Since this all began—my lawsuit, these writings, the posts on social media--I am bombarded consistently with one question more than any other: Why isn’t this all over the news?!
It is the right question. We are talking about state-protected monopolies, incestuous political relationships, and staggering levels of malevolence and misconduct that strain credulity! That should be an investigative front-page blockbuster. So let us introduce Cure Oahu, explain how the game is actually played, and answer that question once and for all.
The Machine Behind the Brand
Cure Oahu operates through TCG Retro Market 1, LLC. It controls a massive North Shore cultivation facility and three high-traffic retail stores in Kapahulu, Kapolei, and Kailua. More importantly, Cure Oahu is, of course, one of the “Hateful Eight”—the handpicked companies awarded Hawaiʻi’s golden medical-cannabis licenses in 2016 from a pool of over 70-some applicants. The state then locked the door behind them and has kept the market frozen ever since.
Cure Oahu was bankrolled and developed by Tradewind Capital Group, whose president was Richard Lim (he has since taken on a much more reserved, less public role and scrubbed his name from the website, clearly wisening up to the damage of poor optics).
Before taking the wheel at a private investment firm, Lim served as director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism under Governor Neil Abercrombie. That is not speculation. It is his résumé. The man who ran the state’s business and economic-development apparatus moved directly into leading the firm behind a state-protected cannabis monopoly.
The arrangement becomes even more convenient (and contemptible) from there. Cure Oahu’s government relations and daily operations are handled by Tan Yan Chen, who previously worked under Lim at the State Energy Office. So a key supervisor and his subordinate left state government and resurfaced together atop a multimillion-dollar private enterprise, preserving the same power structure while replacing government identification badges with corporate paychecks.
People politely call this a “revolving door.” That description is far too charitable. This looks more like a state unit that changed uniforms. When you helped operate the bureaucracy, you know who answers the phone, which agency can be bypassed, which approval matters, and how to move through the system while everyone else fills out forms and rots in administrative delay.
The Media Pipeline
Now follow the money to the printing press. Colbert MaKurisu, a Tradewindnolulu insider and Cure Oahu investor, sits on the board of Oahu Publications, Inc. Duane Kurisu, a Tradewind Capital director who controls PacificBasin Communications, also sits on that board.
Oahu Publications owns the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the largest and most influential daily newspaper in Hawaiʻi. In plain English, two essential figures connected to the financing and management of a state-sanctioned cannabis cartel enterprise hold seats on the corporate board of the state’s newspaper of record.
Or to put it more plainly: they control the fucking news!
A system like this does not require secret phone calls or written censorship orders. Concentrated power and overlapping interests can do the work quietly. Editors know the corporate structure. Investigations become “too complicated,” “insufficiently developed,” or somehow never quite editorially viable. Priorities shift. Leads die. Everyone involved can insist that nobody explicitly ordered anything.
You want to know why this series is appearing on Substack instead of the front page of the newspaper? Look at the board. Look at the money. There are your answers!
Protectionism Dressed as Public Safety
Cure Oahu exposed the racket during the 2025 legislative session when it opposed SB 1429, a bill that would have allowed caregivers and patient cooperatives to grow medicine for sick people. It hid behind “public safety” and “residential security,” but the real objection was far uglier: competition.
One of only eight state-licensed cannabis companies wanted poor and seriously ill patients kept legally dependent on dispensaries because every plant grown at home is one less overpriced product sold across its counter.
Then came the shameless part. In the very same testimony, Cure Oahu asked regulators to go easy on licensed dispensaries that exceeded plant limits or botched seed-to-sale tracking.
The demand was unmistakable: punish patients, forgive corporations.
That is not public safety. It is naked greed wrapped in government language—a protected monopoly demanding the state crush anyone who threatens its revenue.
The Asymmetry
This was never merely a story about one bad company. It is a story about a closed, corrupt, cartel system of eight licensees, built around former state officials, institutional capital, political access, aggressive lobbying, and media-board overlap. These companies repeatedly demand that the state crush smaller competitors while carving out softer rules for themselves.
They have the state licenses, the insider capital, the former cabinet officials, the expensive lobbyists, and seats in the corporate boardroom of the printing press. I have a hemp business, a federal lawsuit, and a mailing list.
That grotesque imbalance is the story. It is also precisely why I am never going to be silenced!