March 19, 2023|Public Policy, Safe Access, Social Justice
Contributors: James Anthony ESQ, Me Fuimaono-Poe FNP-BC
Maui Wowie. Kona Gold. Puna Budda. Kauai Electric. Cultivated for generations under the tropical sun in rich, volcanic soil. Pakalolo from Hawaii has been known to be the best, and that reputation is part of Hawaii’s image and spirit. But few people outside of the Aloha State are aware of the ongoing criminalization of Hawaii’s cannabis culture and heritage by lawmakers. Recent headlines celebrate the possible legalization of recreational cannabis in Hawaii, but a deeper look into the legislation reveals a misleading PR campaign that hides the fact that the proposed bills go against everything the local cannabis community stands for.
Cannabis has a long history in Hawaii, dating back to the Kingdom of Hawaii where before the overthrow it was grown and advertised in Hawaiian language newspapers like Ka Nonanona. In the 1900s, it was a cash crop in Hawaii, along with sugar, pineapples, coffee, and macadamia nuts. When the U.S. government criminalized cannabis in 1937, the growers went underground for decades and re-emerged in the 1960s and 70s as a vibrant and highly respected community. Then the War on Drugs in the 80s and 90s brought on Operation Green Harvest and Operation Wipe Out, controversial multiagency programs that used aggressive military-style tactics resulting in large-scale harm to the environment, individuals, families, and whole communities, disproportionally. When Hawaii legalized medical cannabis in 2000, it seemed as if cannabis might have a safe haven in paradise after all.
It took the Hawaii state legislature 15 years to pass laws to provide a regulated medical cannabis market. When the laws were passed in 2015, only eight dispensary licenses were awarded and the state adopted some of the most stringent regulations in the country. None of the licenses went to Native Hawaiians. Each licensee had to prove they had at least $1 million in funding, needed to be fully vertically integrated (seed to sale), and had to handle cannabis like radioactive materials tracking every gram in an expensive system of computerized inventory tracking. This resulted in corporate organizations setting up multi-million dollar operations, hiring mainland indoor artificial-light cultivation consultants, selling medicine at prices well above the underground market, and pooling their resources to protect their investments by attempting to shut down non-licensee competitors: the same growers that made Hawaii known for pakalolo.