The Calendar Doesn’t Lie, Even When the State Does - Hawaii News Now Covers Our Story!
Hawaii hemp retailer Oʻahu Dispensary and Provisions responds to Hawaii News Now coverage, challenging the Department of Health’s “always illegal” claim, defending federally lawful hemp products, and
Hawaii News Now’s coverage of our case and the upcoming hemp law enforcement has generated considerable discussion and attention already, and many inquiries have been directed towards us. Before we delve into that, I must begin by first praising Daryl Huff and Hawaii News Now for delivering such fair, factual coverage of this controversial situation. In today’s media landscape, objective journalism—letting both sides speak so the public can decide—cannot be taken for granted. Thank you dearly!
That said, we must address what was broadcast, because the details matter.
The “Always Illegal” Fabrication
During the segment, Department of Health spokesperson Andrew Goff claimed our smokable and vape products have “always” been illegal under Hawaii law. This isn’t a legal gray area; it is a verifiable falsehood, and the proof lives on his own department’s website.
The ban on inhalable hemp was never passed by the Hawaii Legislature. It came from a DOH interim rule enacted on August 9, 2021. By definition, an interim rule is a temporary agency mandate—the exact opposite of longstanding law. Crucially, a rule taking effect in 2021 cannot retroactively outlaw a product before 2021 existed.
You cannot ban what is already forbidden. If a ban was required in 2021, the products were legal beforehand. The calendar does not lie, even if the State does.
What should alarm every Hawaii citizen is this blatant abuse of power. An unelected agency bypassed the Legislature to unilaterally criminalize entire categories of federally legal products. That isn’t law enforcement; that is a rogue bureaucracy writing its own laws and treating law-abiding citizens as criminals.
The “Protect the Children” Charade
Then there is Representative Scot Matayoshi, hiding behind the most cynical shield in politics: “protecting the children.”
That claim collapses under the slightest scrutiny. The independent business owners he is trying to bankrupt have real families with real children. Those kids rely on this revenue for food, rent, and survival in one of the most expensive states in the country. How does driving a family into financial ruin protect the children inside it?
It doesn’t. Destroying a household mathematically guarantees harm to the kids inside it. “Child safety” is just a convenient costume designed to mask the intentional destruction of working families to clear the market for a protected few.
If safety were the true objective, the state would focus on testing, dosing, age-gating, and labeling—safeguards responsible operators already champion. Instead, the only “solution” offered is the total eradication of competition. That tells you exactly what they are protecting, and it isn’t children.
The Coordinated Squeeze
Look at the full picture: the DOH, the Attorney General, a shielded oligopoly of licensed cannabis operators, and compliant politicians are collectively suffocating Hawaii’s independent hemp industry. Unable to outcompete us in the marketplace, they went looking for a win by rigging the rules in back rooms.
They have inflicted profound damage. They have jeopardized everything we built and dealt heavy blows to our families. I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. It does.
But wounded is not finished. Bloodied is not beaten.
We are standing our ground, and we will see them in court—where political theater falls apart, facts govern, and “always illegal” crashes straight into a calendar that proves otherwise.
Lance Alyas,
Founder, Oahu Dispensary and Provisions