’s if there’s a storm coming you go get milk and eggs and all that stuff those are you know your Basics and there’s still a thriving illicit market for that so it just feels silly like we would ever replace you know no that’s just that’s just an ask that will never be fulfilled and it and it is um it’s rhetoric that’s that’s the kind of silly rhetoric that might play to like the criminal justice you know Circuit of some kind maybe but uh it’s absurd I think um that you know we would we would want to have a lot of energy spent on what what is actually what will be a really kind of a small fraction you know again going to the Tomato thing it’s like it doesn’t actually end the industry of growing tomatoes you know the fact that it’s legal and that that you can plant a tomato and you could give it to your neighbor or you could go to the Farmers Market and sell it like that that has no material impact on whether or not you know Hines is going to sell a lot of ketchup this year or something you know like and so there’s or there or the fact that there might be a new entrance in the Tomato like spaghetti sauce scene you know what I mean like why I just don’t see why in fact I think having this this um flattened regulatory environment is helpful to everyone you know to all the businesses whether you want to be the next um you know Ragu Sauce or if you want to be the farmer who shows up to the market every other week with really beautiful tomatoes and you might fetch a higher dollar for them because you’ve taken such great care on it but um yeah I don’t understand those arguments I don’t think that they’re based in um any like justifiable even economic um Theory either you know I think that it’s it’s sort of a fear-mongering thing and I I get the idea of like artificial scarcity and you know that’s I think that’s the the only economic uh theory that I see um really being a focus um in the policy talks about cannabis it’s like we need artificial scarcity that’ll keep our operators selling those $50 e and at $50 an e they can afford to pay these really high taxes and they’re overhead and break even or lose money or make a little but you know what I mean but it’s it’s essentially a it’s it’s artificial scarcity that’s what people in this business are looking for and politicians are looking to help them create yeah and that’s what’s so frustrating sometimes people will they will like reach out to me and they’ll be like Cole do you not understand why we limit licenses it’s because if you don’t the prices will get so low people can’t make money it’s like no no no I get it I’m saying was that the point of legalization like was that the point oh yeah right right back when Tommy Chong and cheich they were traveling around they were like let’s legalize it but let’s do it in a way so that people can still make money that that’s right yeah I forgot they were saying that I always like to just make that stupid joke I you know I think that this this idea of there’s like a fear about commodifying cannabis you know um I think that you we can look at hemp you know hemp was a crop that basically went through this cycle that’s different than what um cannabis is going through largely because the the doors just opened to the marketplace and and we can see that it en enticed a lot of participation you know people were like wow there’s this new plant new new agricultural opportunity new products that we could be selling and rushed right in sure enough you know it it quickly becomes a race to the bottom you you’re going to have over participation you’re going to see you know um over production and and Supply G gluts and then all of a sudden you know price collapses and lots of operators get scared away right you know some come back some never want to look at it again um and and I think that’s kind of an important um cycle in in an in what would is an Agricultural Product and what could um and what is and what’s required to not be playing both sides like criminalization and legalization or licensing you know like and so I think and and look at what hemp has done like since then hemp is quickly like emerged as a viable Market you know people are making products they’re putting it into all the different retail channels they can find they’re finding customers they’re making sales they aren’t battling with such high regulation and such high taxes that their businesses are unsustainable um so to me like hemp is sort of proving that um overp participation isn’t something to be like afraid of and like commodifying the the the the plan is something that you actually want if you want to actually innovate and and build in a mature Market you know like and that’s that’s something where I think you know people should be looking I’ve personally entered hemp because uh I believe that I believe in the many uses of cannabis you know from the industrial things to the non psychoactive things um and of course I love you know consuming THC as well but I see a lot of potential with him tons of potential in him like a lot a lot and and it excites me you know to be to be thinking about cannabis you know at outside of just the intoxicating qualities of it um but what’s even more exciting is that the federal government um this or you know removed hemp from the schedule I think and therefore um you know it it it just sort of exploded a Marketplace exploded nationally you know and people from all different walks of life have been able to um participate in in in in hemp easier than the options have been available than to participate in cannabis and that looks more like what I’d imagine American industry being is what I was raised thinking about what you know the principles of our econom system are and and hemp exemplifies much more of that now at the same time there’s a lot of unscrupulous um actors you know because it is a sort of a rush you know to an opportunity and uh I think that that in in that category there will be uh there will be lots of people exi because they they aren’t um uh they aren’t uh transparent you know or they’re they’re not um um genuine you know like you you might be putting a label on your product and calling it Delta 8 you know when in fact you’re making a product with Delta 9 that you might get off of the you know an unlicensed Source or something like that in any case Cas you might you might claim that you’ve got a th000 milligrams in C of CBD in your product and you only have 10 sure you know so right there’s a lot of there’s a lot of unscrupulous actors in in in both sides I mean hemp and cannabis and I think the best way to to to cleanse that practice lab shopping or what have you is to um create more options so that consumers can gravitate to the choice that they want to make they some people want convenience some people don’t care they want to go to the corner store that’s closest to them you know and some people will want to know their farmer and and buy it from a farmers market where they actually get to interact with the person who’s producing their product you know and I think more consumer participation ends up um cleansing the market of the products made with the with you know Shady practices or or sketchy representations like bad labels or whatever you so um yeah I I think that hemp is is is a bright spot in some ways for the reform effort you know right it it seems like the only CH uh real challenge because I’ve been like bitching about limited licenses for years on my old show the Chillin my podcast and then now I’ve been doing it on this show too and um it you know bitching about it only goes so far and I’m not the only person to [ _ ] about it but then you have something like hemp that comes along which is seen as a direct competitor I
mean uh our head regulator that’s how they describe anything you know including illicit sales you know Elsa
sales now hemp that’s a direct competitor to our lies and it’s so interesting
because it basically is a little preview at what federal legalization should look
like again though we’ve seen time and time again that legalization apparently doesn’t mean what we think it means so
maybe I’m Maybe I’m Wrong here but I guess what I mean to say is that you
know this whole idea of building a regulatory moat around your businesses
uh the head of GTI said um you know why go play in a knife fight when you can go
sit at the beach it’s like well you know if you want to be a strong operator maybe every once in a while it’s good to
take a day off from the beach and go like work out a little bit and like make sure you stay strong and I’m using a
lame analogy just cuz that’s the analogy he used but the point is when those padded walls fall down and you’re faced
with people that have been farming for Generations like like you and uh you know all these other people that have
never played by the rules I always say that it seems like what legalization is is writing rules new rules for people
that never followed the rules anyway and all we’ve been asking for is to take away those stupid rules in fact yeah
first and foremost and then yeah if you want to write some new stupid rules for how to do the business I’m not saying I endorse new stupid rules for how to do
the business but that’s the conversation we have after you repeal all the stupid rules that exist that have caused this
problem and Trauma so you nailed it I mean so it’s been something that comes up for me it’s like it feels now that
like we’re making new regulations because of previous regulations and so
we we’re into this like Reg atory cancer where it’s like uncontrolled growth of
Regulation you know and um they like they like birth themselves now it’s like
regulations like birth a new regulation and new reg so so whether it’s like from the you know um labor unions or from the
um you know the health uh Advocates or from the criminal justice um system and
obviously the corporate Lobby just wants a mo you know they just want to block as many uh you know potential competitors
as they can it’s really it’s really dysfunctional and it’s not really
ideal for anyone I in my opinion like if if you know being at the beach all day every day is a good thing for your
business then and you don’t like to have to compete that is that is strange like
like that doesn’t sound like an American industry to me you know where you know
there should be some innovator entering the market like every day you know like and and that’s just what I expect from
from you know our our economic system but we don’t get with cannabis um but
you you just really nailed that point because Federal legalization if it ever
happens um will invite a different uh sort of um competition you
know interstate commerce huge potential it’s a huge potential problem and and it
makes me wonder whether or not you know msos who have built who have committed
such great um Capital to you know State siloed
programs you know if they’re actually genuinely not interested in in
legalization like this is why I think schedule 3 appeals to them in a lot of ways you know what I mean and and why
you don’t get a lot of outspoken voices from inside the um big
cannabis industry supporting descheduling like you hear some politicians you know a few handful of
them you know at the federal level or at the state level you hear a lot of lawyers talking about descheduling and
how it is so important you hear some policy Advocates like drug policy Alliance is a low one they’re they’re
really um vocal about the need to deschedule cannabis as opposed to rescheduling it but I you don’t hear
that from the you know the Wall Street crowd because it’s true that they won’t
benefit from it you know they won’t benefit from from a a national or Global
Marketplace you know like it would require a whole revamping of their
business model perhaps you know so um those are those are concerns um you know
one of the biggest opportuni is being all the way out here in Hawaii with the small population and lots of people who grow
cannabis like I’ve been describing like cannabis is is is like you know you throw a rock you hit cannabis in Hawaii
you know it’s like there’s so much of the Cannabis here that it’s not it’s not the ideal Marketplace
for green Thum Industries perhaps you know what I mean like the unless the state will continue to like ramp
enforcement you know if State continues to relax laws which they’ve already done like for 24 years they’ve relaxed the
law in the last 24 years barely seen a helicopter to put it that to put it that
way you know what I mean prior to that and and even up in you know into that
that period I’d say 20 I’d say about 10 years or maybe 15 years ago you really
the sky really got a lot more peaceful um but
um we have we have this uh you know thriving unlicensed Marketplace here
like somewh something like New York uh Northern California or Southern Oregon or something you know where it’s just
easy like like every two or three of your neighbors have some cannabis plants you know and it’s just there so the
price is at the at the in the unlicensed Marketplace is already really low like
it is in California which means that you know having a $400 ounce for sale in a
retail shop is not really attractive right to many of the local people here
you know it’s like well that’s crazy I haven’t paid $400 an ounce since 2000 you know like why would I do that now
you know nowadays people my neighbors are giving me cannabis you know like like they would with tomatoes so there
are there are some real challenges to operating um that model in specific
regions of the country I think you know this is why places like California or
Oregon have kind of expelled these msos because their business model
depends on these very um heavily enforced uh
marketplaces and um and protected marketplaces like New Jersey or Maryland
or you know wherever there’s a really tight control and Hawaii has kept that
that’s part I think one of the big reasons why Hawaii has kept this Market limited to only eight licensed operators
is it’s very it’s very uh representative
of the um the modus operandi of these of
Wall Street cannabis you know they know that if they’re going to be moving into a a Marketplace that they can’t they
can’t really do well if there’s thousands of operators you know like or if they do well it’s going to be it’s
going to take too long for them to sort of you know make it through that knife
fight if you will even if they have what it takes to to win you know it’ll just take a lot longer there will be some
wounds and so it’s not attractive um places like Florida much more attractive
than Hawaii there’s billions of people like I don’t know if it’s billions of people there but there’s a lot of people in Florida I mean there’s hundreds of
millions of people in Florida probably and there’s like a a million or you know
1.3 or something in the state of Hawaii so like Hawaii is a small Market and so when I’m when I’m looking at this
opportunity I have to look pretty far out into the future and to a future where Hawaii cannabis can be sold into
States like Ohio or uh Louisiana or New
York or California so like you know a place like Hawaii really
wants interstate commerce if you know if we really want a cannabis Marketplace
like if the state really wants tax revenue and all this that and the other thing they say they want they need a lot of
participants and they need a lot more of a market they need a big market and we just don’t have that now like we have
some we have something but it’s not it won’t really compare to Michigan or to Florida or to New York you know as a
state silid Market yeah yeah well and you know you use Florida as the example right like
they is that right that’s yeah absolutely yeah big limited license
Market you were right the population here’s the population difference and uh
but to your point like Florida likes to well sorry actually it would be Georgia likes to you know export their peaches
Florida likes to export their oranges right and I think you’re going to see that Dynamic just naturally become a
thing you know you get bourbon from Kentucky you know uh there’s just going
to be like places coffee from Hawaii like the only state I mean there might
be a little bit of Cofe production going on in California or Florida maybe but uh yeah Hawaii is one of those um states of
the Union that is um renowned for having a few really great agricultural exports
you know flowers tropical flowers of course orchids um antherium actually
um and cannabis you know going back again to the 70s and 80s like Hawaii cannabis was was very much on the map um
it was being wow thanks for bringing that up you know like I um yeah this is people might
contest this uh perspective but um I believe that names like Maui woi
certainly Regional Brands and and less a variety or
cultivar you know so like Maui woi I believe is a moniker for cannabis
grown in Maui it is just how it was sold when it was either sold in Maui or sold
outside of Maui it became a distinction of that Region’s cannabis produced same
way with Kona Gold or kawhai electric like in my experience and I’ve been around a long time and know a lot of
people who were playing this game in those days and uh what I’m saying is when somebody
tells you that they have the Maui or the gold you definitely take that
with a grain of salt that’s just that was a cannabis grown in a region in a
time you know what I mean like it’s like there’s a dispensary sorry but just to give you a funny
example somebody says they sell morocc and hash in in Illinois and it’s
like you know like they’re probably not doing it like the Moroccans did and I’m just saying right exactly if it’s not
scraped off a floor in Afghanistan it’s not Afghan right so yeah that those are
those are some of those things that come up Hawaii is world renowned for cannabis because it was such a prolific producing
area in in the day and it still is you know I mean it’s we’re probably growing more cannabis here now than we were then
in in in some ways but we’re not getting it it’s not on the register you know
because it’s a lot of it’s just going out the back door like it like it was and has been for a long long time so
hell yeah a shame that’s that’s down I love it I love it go out the back door
um hey I just wanted to play just a few little clips that I had queued up just based on some things we talked about
here’s some of the you you mentioned rhetoric here’s some of the rhetoric from one of the lead sponsors of the
Illinois Bill it’s just interesting to hear uh this is when we were leading up to legalization the governor and
lawmakers agreed on a bill and this was I think before it was signed into law so we’re just having conversations at this
point right uh Cali cassid and I first introduced
this bill two years ago over two years ago um I’d come to the conclusion that prohibition simply does not work nearly
800,000 uh illinoisans use cannabis on a regular basis uh with over 95% of those
purchasing it in the illicit Market uh too often we have unsafe products that are laced with rat poison and Fentanyl
we hear about people dying from this um teens report easy access four out of
five teens say it’s easy access to cannabis products and communities have been devastated by the impacts of the
War on Drugs we’ve seen this around the state it’s this weird like sandwich of ideas yeah you know what I mean that
like like like a punch in the gut to the illicit Market but then like hey the
elicit Market’s not so bad because the War on Drugs was worse right drugs so bad yeah and I just that
isn’t that is an impressive U you know little piece of language
like you say like how can you like slam all that together and and feel like you’ve delivered something concise I
don’t know but um yeah that that that’s great point to the rhetoric you know
it’s like yeah we we have to we have to say that we’re we’re done with the drug
war you know we’re done with it but you know the problem is like if it doesn’t
come through our state license stores we have to go back to drug war Bingo yeah
so it’s it’s a really strange hypocrisy this is this is it and and half truth you know like yeah we want legalization
but we really and we don’t like the drug war but we do you know we actually need the drug war in order to have
legalization and that’s where you know the whole thing is you so that’s prohibition 2.0 that’s that’s what I
call that you know what I mean that’s you kind of explain out what prohibition 2.0 is you say we need need a legal
Marketplace we want to raise revenue we want to deliver regulated products and end the drug
war so we can get some taxes but we’re really disingenuous
about wanting to end the drug war because what we’re saying is if you can’t get this license and operate and
and in in through our channels which we block then uh we have to drug war on you
right and that that is prohibition 2.0 it’s when you have a drug war and a commercial license instead of just
having a drug war which is prohibition 1.0 right now have a licensing opportunity for a fraction of your
population and the drug war and I don’t know if you if you did say this uh I was
doing a quick search because I I didn’t know if you realized but prohibition 2.0 is literally what some of the CEOs call
it too it seems a little bit on the nose it’s like w it’s just it’s become an
acceptable way to describe I I mean the the lead policy lady at MPP described
Hawaii’s bill when it was introduced this 300 Page Bill uh as as overly
prohibition to bordering on prohibition 2.0 that was her language as well so um
yeah I mean these I like I sometimes feel like man I’m kind of a radical probably on the on the policy topic
around cannabis but it’s like I’m Not Alone by any means like I and and you
know everybody’s fighting for something you know like uh and and they’re and people are willing to do like crazy
things to achieve those ends you know like to me crazy thing is like licensing
businesses but only a small number of them right you know like that’s crazy I I think you know that’s wild I also
think it’s wild to not create a legal Market path for for businesses of all
sizes from the guy who’s growing and and trading it to his neighbor that he
should be protected like I I realize that there’s no practical enforcement on a lot of this stuff so why not just
strike those laws right out of the book yeah you know because they’re unenforceable you know like practically
and in in the case that someone would choose to enforce it it’s like selective enforcement right because it’s so it’s
like it’s so prevalent and I’ll make an example right now is like we have a fella and I and I love the guy I don’t
have anything wrong I me I think he’s doing something great but he’s just popping up a tent and selling cannabis
seeds um wherever he does it he can be in the Walmart parking lot he could be like on the side of the road and he’s
just doing it and I’m like that’s cool I don’t think it I don’t think there’s a law that protects him you know uh but I
but I think that um there’s such a misunder understanding in this convoluted policy environment
that the police don’t even understand whether or not he has a law to protect him right I think and and so like that’s
where it gets really sketchy it’s like if this fella wasn’t you know if he didn’t look a
certain way you know if he didn’t know certain people would he get a different
treatment you know like and that’s what I’m afraid of and that’s what I what bothers me so much is that we now have
laws applied unevenly selectively and and there’s such
confusion even about what is protected by the law especially when you open the
thca can of worms that that law enforcement kind of just throws up their
hands and they’re like well we don’t know you know and but we know that we don’t
like that guy on that corner of that street you know um let’s spend two
months investigating him and arrest him and give him 15 felony
charges uh you know and then and just forget about the people you know who are
doing the same exact thing but maybe have had their store you know established in town for the last 50
years you know and that’s just one of those like areas Where’ve
got go ahead sorry so we’ve got to make laws that are evenly applicable yes and
actually enforceable otherwise we’re just this that’s where it becomes like
um it’s like threats it’s like hanging this like threat of enforcement yeah
over your head not knowing whether it’s going to fall on you or not but it’s just there you know and and uh it’s
that’s just it’s just not a way to run a free or Civil Society it’s not a way to
like you know endear Trust from the public to the law agencies um
and officers executing the law you know and I it’s just really problematic it be
it borders on lawlessness you know and and then you go well that’s you know I feel like what you’re
talking about is discretion right the discretionary power they have you’re going to have a discretion so people are
going to choose who they like in New York is a great example of this now you know right there’s like lots of
operators they say thousands um apparently they can’t manage it and I
believe it you know if they shut those storefronts down that’s like they can’t for one thing apparently you know they
don’t have the time the money the resources or what have you but I also just don’t think there’s a will you know
like I don’t think that the the I think society’s kind of moved on like you said
earlier about Amsterdam it’s like people think it’s a dead it’s a it’s it’s a a done deal cannabis is legal you know um
so that’s really what I think needs to happen is that the laws and the policy needs to catch up to the public um
opinion on this and uh I do think the public at large probably doesn’t want to
see people prosecuted for the same activity that the state is licensing someone else to do um we obviously
seeing less and less arrests and that’s a positive thing I think that point to this reality that like there isn’t
really a will to enforce the law that much I think even among the law
enforcement Community they’re like well this is a weird law now like um I don’t know who’s doing the right thing and
who’s doing the wrong thing but like if I see this guy walking down the street and I smell cannabis I’ll have to arrest
him and it might be that he thought he was legal he might be like well I bought this out of a store right and it was it
was thca and I bought it legally just put my money across the counter I took this product I’m smoking it I see people
smoking all the time I see people smoking all over like we got celebrities smoking we got celebrities talking about
their flying their cannabis with them in their private jets to New York to do the Saturday Night Live show like at what
point you know what I mean is it just harassment now like and not really law
enforcement you know this is because the laws are so confusing and vague that the public
and the law enforcement Community are kind of like uh what are we really doing here you know and and I think that it
just points to the fact that we’re past the time to create an even law and I
think the only even law is to just say it’s decriminalized and you said this earlier it’s like just wipe the criminal
aspect off the table right treat the issues as a civil offense like if you’re
there smoking in public in a you know like there’s non-smoking areas you know
right we’re going to respect other human beings we don’t want our secondhand smoke whether it’s a cigarette cigar or
cannabis you know ruining the meal of somebody or ruining the you know the the
walk from their automobile to the to the store you know what I mean or something
like that so I’m like there’s could be some civil issues you know and there could be Commerce related issues like
you have a bad label you’re liable you know to be held
um you know uh you you’re liable to be brought to court over over misrepresenting your product or
something to that effect like I get it and there could be fines related to things you know what I mean
but I I I I understand that we’re not that there might not be a will to just
like erase all laws and have a true freefor all and I don’t think that’s something even we would expect you know
like when people say but you you know but you don’t want regulations it’s like no there already are regulations
actually but we we don’t need is to think that we’re having to write a whole new book of rules to deal with the plant
you know what I mean that that we’re already dealing with and and it we have rules for for agricultural production we
have rules for you know processing an Agricultural Product into uh a
manufactured good and we have rules for like what’s required to be a brick and mortar retail license or you
know I feel fir like confident that the the the the situation needs to move
towards existing laws and and we need to stop writing new laws for cannabis we
just have them already we have agricultural rules we have all that we need to govern in a regulatory in a
regulated way this activity um yeah an interesting element that I just
thought of I was about to say it in a different way but like this idea of testing standards with cannabis because
as you said you know like there are already regulations in many different states but we should also also
acknowledge like part of like the whole talk about legalization was that it
never killed anybody and even if it did I still don’t think that warrants it
becoming Le illegal criminal like you said we have the right to earlier in the show we have the right to like indulge
in many activities that are unhealthy so like you know um it is what it is but
again I so um I just wanted to say that like you know these I’m not saying these
testing standards aren’t good I’m not saying that you can’t you know that whatever um do what you want but I it’s
also important to acknowledge that like cannabis has been sold unregulated forever folks so like you
know again I’m not saying we can’t improve but I’m also saying like you know one of the things I talked to about
this or I talked with a uh Cannabis Testing Lab here in Illinois and they were talking about how operators like
people wonder why the Cannabis is so dry here and I’ve heard it from multiple operators and multiple Labs that the
standards are so like strict that the product and it has to be sold in cpg so
not consumer package good not deli style like cannabis is usually sold like strawberries and everything else um and
so you have to dry it out to ensure that it doesn’t mold in the container CU it could be sitting on the shelf for a long
time and so it results in product oftentimes being over dry and it’s like this weird song and
dance we’re trying to play and it’s like you know what we accept like I’ve gone to the grocery store sometimes and
strawberries are moldy you you put them up on the shelf or you’ve opened up a package eggs everybody checks it and if
there’s a cracked one you like kind of put it to the side side so that the employee knows you know like hey this is a bad one
um I’m just saying we have like we have ways of dealing with this problem already and it’s funny we’re like over
regulating it and again I’m not saying there’s not room for these regulations but sorry go ahead no I think you you
nailed it on the head I think that it actually is a disservice to The Operators who have already you know
committed a great deal of time and resources to be in a licensed Marketplace
to have to follow all of these regulations this is one of those things where I’m like I don’t understand why
these legal operators aren’t like advocating to like flatten
the regulations I get that it’s going to bring more competition in but it also
allows you to be competitive with with you know in this what ideally would be a
unified market like some people like dry cannabis you know some people don’t like
it super sticky there might be somebody who are like oh I want this I like this dry I like this the way that these guys
cure it it’s perfect for me right you know what I like I can just Crush that bud roll it up and I’m stoked you know
what I mean some people are like oh that one is too dry like they ruined it you
know what I mean and like and so I think that we need all of that optionality
like yeah to be the dry cure guy or the moist cure guy and it’s in all of that
new one wants obviously where your uh your differentiation might
exist you know like what plants you choose to grow and how you deliver them to your consumer whether they’re in the
Raw flower form or you know in a vape or what have you so there’s a lot of uh
ways to compete you know you could be really good at one thing you could just be great at a pre-roll right and and
have like the people’s favorite pre-roll in town that would be great just don’t see the the need
for overregulation and testing is a problem for me like I think that I mean it it has obviously it’s a problem
industrywide sure Canada to every state in the country lab shopping is it’s it’s
something we understand really well we were the first in our state to buy a gas
chromatograph we use it inhouse um we understand my wife is a lab scientist
and so we understand the procedure of You Know sample prep collecting a sample um you
know the whole nine when it comes to um acquiring good data uh from from your
instrument you know and it’s really easy to to you know uh fumble in one way or
another and arrive at a result that you might desire you know like whether it’s
high or lower um like lower is also an issue now
because we’re talking you know talking about thca and the labs that can produce these results and say oh yeah you got
30% or 28% thca and less than .3% THC
like unfortunately we have to take the lab results now with a grain of salt
because they’re that easily manipulated and I really um
find that if lab testing was not compulsory there would not be such a
incentive to um put numbers up that aren’t actual yeah you know if there
were if there was actually like recourse like I’m confused why there aren’t more
like um civil issues or Commerce related issues going on like between the
consumer and these product suppliers like I see states and their regulatory
bodies like kind of coming down on these things but there hasn’t been a whole lot of like consumers being like look
everybody’s saying they’re selling me a 35% THC flour and then I go to my my my
lab and it’s actually 25 or 20 you know and I’m getting ripped off or I’m being
you know false advertised to or something you know and and I do think that it’s a little strange that we’ve as
the consumer group has been sort of absent largely you know in like pushing
back on these tests and the requirements for testing because I do believe that it’s great to have the opt like we we we
invested in knowing what’s in our cannabis you know I think that’s but I also think that we’ve created by
regulation an incentive to um misrepresent these numbers it’s just an
easy way to compete you know it’s one metric you can use it in um you know a retail environment to point a product
and say well this one’s got 35% this one’s got 30% people are confused as to what’s a
better product or where their money is being spent and I think that that is that’s the kind of manipulation that I’m
afraid uh big cannabis is guilty of and the regul and the Regulators who are
continuing to kind of thrust this narrative like if it’s not tested it’s not safe you don’t know what’s in it
it’s like uh for like that you say for the last 10,000 years people have just known what cannabis flower looks like if
there’s mold on it they don’t want it yeah you know they just throw it away you know like if it’s a clean Bud if it
looks like as clean as you know a clean piece of celery or a clean piece of anything like if it’s something that you
can observe and smell and touch and you you’d make your own decisions you know about what to do and then you have
people like Sam taking that data and saying cannabis is more potent than ever and it’s like so you’re so you’re
believing the industry data now you’re using it’s like what yeah cherry picking
is what they’re really Keen to doing um yeah again I think that works on both
sides for for both agendas that’s right yeah well Rusty I freaking uh I think
this is like I said before we went on air I think this will be the first of many conversations we have I really enjoyed our talk
today um and I will put uh you know your Twitter handle in the uh show notes and
I’m honestly just going to drop this on Twitter right away because this was such a delightful conversation so uh folks if
you tuned in for this whole conversation I hope you found as much value in this conversation as I did and Rusty thank
you um for your time today thank you very much it’s been a pleasure yeah looking forward to doing this any other
time hell yeah hell yeah well folks uh I’m looking forward to the next time Rusty and folks I hope you found like I
said as much value in this conversation as I did we will see you on the next episode of the Cole mimo take care
bye everyone
The Cole Memo 
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