I Followed Federal Law. Hawaiʻi Is Going to Start Destroying My Inventory on July 1.

Hawaiʻi’s July 1 hemp enforcement threatens federally legal products, small businesses, and my inventory one day before federal court hears Alyas v. Lopez.

I Followed Federal Law. Hawaiʻi Is Going to Start Destroying My Inventory on July 1.

I run a hemp business in Honolulu. Four retail locations, a workforce, leases I’ve personally guaranteed, and an inventory of products that are legal under federal law — every one of them sourced from licensed suppliers and tested to the standard Congress wrote into the 2018 Farm Bill. I did everything the law asked of me. On July 1, the State of Hawaiʻi is going to start treating that as a crime.

On June 23, the Department of Health and the Attorney General announced that statewide enforcement against hemp retailers begins July 1, 2026. Embargo. Seizure. Destruction of inventory. Civil injunctions. Forced closure of retail locations. A date certain, in writing, from the State itself.

Here’s the part they’re hoping you don’t notice. A federal judge is scheduled to rule on whether that exact enforcement regime is constitutional on July 2 — the very next day. My case, Alyas v. Lopez, No. 1:26-cv-00035, has been pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi for months. The hearing on my motion to stop this enforcement, and on the State’s motion to throw my case out, is set for July 2. The State knows that. And it has chosen to start seizing and destroying federally legal product on July 1 — one day before the court can rule. It is not waiting for the court. It is moving to act before the court can stop it.

I want to be precise about what the State admitted in its own announcement, because this is not my characterization. It is theirs.

The State now lists hemp flower, pre-rolls, and vape products as “prohibited product categories.” Remember, Hawaiʻi’s own Legislature legalized those products in 2023 through Act 263. The elected representatives of this state voted to repeal that prohibition. The Department of Health did not like the result, so it is reinstating the ban by press release — a ban the people’s lawmakers struck from the books. That is not how this works. An agency does not get to overrule the Legislature because it prefers the old rule. That is the heart of my case, and the State just put it in writing for me.

The State is also going to enforce its own homemade definition of legal THC against products that pass the federal test. Congress set a national standard for what counts as hemp. Hawaiʻi invented a different one, and it is now moving to seize and destroy products that are legal everywhere else in the country because they fail a test Congress never wrote. That is one state trying to nullify a federal law, and it is the reason this case matters far beyond my four stores.

And it does reach beyond my stores — beyond Hawaiʻi entirely. The announcement makes clear that out-of-state sellers who ship federally legal hemp into Hawaiʻi are swept in too. Register with Hawaiʻi, or stop serving Hawaiʻi’s customers. A state is reaching across its own borders to control commerce in a product that federal law made legal. That should concern anyone who cares about whether states can wall themselves off from the national market one “definition” at a time.

The announcement is dressed up as a routine registration deadline. Pay your fifty dollars, file your paperwork. But the regime behind that friendly language carries consequences that go well past fines and forms, and the statute reaches a great deal further than the press release lets on.

I didn’t break any rules. I followed them — the rules as Congress actually wrote them. Every product I carry was tested and compliant. Every supplier I bought from was licensed. I built a legitimate business, in the open, in full compliance with federal law, and the State of Hawaiʻi is preparing to take it apart the literal day before a judge can tell them whether they’re even allowed to!

The hearing is July 2, 2026, before the Honorable Judge Jill Otake, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi, on my motion for a preliminary injunction and the State’s motion to dismiss. The State’s announcement is public in the Department of Health newsroom. Read it for yourself. Then ask why a government so confident in its authority is in such a hurry to act one day before a court can review it.

I’ll be in that courtroom on July 2. I’d rather be in my stores, doing the legal business I built, but I can’t be. The State is forcing the choice. Fortunately, the court will decide whether it had the right to. The same court the State audaciously disrespects, but with authority nonetheless!