$6.17 Million a Month. The State Counted It Themselves.
Hawaiʻi’s Own Report Reveals Hemp Captures 31% of the Cannabis Market—$6.17 Million Every Month
In December 2025, the Hawaiʻi Department of Health commissioned an independent study of Hawaiʻi’s cannabis market. Buried in the published report is a number that explains a lot:
$6.17 million per month in hemp sales.
Thirty-one percent of the entire cannabis market.
Think about what that means. Nearly one out of every three cannabis dollars spent in Hawaiʻi is being spent outside the State’s eight-license dispensary system. That’s not a rounding error, and it’s not a niche corner of the market. It is a massive share of consumer demand.
This isn’t my number or an industry estimate. It wasn’t pulled from a trade publication or an advocacy group. It comes from the State’s own consultant, working under contract for the agency that regulates the market.
That’s what makes it so revealing.
A Receipt, Not a Catalyst
The report didn’t start the State’s enforcement campaign against hemp businesses. That was already underway.
What the report does show is exactly what those businesses represent: competition.
It shines a bright light on questions of motivation, interests, favoritism, and market protection. It puts hard numbers on what regulators have been seeing in the marketplace all along. For the first time, the scale of that competition is quantified in black and white.
Consumers are choosing hemp.
Not the black market. Not anonymous sellers operating in the shadows.
They are choosing transparent storefronts that sell tested, labeled products out in the open. They are choosing businesses that publish certificates of analysis, identify themselves to regulators, and operate in plain view of the public.
Whether regulators like that outcome or not, it reflects a clear consumer preference.
To the consumer, that’s a choice.
To a protected industry, that’s a threat.
The report becomes a receipt. It confirms that millions of dollars every month are bypassing the system the State spent years building around just eight license holders.
Despite limited competition, enormous barriers to entry, and a market effectively closed since 2016, consumers are still sending 31% of their dollars somewhere else.
The State’s own data shows that a substantial portion of the market is finding value outside the framework the government spent years constructing.
That’s a reality no regulator can ignore.
The State’s Answer
And what is the State’s response?
Not more competition.
Not a broader marketplace.
Not a serious examination of why consumers prefer these products.
There has been no effort to expand licensing opportunities, reduce barriers to entry, or ask why consumers are voting with their wallets in such significant numbers.
Instead, pressure remains focused on the very businesses capturing that market share.
The businesses operating openly become the easiest targets precisely because they have storefronts, employees, inventory, and public identities. They aren’t difficult to find. They are already standing in the light.
That’s why the $6.17 million figure matters.
Not because it proves why any single decision was made, but because it reveals the economic reality sitting behind the debate. It provides context that was missing before. It shows what is actually at stake in the fight over hemp.
The Department of Health paid to learn where consumers are spending their money.
The answer came back clearly:
31% of the market is choosing something outside the State’s preferred system.
For a regulatory structure built around a small number of license holders, that’s an extraordinary finding. It helps explain why hemp has become such a focal point in Hawaiʻi’s cannabis policy debate.
The Question
Read the report.
Then ask yourself a simple question:
When the interests of consumers and the interests of the eight-license system diverge, which one does the Department choose to protect?
The State’s own report may have already provided part of the answer.
Lance Alyas
ODP LLC