President Donald J. Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

Mr. President,

Thank you for the job you are doing for this country! You are fighting for working families, for American farmers, and for small business owners who have been forgotten by Washington for decades. The country owes you more than it knows. The world, in fact, does too!

My name is Lance Saher Alyas. I am a Chaldean American, and I own Oahu Dispensary and Provisions LLC in Hawaii, a hemp business operating in full compliance with the federal delta-9 THC standard you established when you signed the 2018 Farm Bill. That signature created the modern American hemp industry from zero. Hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions in economic activity, and millions of families across every state depending on it.

I am writing because that very industry and those it supports are under coordinated attack, and the next decision in front of you is bound to be one of the most consequential of not just your second term, but your entire presidency.

The State of Hawaii adopted rules that conflict directly with the federal standard you signed into law. That conflict forced me into federal court to defend my right to operate under your Farm Bill, in active litigation, Alyas v. Lopez, No. 1:26-cv-00035 (D. Haw.). Legal experts following the case are confident I’ll prevail. Yet even a win there will be hollow once Section 781 hits. The same political machine that opposes you on everything else is betting you will not step in to protect your own policy.

That’s because Section 781 of the Continuing Appropriations Act takes effect November 12, 2026, less than six months from now. When it does, the conflict that destroyed countless businesses in Hawaii will be replicated against every hemp business in America. Every farmer, every processor, every retailer, every trucker, every packager, every lab technician, every small business owner in every state whose paycheck comes from this industry will be facing what I am facing now. This $30 billion industry and virtually all others connected to it will not survive without your direct intervention.

Millions of families are watching. Millions of livelihoods depend on it. Millions of Americans built their lives on a federal standard you created, and they are praying the man who signed it into law will defend it now.

Mr. President, you literally built this industry. It’s fitting, then, that only you can defend it, and you have the authority as President to do so.

Thank you again for everything you have done and everything you are still doing for this country. I am one small business owner among millions asking you, the man who legalized hemp, to defend what you built.

Don’t let your signature die on your watch.

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Lance Saher Alyas

Owner, Oahu Dispensary and Provisions LLC

Plaintiff, Alyas v. Lopez, No. 1:26-cv-00035 (D. Haw.)

Target just put intoxicating hemp THC beverages on shelves in nearly 400 stores across Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Minnesota. Five milligrams. Ten milligrams. The kind of can you grab off a cooler shelf next to a Celsius and walk to the register without a second thought.

Same products. Same lab tests. Same interstate supply chain running through every state in the country — including Hawaii, where Act 269 is written to treat those exact cans as felony contraband.

Think about what that means. The product didn’t change. The chemistry didn’t change. The certificate of analysis didn’t change. Hawaii changed the law — specifically, Hawaii changed the testing methodology used to define what counts as hemp. Not the federal standard. Not Congress’s standard. Hawaii’s own invented standard, applied through HAR Chapter 11-37, using a post-decarboxylation “total THC” calculation that the 2018 Farm Bill never authorized any state to impose as a criminal enforcement trigger.

So the same can that rings up clean at a Target register in Tampa triggers inspection, seizure, forfeiture, destruction of inventory, and criminal prosecution in Honolulu. Not because the product is dangerous. Not because it fails federal law. Because Hawaii rewrote the definition of hemp to protect the regulated medical cannabis industry from competition — and their own legislative record says so.

That’s not regulatory caution. That’s regulatory capture dressed up as public safety!

The state put a target on the backs of retailers and consumers alike. Small business owners who followed federal law, sourced compliant products, maintained certificates of analysis for every batch, and built livelihoods around a federally legal industry — now facing the threat of criminal prosecution for selling the same product Target is rolling out in four states this week.

That’s why we filed. That’s why we’re not going away.

Alyas v. Lopez, U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii, No. 1:26-cv-00035 is a live federal case challenging Hawaii’s Act 269 and the administrative rules that implement it. The legal question at the center of the case — whether a state can substitute its own testing methodology for Congress’s delta-9 THC standard and use that substitution to re-criminalize federally lawful hemp — isn’t just a Hawaii question. It’s the question every hemp business in America is going to face. Hawaii is just eight months ahead of the rest of the country.

We stood up…because someone had to!

If your products complied with the 2018 Farm Bill, you could operate legally.

Then came Hawaiʻi.

What started as a federally compliant hemp business in Waikīkī evolved into one of the most aggressive state-level enforcement campaigns in modern hemp history — involving multiple agencies, coordinated raids, regulatory reinterpretations, mounting taxpayer-funded litigation, and what many are now calling a direct constitutional collision between federal hemp law and state enforcement power.

And now, that battle sits in federal court.

Alyas v. Lopez may become one of the most important hemp lawsuits in America.

Because this fight is no longer just about one business.

It is about whether states can quietly rewrite federal hemp law through bureaucracy after Congress already legalized hemp nationwide.

Hawaiʻi’s Hemp Crackdown May Be the Blueprint Other States Are Preparing to Copy

Across the United States, hemp operators are watching something dangerous unfold:

• Texas attempting “Total THC” restructuring

• States pushing intoxicating hemp bans

• Agencies using administrative rules to redefine legality

• Regulatory bodies trying to erase years of legal commerce overnight

• Federally compliant businesses suddenly treated like criminal enterprises

Hawaiʻi became one of the clearest examples.

The State claims this is about “public safety.”

But buried in Hawaiʻi’s own legislative documents is language suggesting something very different:

Protection of licensed marijuana businesses from hemp competition.

That statement appears in Standing Committee Report 1817 — a document now cited directly in federal litigation.

And once that entered the court record, everything changed.

They Tried a Sting Operation First

According to the federal complaint, enforcement did not begin with legislation.

It began with targeted operations.

The expectation appeared simple:

Pressure the business.
Create fear.
Force closure.

Instead, the opposite happened.

More locations opened.

More customers arrived.

And the conflict escalated.

Soon, multiple agencies allegedly began appearing in rapid succession — different uniforms, different departments, same pressure campaign.

One week it was one agency.
Then another.
Then another.

Until federal court became unavoidable.

Alyas v. Lopez: The Federal Hemp Lawsuit That Could Redefine State Authority

The lawsuit now pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi raises constitutional questions that extend far beyond Hawaiʻi tourism districts or Waikīkī storefronts.

The case challenges whether a state can:

• Redefine federally legal hemp through administrative rules

• Use “Total THC” standards to criminalize products Congress legalized

• Target interstate hemp commerce

• Retroactively reinterpret legality after years of allowing operations

• Use regulatory enforcement to economically shield licensed cannabis industries

At the center of the dispute is the argument that Hawaiʻi effectively changed hemp law without Congress ever changing federal hemp law.

That distinction matters enormously.

Because the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp federally using a specific statutory definition centered on delta-9 THC concentration.

Not “Total THC.”

Not future hypothetical conversion calculations.

And not administrative reinterpretations years later.

The Hemp Industry Is Watching Hawaiʻi Closely

This case arrives during one of the most volatile periods in hemp history.

Search trends for:

• “THCA legality”

• “2018 Farm Bill hemp loophole”

• “Total THC hemp ban”

• “federal hemp lawsuit”

• “hemp preemption”

• “state hemp crackdown”

• “intoxicating hemp regulation”

have exploded nationwide.

Millions of dollars are flowing through the hemp market while states scramble to control products that federal law arguably still protects.

That tension has created chaos across the industry.

Some businesses closed immediately under pressure.

Others relocated.

Others entered litigation.

And now Hawaiʻi sits at the center of the constitutional battlefield.

The Real Human Cost of Hemp Enforcement

This story is not only about statutes and agencies.

It is about customers.

Veterans.
Kupuna.
Cancer patients.
People struggling with sleep, pain, anxiety, PTSD, inflammation, and addiction alternatives.

For many consumers, hemp products became accessible precisely because they did not require entry into Hawaiʻi’s tightly controlled medical marijuana system.

That accessibility created competition.

And competition created political pressure.

Now the people caught in the middle are the consumers who relied on those products most.

Taxpayer Dollars vs. One Small Business

One of the most controversial aspects of the case involves the scale of state resources allegedly deployed against a single hemp operator.

According to public filings and related reporting, multiple government lawyers, agencies, and administrative resources became involved over months of litigation and enforcement activity.

Meanwhile, the business owner funding the federal challenge is allegedly paying privately out of pocket.

That imbalance has become a major public narrative surrounding the case:

Can a state spend massive taxpayer resources attempting to shut down federally compliant hemp commerce while simultaneously claiming the products were “always illegal”?

And if they were always illegal — why were these businesses openly operating for years?

Those are questions federal court may eventually force the state to answer under oath.

Why This Case Could Impact Every Hemp Operator in America

The significance of this lawsuit extends far beyond Hawaiʻi.

If the State prevails:

• Other states may attempt similar “Total THC” reinterpretations

• Administrative agencies may gain broader power to reshape hemp legality without Congress

• Hemp commerce nationwide could face massive instability

If the plaintiffs prevail:

• Federal preemption arguments could strengthen nationwide

• State hemp bans may face increased constitutional scrutiny

• Hemp operators across America could gain a roadmap for litigation

That is why attorneys, regulators, cannabis operators, lawmakers, and hemp businesses across the country are quietly watching this case.

Because the ruling may influence the future structure of the entire hemp economy.

Hawaiʻi May Have Triggered a National Constitutional Fight

This is no longer just a local business dispute.

It is becoming a test of:

• federal supremacy,

• interstate commerce,

• due process,

• administrative overreach,

• and the future of federally legal hemp itself.

The irony is impossible to ignore.

Congress legalized hemp in 2018.

Now businesses are allegedly being forced to spend millions defending that legalization against the very governments that allowed the industry to exist in the first place.

That contradiction is exactly why this lawsuit matters.

And why the entire country may soon know the name:

Alyas v. Lopez

Follow the Case

Case: Alyas v. Lopez
Court: U.S. District Court, District of Hawaiʻi
Case No.: 1:26-cv-00035

#Hemp #THCA #FarmBill #2018FarmBill #HempIndustry #CannabisNews #CannabisLaw #FederalCourt #Constitution #Hawaii #Waikiki #HempBusiness #THCALegal #CannabisIndustry #HempLegalization #InterstateCommerce #FederalPreemption #CannabisPolitics #CBD #Delta8 #Delta9 #HempNews #CannabisCommunity #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneur #CivilRights #DueProcess #LegalNews #AlyasVLopez #ODP

I have said since the day I filed that what is happening to hemp in Hawaiʻi is not regulation. It is outlawing through paperwork. It is a ban dressed in technical vocabulary, engineered to deliver through bureaucracy what the State of Hawaiʻi could never deliver through legislation.

And a court in Texas just confirmed it.

The Texas Ruling

Just two days ago, a state judge in Travis County issued a temporary injunction halting the central provisions of Texas’s new hemp scheme. The “total delta-9” testing standard that quietly lumped THCA into the THC count to render compliance unattainable by design. Frozen. The punitive fee hikes. Frozen. The smokable hemp ban, the transport restrictions, the enforcement mechanisms built to throttle compliant operators into submission. All frozen.

The court ruled that Texas had likely exceeded its statutory authority. That its agencies never seriously examined the economic destruction they were about to unleash. That less burdensome alternatives were never even on the table. The whole edifice was administrative overreach with a chemistry report bolted to the front.

The judge stripped off the disguise.

The Same Script in Hawaiʻi

Anne Lopez and Ken Fink should be reading every page of that Texas record, because the script Hawaiʻi is running is the script Texas just lost.

When a state shifts the standard after businesses have built themselves around federal law, that is not regulation. That is an ambush.

When it engineers a testing methodology designed to fail, that is not science. That is rigged math.

When it deploys fees, transport restrictions, licensing pressure, and the threat of seizure to drive compliant operators out of business, that is not public health. That is coercion in technical clothing.The State of Hawaiʻi does not get to override federal law because it finds the market inconvenient. That is not opinion. That is the Supremacy Clause.

The Game Is Ending

The hemp industry in this state has been forced into a fixed conversation. Object, and you are dangerous. Comply, and the bar moves. Ask for clarity, and you get a threat. Sue, and officials act personally indignant that anyone would dare to question them.

Texas just demonstrated what happens when a court actually examines the construct. The injunction does not resolve every legal question forever, and no honest person should pretend otherwise. But it demolishes the comfortable assumption that this kind of regulatory move is obviously lawful, obviously safe, and obviously immune from real judicial challenge.

It is not. It is fragile. It is defeatable. And when a federal judge in Hawaiʻi looks at the same questions, I am highly confident the answers won’t come back differently!

I am not asking for favor. I am not asking for an exemption. I am asking the State of Hawaiʻi to follow the law.

Texas was the warning shot. Hawaiʻi is next in the crosshairs. Alyas v. Lopez is not going away. Federal law does not bow to state agencies that have outrun their authority, and neither do I!

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

I knew intuitively, before I submitted it, that most readers would likely agree with me. After all, I‘ve been on this island long enough to feel where the public actually sits on this. Not where the legislature sits. Not where the eight license holders sit. But where the person in line at Foodland sits.

So on a subconscious level, at least, I expected the response to be supportive. Yet even being aware of that didn’t prepare me for the actual impact of reading the many positive comments and being struck by the sheer force of them all.

Being The Named Plaintiff Is A Lonely Job

You spend months watching the case through pleadings and motions. You start to feel like the argument belongs to you. Like you’re the only one still holding it up. Then, dozens of strangers tell you, in their own words, that they’ve been watching the same thing and reached the same conclusion without anyone putting it in their mouth.

One commenter denounced the state’s approach harshly, comically lambasting it “cosplay enforcement.” Another fumed at the pedantic, belittling way that the people are treated by their government, as if ignorant children incapable of deciding for themselves. Another raised the valid point about how the tourism authority courts the exact demographic that shows up in every other destination market with a medical card already in their wallet. Still others pointed to a decades-old study predicting that criminalizing cannabis here would push locals toward harder drugs, and asked the question I couldn’t ask in print. If they knew the outcome, was the outcome the point.

I had been carrying those observations privately for a long time. Seeing them come back at me, from people who don’t know me and owe me nothing, did something I didn’t expect. It reminded me the argument isn’t mine. I’m just the one with standing to file it. And it reminded me that we all, at a base level, are guided by the same principles, share the same overarching values, and ultimately, share in the human experience and its finer nuances.

No one needs to be taught that mistreating others is wrong, or that unfairness is problematic. Studies show even chimpanzees and other animals react ferociously when they observe their counterparts being rewarded with additional food or benefits that are not fairly divided or connected to their independent achievements.

People Are Pragmatic. They Always Have Been.

There’s a fashionable cynicism now that says people are tribal. Misinformed. Only capable of thinking inside whatever script their team handed them. I don’t buy it. I’ve never bought it.

What I read in those comments was people reasoning from first principles. Nobody had to be persuaded that unfairness is bad. Nobody needed an economist to explain that shutting down compliant operators shifts demand to noncompliant ones. Nobody required a lecture on the difference between passing a law and reinterpreting one.

They arrived at all of it on their own. Because those aren’t ideological positions. They’re pragmatic ones. They’re what people figure out when you leave them alone long enough to think.

We’re all working from the same material at root. We want the rules to be stable. We want enforcement pointed at actual harm. We want small operators to be able to plan. We want our neighbors treated fairly and justly, just as we want for ourselves.

The Legislature Does Not Hear From These People

The gap between what the public actually believes and what the state does in the public’s name, though, is grossly mismatched and wildly disproportionate.

Shockingly, it is in fact far wider than most people realize. Legislators hear from and act due to the influence of lobbyists. They are shaped and guided by those with their own selfish interests at the core and at the forefront, such as licensed operators with paid representation, or massive entities with endless cash to burn in their quest to stomp out the small businesses and little guy.

They don’t hear often enough from the majority of constituents who don’t or can’t write, plead, or cajole their officials. Worse—far worse—they don’t care!

What Matters In The End

Ultimately, the court will resolve the legal question. Alyas v. Lopez is where that gets answered. But the broader question — what kind of state Hawaiʻi wants to be, whether small business can plan here, whether enforcement is proportional to actual harm — that one can’t be answered by a single judge because no single judge can substitute their own judgement for that of all of our own.

Those broader questions get answered by the people. People like you and I, writing articles, reading the comments under a Civil Beat op-ed, writing their own comments—deciding, sharing, and expressing whether any of this sounds right to them.

Based on what I saw and read this weekend, it most certainly doesn’t. But I’ll let you be the judge!

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

Not metaphorically. Not as a team-building exercise at some corporate retreat. I mean I stood at the open door of a Cessna at eighteen thousand feet, looked down at the green patchwork of earth below, felt the wind trying to pull the breath out of my chest — and I jumped anyway. Out of the airplane of a company that would soon claim 11 lives in a horrifying aviation accident.

People ask me what that feels like. The honest answer is that the scariest part isn't the jump. It's the moment before. It's standing at the threshold with every rational instinct screaming at you to step back, sit down, go home. The jump itself is almost a relief. Once you commit, the decision is made. All that's left is to fall well.

I think about that a lot these days.

What Risk Actually Looks Like

Real risk tolerance isn't about being reckless. It's about making a clear-eyed calculation that the cost of standing still is higher than the cost of moving forward — and then moving forward anyway, even when you can't see the landing. It requires you to look directly at the thing that could hurt you, understand it fully, and choose forward anyway. That's not bravado. That's a discipline.

When the Supply Chain Burned

Last year, a supplier we trusted betrayed that trust in the most consequential way possible — selling us products that weren't what they claimed to be, with forged documentation to cover their tracks. A customer was harmed. We ended up in federal court.

Every voice around me had the same advice: go quiet, pull back, wait for the smoke to clear. And I understood that instinct. But I kept asking the same question I always ask at the threshold — what does standing still actually cost? Folding inward wasn't protection. It was abandonment dressed up as caution.

So instead of going quiet, we sued. We fought back publicly, on the record, in federal court. We rebuilt our verification protocols from scratch and kept our doors open. The crisis didn't break us. It sharpened us.

The Threshold

We are, at our core, creatures of forward motion. Stillness is not our natural state — action is, even when action is frightening, even when the available actions are all bad ones. I don't think it's an accident that the image most seared into the collective memory of September 11th isn't the impact or the collapse — it's the jumpers. Because those people, in the most impossible moment imaginable, were still choosing. Still asserting that they would not simply be acted upon by the world. That instinct — raw, ancient, almost involuntary — is the deepest thing in us. It is what we are made of. And when everything else is stripped away, it is what remains.

The threshold is the hardest part. Not the fall. Not the landing. The moment of decision — when you can still turn back, when turning back would be completely understandable — that's where character is actually formed. Every time you turn back, the hesitation becomes a habit. The habit becomes an identity.

I decided a long time ago — standing at a literal open door at eighteen thousand feet — that wasn't going to be my identity.

That same decision is why we now have an active federal lawsuit against the State of Hawaii. The state has moved to regulate our business out of existence — not because we have harmed anyone, but because we have succeeded where their system has failed. We could have accepted that quietly. We could have thrown in the towel like so many others, decided to take the safe route and forget our our kiosks, and otherwise roll over and let the machinery of government trample over us unopposed. That was the cautious choice. That was the reasonable choice. But it was never going to be our choice.

The question is never whether the risk is real. It always is. The question is whether the cost of not jumping is higher than the cost of jumping. In my experience — from that Cessna door to a federal courtroom — the answer has almost always been yes.

So I jump.

Lance Alyas,

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

A man had walked up to one of our kiosks visibly intoxicated—slurring his words, unsteady on his feet. My employee, who had been with us for maybe two months at that point, looked at him, said we couldn’t serve him, and suggested he come back another time. He left without incident.

When I heard the story later that afternoon, I had one question: did my employee feel supported in making that call?

The answer was yes. That’s when I knew my training methodologies were working.

Most retail operations centralize decision-making authority because managers don’t trust employees to exercise good judgment. The result is an environment where every edge case requires managerial approval, which quietly trains employees to avoid responsibility and gradually erodes their ability to read situations independently. I took the opposite approach. From day one, every person working one of our kiosks has unconditional authority to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, without explanation or approval. We never refuse service unless the customer is trying to cause some sort of problem or is too intoxicated.

The logic is simple. The person standing at the kiosk is the one interacting directly with the customer. They see body language, tone, timing, and context—all the micro-signals that determine whether a transaction should happen. I’m not always there to read the situation. Requiring employees to ask permission doesn’t add oversight or improve outcomes; it adds delay, creates inefficiency, undermines their authority, and—perhaps worst of all—teaches them that their judgment doesn’t matter.

This approach requires hiring differently. I don’t only hire for product knowledge or retail experience. I hire for judgment. During interviews, I ask how candidates have handled conflict, how they read people, and what they do when they feel uncomfortable. You can teach someone most of what they need to know about products and industry rules in a week or two. But attitudes, instincts, and situational awareness are shaped over an entire lifetime. You can’t reliably teach the willingness to say no under pressure.

In another case, an employee refused service to someone who became verbally aggressive after being told no. The situation escalated briefly. Threats were made. A small crowd formed. My employee stayed calm, didn’t engage, and didn’t back down. Her clear authority to make that decision unilaterally is what allowed the situation to de-escalate.

The common argument against this kind of policy is that it leaves money on the table. In the narrowest sense, that’s true. But strategically—and ethically—it’s wrong. The cost of serving the wrong person once, whether through liability, reputational damage, or harm to people involved, far exceeds the cumulative revenue from dozens of refused transactions. More importantly, employees who feel trusted perform better and stay longer. Turnover in this industry is brutal. Anything that improves retention pays for itself many times over.

What I’ve learned is that distributed authority produces better outcomes than centralized control—but only if the authority is real. You can’t give people nominal power while quietly signaling that you’ll question their decisions later. Autonomy has to be unconditional, or it doesn’t work.

My team doesn’t need my permission to refuse service because they aren’t extensions of my judgment. They’re independent operators with authority that is genuinely theirs, not borrowed.

And that makes us better at what we do.

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

As I navigated the complex and ever-evolving world of hemp retail, I realized that success isn’t about square footage; it’s about strategy, efficiency, and building meaningful relationships with customers. Our “Little Green Kiosk” model was born out of necessity and curiosity. What if we could create a retail experience that was both intimate and engaging, one that would allow us to connect with customers on a deeper level?

The Birth of a New Retail Paradigm

Our kiosks are designed to be efficient and streamlined, with a focus on showcasing our products in a unique and compelling way. We’re not just selling hemp; we’re curating an experience. Every detail, from the layout of our displays to the scent of our products, is carefully considered to create an immersive experience that draws customers in and keeps them coming back.

One of the biggest advantages of our kiosk model is the lower overhead costs. With a smaller footprint, we save on rent, utilities, and staffing costs. This allows us to invest in high-quality products, employee training, and customer experience. In an industry where profit margins can be thin, every dollar counts. By keeping our costs low, we can maintain healthy profit margins and invest in the business.

The Power of High Foot Traffic

Our kiosks are strategically located in high-traffic areas of Waikiki, ensuring that we get maximum visibility and foot traffic. This is especially important in the hemp industry, where word-of-mouth and in-person experiences are crucial. By being in the right location, we can reach a large and diverse customer base, from tourists to locals.

I’ve seen firsthand how our kiosks can stop people in their tracks. A customer will be walking down the street, and they’ll catch a glimpse of our bright green branding or the enticing aroma of our products. Suddenly, they’re curious, and they’re drawn in. It’s like a mini-experience, right on the street.

Agility in Action

Small kiosks are inherently more agile than large storefronts. We can quickly adjust our product offerings, pricing, and promotions in response to changing market conditions. This flexibility allows us to stay ahead of the competition and adapt to the rapidly evolving hemp industry. Whether it’s a new product launch or a limited-time promotion, we can pivot quickly and make changes on the fly.

This agility has been particularly valuable in the hemp industry, where regulations and consumer preferences are constantly changing. By being nimble and responsive, we can stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on emerging trends.

Curating a Product Line that Delights

Although with limited space compared to traditional storefronts, we actually offer a much larger selection than virtually all other retailers in the state. Every inch of space is optimized, and we’ve managed to bring in brands that were never available in Hawai‘i before—names like Jeeter, Cookies, Litto, and other major California heavyweights that customers once had to travel or order online to find.

That mix of exclusivity and accessibility gives our kiosks the feeling of discovery. Our customers appreciate that we take the time to understand their preferences while constantly refreshing the lineup to keep things exciting. We’re not just transactional; we’re relational—and that’s why they keep coming back.

The Human Touch

One of the most rewarding aspects of our kiosk model is the human connection we make with our customers. We’re not just a faceless corporation; we’re a small, local business that genuinely cares. Our team is made up of locals with real island character—each with their own eccentric charm that reflects the community we serve. Beyond business, we actively give back through beach cleanups, native tree plantings, healing blind people, and collaborations with other local entrepreneurs. Supporting Hawai‘i’s small business ecosystem isn’t just a slogan for us—it’s part of who we are. We take the time to listen, to recommend, and to connect, and that authenticity is what transforms a quick sale into a lasting relationship.

The Future of Hemp Retail

As the hemp industry continues to evolve, I’m confident that our kiosk model will remain a winning strategy. We’re not just building a business; we’re building a brand and a lifestyle. And with our kiosk advantage, we’re well-positioned to succeed in the years to come.

In conclusion, our kiosk model has been a game-changer for our business. By embracing small retail, we’ve created a lean, agile, and customer-focused business that thrives in a competitive market. If you’re looking for a unique and effective way to retail hemp, I highly recommend giving the kiosk model a try. It might just be the best decision you ever make.

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

People think running a hemp business is about botany or legal loopholes. They’re wrong. It’s about retail fundamentals, and I learned them not in a boardroom, but on the front lines of Waikiki. Operating four small kiosks taught me more about business than any MBA ever could.

The single best decision I made was choosing four small footprints over one large store. Conventional wisdom said to build a destination dispensary. But tourists don’t plan hemp purchases; they make them on impulse. A single store can only capture one stream of foot traffic, while four strategic kiosks intercept customers throughout their day in multiple streams across different locations. The math of rent is equally compelling—four small locations cost less in total than one prime storefront, while diversifying my risk. If one spot has a slow day, the others compensate.

Success in tourist retail means becoming a student of human movement. I learned to read the rhythms of Waikiki: the morning rush to the beach, the exploratory late-morning wanderers, the evening crowds heading to dinner. I didn’t just look for the busiest streets; I looked for the decision points—where paths converge and tourists pause, deciding what to do next. That moment of hesitation is where a sale is won.

Building a team in Hawaii’s impossible labor market meant rethinking hiring. I stopped prioritizing hemp expertise and started hiring for attitude—genuine friendliness, reliability, and what I call “situational awareness.” You can teach someone about cannabinoids in a week; you can’t teach them to be punctual or perceptive. To keep them, I pay above market rate, treat scheduling with religious seriousness, and acknowledge that my employees have complex lives in a state with a punishing cost of living.

Our customer relationships are built in three-minute transactions. In that brief window, every second counts. We greet with immediate warmth, listen before we prescribe, and translate industry jargon into plain language. We empower customers to make their own choices rather than pushing products. This isn’t just customer service; it’s building trust in an industry where many customers are nervous. Our clean, professional kiosks and transparent policies reinforce that we have nothing to hide.

The mental challenge of operating in regulatory limbo is constant. I’ve learned to compartmentalize—to be fully present with customers and staff without letting the underlying anxiety show. I celebrate small wins explicitly to counter the weight of uncertainty, and I focus my energy on what I can control: how we treat people, how we manage inventory, and the quality of our service.

These lessons transcend hemp. They are about the universal fundamentals of retail: location must match your model, hire for character and train for skill, and trust is the ultimate competitive advantage. Cleanliness, staff presentation, and how you handle a complaint might seem like small details, but they compound into the single biggest factor in whether a business thrives or fails. No matter what happens with regulations, the capabilities forged in this pressure cooker are mine forever. And that is something no one can take away from me.

Lance Alyas
Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

That number has never changed. Not once. Not in the entire recorded history of cannabis and hemp in the United States has a single person died of a cannabinoid overdose. Not an adult. Not a teenager. Not a child. Zero fatalities. The number is not disputed. It is not a talking point. It is a medical and toxicological fact that no serious researcher anywhere on earth has successfully challenged.

Now let me give you the numbers that Anne Lopez, Kenneth Fink, and the rest of Hawai’i’s regulatory apparatus would prefer you never read in the same sentence as their names.

The Numbers They Bury

The CDC reported that last year alone, 4,000 Americans under 21 died from alcohol poisoning. Not accidents. Not drunk driving. The substance itself killed them. Here in Hawai’i, the Prevention Resource Center documented 600 alcohol-related deaths in a single year. Twelve were under 21. Twelve children dead from a substance sold at every grocery store, every resort minibar, every gas station within walking distance of every school on every island in this state.

I say this not as a statistic. I say it as someone who lost a family member to alcohol. I know what that grief does to a family. God bless everyone carrying that weight. I carry some of it myself.

But I also know exactly what a smokescreen looks like. And I know who is paid to generate it.

Follow the Money

When Anne Lopez mobilizes her office against federally compliant hemp retailers, ask yourself who benefits. When Kenneth Fink advances regulations designed to eliminate every hemp operator in this state, ask yourself who drafted them and whose attorneys were in the room. When legislators invoke the safety of children to justify criminalizing a product that has killed precisely nobody, ask yourself who is funding their campaigns and hosting their fundraisers.

The answer is not complicated. Hawai’i’s licensed medical cannabis dispensaries paid millions for state-protected monopoly licenses designed from inception to prevent competition. Eight licenses. The entire state. A closed market maintained by legislative capture so brazen it would embarrass a first-year political science student. When that wall is threatened by small, federally compliant hemp operators, these businesses do not compete or innovate. They make phone calls. They write checks. And then, with remarkable efficiency, the Attorney General and the Department of Health discover an urgent public health crisis that nobody noticed until it started costing the monopoly market share.

That is not governance. That is a protection racket with a state seal on the letterhead.

“Protecting the Children”

When officials invoke child safety to justify this campaign, they are not making a public health argument. A public health argument requires data. And the data does not support a single element of their position. Cannabis and hemp have killed zero people. Zero children. Zero adults. The number has never moved.

Meanwhile the substance they license and sell in every tourist corridor on this island killed 600 people in Hawai’i in a single year. Twelve were under 21. And no narcotics division ran undercover operations into Waikīkī bars. No Attorney General held a press conference about the epidemic killing children with the product that generates hundreds of millions in tax revenue and employs the donors.

Instead they came for the hemp kiosks. The businesses with zero documented overdose deaths in the entire history of the product’s existence.

If Attorney General Anne Lopez or Department of Health Director Kenneth Fink can produce a single peer-reviewed study, a single coroner’s report, a single documented fatality attributable to hemp — I will adjust my position accordingly and issue a public apology to them!

That offer stands. It has never been accepted, though, and surely won’t ever be because they can’t produce a document that does not exist. They can’t point to a crisis that does not exist. What exists is a monopoly losing money and officials paid to protect it.

What Actually Protects Children

Real child protection looks like mandatory consumer education, child-resistant packaging enforced uniformly, a properly funded poison control infrastructure, and honest science-based labeling. That framework I support without reservation. That conversation I will have with any lawmaker or parent in this state who wants to have it with the actual numbers on the table and the lobbyist checks disclosed.

What I will never accept is criminalizing businesses that the data has never implicated in a single death, while the actual killing continues at 600 per year and nobody on Beretania Street loses a moment of sleep.

Zero is still zero.

The only question left is whether the people running this state are too corrupt to say it out loud — or simply too compromised to care!

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

360.

Not degrees. Deaths. That’s right, 360 deaths. That is how many people died of drug overdoses in Hawai’i in 2024.

Three hundred and sixty people on these islands in a single year — a 43% increase since 2021. Methamphetamine killed 275 of them. A 50% single-year surge. Eleven people under 21 died of drug overdoses in 2023, most of them killed not by meth but by counterfeit prescription pills pressed with fentanyl — fake Xanax, fake Adderall, fake Percocet — that look identical to legitimate medication and can be lethal in a single dose.

Cannabis and hemp? Zero. Z. E. R. O. The number has never moved.

The Crisis That Doesn’t Fit the Narrative

When state officials invoke public health as justification for their enforcement priorities, those words carry an implicit promise — that the machinery of government is aimed at actual threats, in proportion to actual harm. That the resources follow the bodies.

In Hawai’i in 2024, the bodies were with methamphetamine. Two hundred and seventy-five of them. A 50% single-year surge that should have triggered emergency sessions, crisis funding, and full mobilization of every public health dollar in this state.

Instead, Kenneth Fink’s Department of Health advanced regulations targeting hemp retailers. Anne Lopez’s office pursued enforcement actions against businesses selling a product with a death count of zero. The legislature found urgency to close the hemp loophole while the meth loophole — the one that swallowed 275 people last year — remains wide open.

This is not a resource allocation question. It is a values question. And the values on display are not the ones these officials campaign on!

The Children They Should Actually Be Protecting

Every parent in this state should understand what is actually threatening their child. It is not a hemp kiosk. It is a counterfeit pill that looks exactly like a legitimate prescription, costs less than a movie ticket, and can stop a heart before anyone reaches a phone. That is the emergency. That is where the press conferences should be.

The fact that they aren’t tells you everything about what is actually driving enforcement priorities in this state!

What Zero Means

Zero does not mean hemp is without risk or that no regulation is warranted. But it does unequivocally mean that in the entire documented history of cannabis and hemp in the United States, no coroner has ever listed either as a cause of death. Not once. Meanwhile Hawai’i’s drug-related emergency department visits increased 36% between 2021 and 2023. Pediatric and adolescent admissions rose sharply, driven almost entirely by synthetic opioid exposure. NOT ONE of those cases involved hemp!

Real child protection looks like aggressive interdiction of the fentanyl supply chain pressing counterfeit pills into teenage social networks. It looks like treatment infrastructure that can absorb a 36% surge without turning people away. It looks like a Department of Health that wakes up every morning with meth and fentanyl at the top of its list and doesn’t move on until those numbers stop climbing.

That is the conversation I will have with any official in this state willing to have it honestly, with the actual mortality data on the table.

Zero is still zero. Three hundred and sixty is not.

The difference between those two numbers is where the priorities of this state should live.

Right now, they don’t!

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

There’s a deal every citizen is supposed to have with the government. Nobody signs it. It’s not on any website. But we all understand its terms: we give up certain freedoms in exchange for order, and in return the state operates within boundaries that are visible, accountable, and fair. That’s the contract. And in Hawai’i, it is broken so routinely that most people have stopped noticing.

I notice. I notice because I’ve been on the wrong end of it.

Four Hundred Pages of Nothing

Over four hundred pages of police reports were generated about me and my business. What those documents revealed was striking — not for what they said, but for what they refused to say. Roughly half were redacted. Entire sections blacked out. Full pages with nothing visible except a header and a footer, as if someone wanted me to know a page existed but not a single word of what was on it. Surveillance plans. Operational details. Names. Methods. All hidden behind a wall of ink paid for by the taxpayers of this state, about an investigation funded by the taxpayers of this state, targeting a business that operates openly on the streets of Waikīkī. Although I’m a supporter and a friend of many of our police officers, this is extremely shady and wrong. I know this isn’t totally their fault. They’re forced to follow orders of the corrupt.

This was not a cartel investigation. Nobody was cooking fentanyl. Nobody was trafficking people. This was about hemp — a plant that is legal under federal law, sold in retail stores across every state in this country. The full machinery of a Honolulu narcotics division was deployed against it. Undercover officers. Surveillance teams. Forensic lab work. Search warrants. A circuit court judge’s time.

When the dust settled, no prosecution was pursued. The charges were declined or closed. The State of Hawai’i spent what is conservatively and cautiously estimated by legal experts to be a whopping $126,000 of taxpayer money on me to produce absolutely NOTHING! Even more nauseating, they redacted half the record so nobody could see how the nothing was produced!

That’s the part that should concern every resident of this state. Not just the waste — the asymmetry. Rules for thee but not for me attitude.

What They Demand of You

Think about what the government demands when it decides you’re interesting. Think about what it demands of every legitimate, sincere, honest hemp retailer, in fact! It demands your name. Your address. Your phone number. Your social security number. Your employer. Your vehicle registration. Your height, weight, eye color. Your text messages. Your fingerprints. They photograph you. They want to know what’s in your pockets, your car, your backpack.

Now try asking Hawai’i’s government the same questions in return. Or Attorney General Anne Lopez. Or our Department of Health Director Kenneth Fink.

Try asking what some of the officers of the Honolulu Police Department itself was smoking when it decided on planning this operation, deploying all these officers, wasting $126,000 of taxpayer funds, and more! Ask them why such a lengthy investigation was allowed to continue when the underlying product was federally legal! It was only closed immediately after we filed the FOIA!

Ask, and you shall receive—a stack of paper replete with black bars instead of answers!

The Double Standard Every Business Owner Knows

Every business owner in Hawai’i understands this on a gut level. The state demands radical transparency from you — tax returns, employee records, compliance filings, product testing results, insurance certificates, zoning applications, building permits, fire inspections. If a single form is late, a single certificate expired, a single inspection missed, the consequences are immediate and severe.

But turn the lens around and ask the State of Hawai’i to account for its own actions with the same granularity? Suddenly there are exemptions. Redactions. Timelines that stretch from days to years. That asymmetry is not accidental. It is the architecture. Built this way on purpose. To lie, deceive, control and manipulate is their goal.

If I ran a single one of my locations the way the government runs all of its own, I’d be out of business overnight! And that is why I will never accept the premise that the State of Hawai’i has a right to know everything about me while I have no right to know what it did with my tax dollars and my name.

That’s not security. That’s not order. That’s a one-way mirror.

And it’s time someone finally turned the damn lights on before it’s too late!

Lance Alyas

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

For months, the State of Hawaiʻi has claimed its crackdown on federally legal hemp was about public health, consumer safety, and protecting residents.

That narrative just collapsed — in the State’s own federal court filing.

Three government lawyers.

Thirty-three pages.

Zero documented instances of harm from hemp in Hawaiʻi.

And on Page 29 of yesterday’s filing (ECF #27 on the docket) the State accidentally told the truth.

The Admission That Changes Everything

Buried in a legislative committee report cited by the State itself, lawmakers explained why hemp needed to be shut down. Not because people were getting hurt. Not because products were unsafe.

But because hemp businesses were:

“significantly impacting the regulated medical cannabis industry in the State.”

That is a direct quote from the Legislature’s findings, cited as part of the State’s defense in federal court.

Read that again.

Hemp wasn’t criminalized because it was dangerous.

It was criminalized because it was competitive.

Let’s Be Clear About What This Means

According to the State’s own filing:

    •    Hemp businesses were operating legally under federal law

    •    Consumers were choosing hemp products voluntarily

    •    No evidence of public harm was presented

Yet lawmakers concluded enforcement was necessary because hemp was cutting into the profits of state-licensed medical cannabis operators.

That is not public health policy.

That is economic protectionism.

From Law-Abiding Businesses to Criminals Overnight

As a result of this policy choice:

    •    Small, local hemp businesses were suddenly treated like criminals

    •    Mom-and-pop shops faced raids, seizures, and shutdowns

    •    Entrepreneurs who followed federal law were thrown into legal chaos

At the same time, Hawaiʻi taxpayers are now funding a prolonged federal legal battle — paying government attorneys, staff time, and enforcement costs — to defend a law whose own justification admits it was designed to protect a monopoly.

This lawsuit has not been cheap for anyone involved. And it didn’t have to exist at all.

This Was Never About Safety

If this were about safety, the State would have shown:

    •    Documented injuries

    •    Poison control spikes

    •    Hospitalizations

    •    Consumer harm

It showed none of that.

Instead, it showed concern about market impact.

That distinction matters — legally, constitutionally, and morally.

Governments are not allowed to criminalize lawful commerce simply to shield favored industries from competition.

Read the Receipts Yourself

This isn’t speculation.

It isn’t rhetoric.

It’s in the record.

Federal Case No. 1:26-cv-00035

See Page 29 of the State’s own filing (ECF #27).

The words are theirs.

This Fight Isn’t Over

This case is still active. The implications go far beyond hemp, cannabis, or Hawaiʻi. If a state can openly admit it criminalized a lawful industry to protect another industry’s profits — and get away with it — then no small business is truly safe.

Sunlight matters. Accountability matters.

And this story deserves to be seen before it gets buried.

Onward we go. ⚔️

The American hemp industry is facing one of its most consequential legal moments since the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill.

Right now, I’m in active federal litigation in Hawaiʻi, challenging the State’s regulatory interpretation that conflicts with federal hemp law. That interpretation did not go unchallenged. As a result of this litigation, Hawaiʻi is currently in a grace period, with enforcement effectively paused while the courts examine fundamental legal and constitutional questions.

The State understands what’s at stake. Premature enforcement—before constitutional clarity—would expose significant legal vulnerabilities in its position.

But this fight doesn’t stop at Hawaiʻi’s shoreline.

The Federal Provision Explained

At the federal level, a government-funding bill signed by President Trump included a provision that would fundamentally alter the regulatory treatment of intoxicating hemp products nationwide. That provision has sent shockwaves through the hemp and cannabinoid markets, threatening businesses that have operated in federal compliance for years.

This isn’t a marginal issue. It directly impacts hemp-derived THC products, intoxicating hemp cannabinoids, retail hemp stores, manufacturers, distributors, farmers, and interstate commerce protected under the Farm Bill framework.

And now, that federal provision is being openly challenged.

Congressional Opposition to the Federal Provision

The pushback against the federal hemp provision is being led by Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who has emerged as the most vocal opponent of the intoxicating-hemp restriction inserted into federal spending legislation.

She is not alone. Working alongside her are Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Thomas Massie, Rand Paul, and Jim Baird. Together, they are actively working to reverse the federal intoxicating-hemp provision, restore regulatory consistency with the Farm Bill, and protect lawful hemp commerce nationwide.

This bipartisan alignment matters. It signals that the hemp issue is no longer peripheral—it’s squarely on Congress’s radar and receiving serious legislative attention.

Why Hawaiʻi Matters in the National Hemp Legal Landscape

Hawaiʻi’s regulatory interpretation mirrors the same legal vulnerabilities now being exposed at the federal level: conflicts with established federal hemp law, Commerce Clause concerns, due process questions, and regulatory action that potentially exceeds statutory authority.

That’s why Hawaiʻi has paused. And that’s why the outcome here matters far beyond one state.

When a jurisdiction attempts to move faster than constitutional limits allow, it risks losing far more than a single enforcement action—it risks creating precedent that undermines its entire regulatory position.

Pressure Is Building on Both Fronts

Pressure is now mounting at both levels:

At the state level, Hawaiʻi’s enforcement posture is constrained by active federal litigation and unresolved constitutional questions. At the federal level, members of Congress are moving to unwind a provision that threatens a multi-billion-dollar industry built on Farm Bill compliance.

This convergence isn’t accidental. It’s the natural result of regulatory interpretations being pushed beyond their constitutional limits.

The Future of the American Hemp Industry

I’m confident in the constitutional framework that governs this issue. Federal hemp law established clear standards. The Supremacy Clause protects those standards from conflicting state restriction.

And when Congress acts to protect the industry it explicitly authorized, that legislative intent matters.

To everyone in the hemp industry—retailers, farmers, manufacturers, and consumers—this moment is significant. The legal principles at stake extend far beyond any single case or jurisdiction. They determine whether federal law means what it says and whether constitutional protections have practical force.

Stay informed. Stay engaged. And understand that the fight to defend lawful commerce under federal statute is being waged on multiple fronts—with real stakes and real consequences.

This is about more than hemp. It’s about whether federal authorization means anything at all.

“This is not the first time these plaintiffs have filed this complaint. The department of the attorney general prevailed in the prior case.”

That’s not just misleading. It’s a flat lie!

What Actually Happened

Yes, we filed a previous case. The judge dismissed it—but not because the state “prevailed.” The judge dismissed it without prejudice specifically so we could refile with more precision about how the state’s definition and enforcement scheme violates federal law.

Here’s what the Attorney General’s office conveniently forgot to mention: They asked the judge to dismiss our case WITH prejudice—meaning we could never refile it. The judge refused. Instead, the court dismissed the case without prejudice, explicitly allowing us to come back with a more focused complaint.

That’s not vindication. That’s the opposite.

The court gave us a roadmap. We followed it. We filed a stronger, more precise complaint that directly addresses the constitutional problems with Hawaii’s approach.

Why This Matters

When government lawyers misrepresent court outcomes to the press, it’s not just bad form—it erodes public trust.

The Attorney General’s office knows the difference between dismissal with prejudice and without prejudice. They know what it means when a court refuses their request to bar refiling. They know that “prevailed” suggests they won on the merits, when in reality the court simply asked us to be more specific.

They said it anyway.

The Real Story

Our original complaint raised legitimate constitutional questions. The court didn’t reject those questions—it asked us to sharpen them.

So we did.

The new complaint is more detailed, more precise, and more focused on exactly how Hawaii’s post-decarboxylation testing standard conflicts with federal law, exceeds statutory authority, burdens interstate commerce, and denies due process.

We clarified how the state converts THCA into delta-9 THC through administrative formulas not found in statute. We detailed how Act 269 escalated from administrative regulation to criminal enforcement. We explained how the seizure and forfeiture provisions operate without adequate pre-deprivation process.

That’s not refiling the same case. That’s doing exactly what the court invited us to do.

What “Prevailed” Actually Means

In legal terms, prevailing means winning on the merits. It means the court agreed with your argument and rejected the other side’s claims.

That didn’t happen.

What happened is procedural housekeeping. The court gave us an opportunity to clarify our claims, and we took it.

If the Attorney General’s office actually believed they “prevailed,” they wouldn’t have asked the judge to dismiss with prejudice. You only ask for that when you’re worried the other side will come back stronger.

We did.

Moving Forward

I’m not interested in a media fight with the state. I’m interested in constitutional questions being answered correctly.

But when the Attorney General’s office distorts the record to make it sound like they already won a case they haven’t even answered yet, someone needs to set it straight.

We’re not refiling because we’re stubborn. We’re refiling because the court told us to clarify our claims and come back.

We clarified them. We came back.

Now let’s see if the state can defend criminalizing federally legal conduct on the merits—instead of through press statements that misrepresent what actually happened in court!

The Simple Version

In 2018, Congress legalized hemp. The definition was crystal clear: cannabis with no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC is hemp, not marijuana. Period.

Hawaii initially agreed. The state even declared hemp “a high-value crop with the potential to bring significant and diverse revenues to Hawaii, with more than fifty thousand recognized uses.”

We built our businesses on that foundation. So did countless others across the islands.

Then Hawaii changed the rules—and made what Congress legalized criminal again.

How It Happened

In 2020, Hawaii slipped new language into its hemp definition that allowed regulators to use “post-decarboxylation” testing. That technical term hides a massive shift: the state now converts THCA—a non-intoxicating compound found naturally in raw hemp—into delta-9 THC using a mathematical formula.

Products that are unquestionably legal under federal law suddenly became questionable under state law.

This year, it got worse. Much worse.

Act 269, effective January 1st, didn’t just create paperwork—it created crimes. Selling federally legal hemp that fails Hawaii’s unique testing standard is now a misdemeanor. Second offense? Felony.

The law also authorizes immediate seizure and destruction of inventory. No hearing. No chance to defend yourself. The statute explicitly relieves the state of any responsibility for seized products—meaning they can destroy everything before you ever see a judge.

What’s Really At Stake

This isn’t about regulatory compliance. We support reasonable oversight, proper testing, accurate labeling. This is about whether states can simply re-criminalize what Congress deliberately legalized.

If Hawaii can do this, what stops every other state from inventing their own testing standards? What happens to the uniform national market Congress created? How does any business operate when a product can be legal in 49 states but criminal in one?

The answer is: they can’t!

The Constitutional Problem

Our lawsuit asks four straightforward questions:

1. Can a state make criminal what Congress made legal? No—that’s what the Supremacy Clause prevents!

2. Can bureaucrats exceed their authority and create new crimes through administrative rules? The legislature authorized testing protocols, not redefinitions of hemp through conversion formulas.

3. Can a state shut down interstate commerce by imposing unique standards found nowhere else? Not when it destroys the national market Congress deliberately created.

4. Can the government seize and destroy your property without a hearing? The Constitution says you get due process before deprivation, not after your business is already gone.

What We’re Actually Asking For

We’re not trying to dismantle Hawaii’s hemp program. We’re asking for something remarkably modest:

Stop treating federally legal products as illegal. Stop seizing and destroying property without due process.

That’s it. Inspect us. Regulate us. Hold us to high standards. Just don’t criminalize federal law!

Why This Fight Matters

Someone had to draw the line.

The hemp industry has worked hard to operate responsibly. We’ve advocated for smart regulations. We’ve supported testing and labeling requirements. We’ve been willing partners in building a legitimate market.

But we cannot—and will not—accept a system where doing everything right under federal law still results in criminal prosecution and business destruction under state law.

What Happens Next

We’ve filed for a preliminary injunction to pause enforcement while the case proceeds. The court will hear arguments, review evidence, and decide whether Hawaii’s approach violates the Constitution.

Whatever happens, I’m proud we’re taking this stand. Not just for our businesses, but for every hemp operator in Hawaii and every small business owner who’s ever wondered: what happens when state law and federal law collide?

Well….we’re about to find out!

Lance Alyas,

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

There’s a difference between showing up and showing up with something to say. This weekend, Oahu Dispensary and Provisions is doing the latter.

The hemp landscape in Hawaii is shifting fast. New laws aren’t abstractions or fine print—they’re the boundaries that will determine who gets to operate, who survives, and how this industry serves the community going forward.

For those of us who have built businesses around federally compliant hemp, these aren’t hypothetical debates. They’re existential ones.

That reality is why we’re not just walking the floor at the 9th Annual Hawaii Cannabis Expo. We’re taking the stage.

I’m proud to announce that Aaron Nichols, our Head of Marketing and Brand Development, will be representing ODP on one of the weekend’s most consequential panels. Aaron brings over 17 years of experience scaling brands in highly regulated industries—work that’s earned him recognition precisely because he knows how to navigate red tape without losing sight of the mission. On Saturday, he’s bringing that perspective to the Blaisdell.

The Panel: Hemp & Cannabis—New Laws and the Emerging 2026 Agenda

Saturday, January 31st, 3:00–4:30 PM, Hawaii Suites (1st Floor)

This isn’t an introductory seminar. It’s a working session on where hemp regulation stands, what’s coming, and what it means for everyone with a stake in this plant. Aaron will be joined by a lineup that reflects the breadth of voices this conversation requires: Nikos Leverenz, President of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawai’i, moderating; Aaron Zeeman, founder of Big Island Genetics and author of The Hemp Ritual Handbook, representing the legacy cultivator perspective; and Rob Bramlett of Rare Cannabinoid Company, bringing the science and education side.

They’ll be dissecting the specific regulations affecting hemp operators right now and mapping the agenda for the rest of the year.

The session closes with a Q&A—your opportunity to put questions directly to people who are actually in the trenches, not just commenting from the sidelines.

Whether you’re a hemp retailer, a cultivator, an advocate, or simply someone who believes this plant deserves a smarter regulatory framework than what we’ve seen so far, this is a session worth attending.

The future of hemp in Hawaii isn’t going to be handed to us. It’s going to be built by the people who show up and engage.

We intend to be part of that building. We hope you’ll join us!

Thanks to committed citizens and upright, honest individuals, the internal emails from the Department of Health (DOH), have now let me know what they were saying behind my back.

Instead of addressing the economic crisis they created, DOH leadership—from Program Managers to Directors—spent their time drafting “correction letters” to the media to discredit me. Their narrative? That our products have “never been legal” and that essentially, I and all other hemp retailers have no right to complain because our business was supposedly built on non-compliance. 

This is gaslighting, pure and simple. And we need to call it out.

1. The “Passive Permission” Trap

The DOH claims in their internal emails that hemp flower, pre-rolls, and vapes were “prohibited prior to Act 269”. 

If these products were always illegal, why did the state allow us to open storefronts on main streets in Waikiki? Why did they issue us business licenses? Why did they happily collect our General Excise Tax (GET) payments for years on these exact products?

They watched us build an industry. They profited from it. And now that they have decided to change the enforcement game, they are rewriting history to pretend we were “rogue actors” the entire time.

They permitted a market to flourish through their own inaction, and now they are using that inaction to paint us as criminals.

2. The “Total THC” Bait-and-Switch

The DOH argues that Hawaii has “long defined hemp using a ‘total THC’ standard” and that Act 269 changes nothing. 

This is a deliberate distortion of reality. We built our businesses based on the 2018 Federal Farm Bill, which legalized hemp containing less than 0.3% Delta-9 THC. The DOH knows this. By enforcing their own restrictive “Total THC” calculation (adding THCA + Delta-9), they are effectively re-criminalizing products that are federally legal.

This is in fact exactly what I’m suing them for!

They let us operate under the federal standard for years. Now, they are retroactively enforcing a state technicality to wipe us out, claiming they are just “clarifying” the rules. 

3. “Clarification” vs. Criminalization

In their emails to reporters, DOH officials repeatedly insist that Act 269 “does not change [the] legal status” of these products, but simply “clarifies registration and enforcement requirements”. 

Let’s be clear: A law that introduces felony charges, product seizures, and nuisance closures is not a “clarification.” It is an ambush.

Calling this a “clarification” is a PR tactic designed to hide the truth: The state is moving the goalposts and arming themselves with new weapons to prosecute business owners who operated in good faith.

The Truth They Won’t Admit

The DOH’s strategy is clear. They want to delegitimize us. They want the public to believe that we didn’t lose our businesses—they want you to believe we never had valid businesses to begin with.

They are attacking our credibility to avoid taking responsibility for the confusion they created and the livelihoods they are destroying.

We operated openly. We followed the federal Farm Bill. We served our community. We will not let the DOH rewrite history to cover up their own regulatory failures.

Lance Alyas,

Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

Hawaiians and Chaldeans both come from ancient, land-centered civilizations. Hawaiʻi was a sovereign kingdom with international recognition, its own governance, diplomacy, and economic systems long before annexation. They even had electricity in ʻIolani Palace before the White House did! Chaldeans trace their roots to Mesopotamia, to Babylon—one of the earliest cradles of human civilization. Both cultures were deeply spiritual, family-oriented, and rooted in stewardship rather than conquest. Both existed in regions of enormous strategic and economic value. Babylon sat at the center of some of the most important global trade routes. Hawaiʻi stands as an island of sheer willpower — the heartbeat of the Pacific. Both are extraordinarily rich societies, not merely in resources, but in culture, continuity, and identity.

That richness in both attracted their shares of outside global interests. History shows what tends to follow.

Hawaiʻi was taken through political overthrow, economic coercion, and forced annexation. Queen Liliʻuokalani, fully aware of the imbalance of power, made an important decision that spared her people from mass slaughter. Many Hawaiians were forced to assimilate, but the people survived. The culture endured. The land remained. The language—though deliberately suppressed—is now being reclaimed. Sovereignty movements still exist because there is still a homeland to fight for and still a people capable of resisting total erasure.

My people, the Chaldeans, were not afforded that outcome.

Our homeland was not occupied—it was destroyed. Cities that stood for thousands of years were reduced to rubble. Entire communities were slaughtered, displaced, and scattered across the world. Today, there is no homeland to return to. There is no Babylon to reclaim. Our language—Aramaic, the language Christ spoke—is dying, unlike ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi which is being revitalized. By every measurable standard, Chaldeans lost more. Acknowledging that reality does not diminish Hawaiian suffering. It clarifies how close Hawaiʻi itself came to total erasure.

As my public profile grows, I want to be clear about why this history matters to me. I am not here to leave damage behind. I recognize Hawaiʻi’s past precisely because I come from a people shaped by the same forces—foreign intervention, broken promises, and imperialism. The awareness of our similarities imposes my obligation to Hawaiʻi. Respect for the land. Respect for the people. Respect for a history that did not begin with American arrival.

This is not an anti-American argument. It is a critique of government power when it subordinates self-determination to strategic control and economic gain. You can love this country and still acknowledge where it violated its own principles. You can be proud to be American and still recognize that annexation without consent—here or anywhere—was wrong. That distinction is not academic in Hawaiʻi. It is lived reality.

If I defend federal law today, it is because I have seen what happens when governments decide the law no longer matters. When legality becomes optional, the strong take what they want and the vulnerable lose everything. Federal law was ignored in 1893 when Hawaiʻi was taken. It was ignored again when my homeland was invaded then abandoned to chaos. Defending law—however imperfect—is often the only barrier communities have against unchecked power.

Despite everything, Hawaiians and Chaldeans share something rare: cultures built on care rather than conquest, stewardship rather than exploitation. Both value elders as living memory. Both understand identity as something inherited and protected, not casually discarded. Both see land as deep relationship, not a commodity. Hawaiians protected their people through restraint when war would have meant annihilation. Chaldeans survived through dispersion, assimilation, and quiet endurance in exile. Different strategies. Comparable costs.

I did not come to Hawaiʻi to overwrite history or pretend it does not exist. I came knowing that cultures like mine survive only when people listen first, build second, and never extract without giving back. Every decision I make carries a simple question: does this contribute, or does it repeat the same patterns that destroyed my own people’s homeland?

Hawaiʻi still has its land. It still has its voice. It still has a future. That reality deserves respect, protection, and humility from anyone who chooses to build a life here.

Lance Alyas

Owner, Oahu Dispensary and Provisions

Not because it’s inflammatory. Not because it’s reckless. But because it points directly at something enormous, profitable, and deliberately kept quiet for a very long time.

When people talk about world-changing technologies, the conversation almost always centers on artificial intelligence. And for good reason. AI will reshape productivity, logistics, information flow, and entire categories of work.

But there is another disruptor—one that has been underestimated for decades—that touches energy, materials, medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and consumer goods all at once.

That disruptor isn’t software.

It isn’t code.

It’s a plant.

Why Hemp and Cannabis Are Different From AI

AI is a horizontal technology. It improves how existing systems operate. It accelerates processes, optimizes decisions, and compresses time.

Hemp and cannabis are different. They are foundational technologies. They don’t just improve systems; they replace them.

Where AI optimizes supply chains, hemp can eliminate them. Where AI refines industrial processes, cannabis and hemp can displace the materials those processes depend on. Their impact isn’t necessarily faster—it’s broader.

That distinction matters.

Why This Plant Was Feared in the First Place

Before prohibition, hemp was a major agricultural staple. It was used for paper, rope, textiles, oils, and medicine, and it was widely cultivated across the United States and Europe.

Hemp wasn’t sidelined because it was dangerous. It was sidelined because it was inconvenient.

A fast-growing plant that requires fewer chemical inputs, replenishes soil, and produces fiber, fuel, food, and medicine from a single crop is a threat to industries built on scarcity, patents, and extraction. Hemp compresses supply chains. It localizes production. It weakens monopolies.

That kind of efficiency doesn’t fit neatly into centralized industrial models.

Industry by Industry, the Disruption Is Obvious

Modern paper production depends on slow-growing trees, deforestation, and chemical-intensive processing. Hemp grows in a few months, yields significantly more fiber per acre, requires fewer bleaching agents, and can be recycled more times than wood pulp. Large-scale adoption would fundamentally alter forestry economics.

Most plastics are petroleum-based, non-biodegradable, and environmentally persistent. Hemp-based bioplastics are renewable, biodegradable, and already viable for packaging, automotive components, and consumer goods. That directly threatens petrochemical supply chains.

Energy tells a similar story. Hemp biomass can be converted into ethanol, biodiesel, and biochar, producing high yields per acre and, in some applications, net carbon-negative outcomes. It doesn’t replace oil overnight, but it undermines the idea that fossil fuels are the only scalable option.

Textiles reveal another fault line. Cotton requires enormous water use, heavy pesticide application, and contributes to soil degradation. Hemp fiber uses far less water, fewer chemicals, and produces stronger, longer-lasting fabric. A serious shift toward hemp would disrupt industrial cotton and fast-fashion economics.

Medicine may be the most sensitive disruption. Pharmaceutical models rely heavily on patented compounds and long-term dependency. Cannabinoids interact directly with the endocannabinoid system, which regulates pain, inflammation, mood, sleep, and immune response. Cannabis doesn’t replace modern medicine—but it reduces reliance on opioids, sleep aids, and anti-inflammatory drugs, often without patent protection.

Even alcohol and tobacco aren’t immune. Data from legal markets already shows reduced alcohol consumption and substitution away from nicotine. This isn’t just a product shift; it’s a behavioral one, and it cuts directly into multi-billion-dollar industries.

Why This Is Still So Heavily Regulated

The continued suppression of cannabis and hemp isn’t just about public safety. It’s about managing disruption.

Widespread hemp adoption decentralizes production. It favors farmers, small manufacturers, and local economies. It reduces dependency on proprietary systems and centralized infrastructure.

AI, by contrast, often concentrates power—in data centers, corporations, and closed models.

That difference matters.

Regulation as a Gatekeeping Tool

Regulation doesn’t always stop innovation. Often, it decides who gets to participate.

High compliance costs favor large, well-capitalized players and eliminate smaller operators. This pattern has repeated itself in energy, finance, healthcare, and now cannabis and hemp. The result isn’t safety—it’s consolidation.

The Actual Future

The future isn’t a choice between artificial intelligence and cannabis.

It’s AI optimizing hemp-based systems: regenerative farming managed by data, supply chains optimized by machine learning, and cannabinoid research accelerated through computational modeling.

One represents digital intelligence.

The other represents biological infrastructure.

Together, they reshape how civilization builds, feeds, heals, and powers itself.

Final Thought

Cannabis and hemp aren’t controversial because they’re dangerous. They’re controversial because they’re useful.

They threaten monopolies, centralized control, extractive industries, and scarcity-based economics. That’s why they were suppressed. That’s why they remain tightly regulated.

The most transformative technologies don’t always look like technology.

Sometimes, they grow quietly—until they don’t.

And now you see why I may get killed for writing this.