The Mirror Test: The Only Metric That Matters
Integrity in Hawaiʻi’s Hemp and Cannabis Market: How Real Standards Outperform Loopholes, Profit, and Uncertain Regulations
Most businesses measure success in revenue, growth, and foot traffic. I measure it in the three seconds of eye contact I can hold with myself each morning.
That silent moment—standing in the bathroom in the early morning, Waikīkī just awakening outside my window—has become my truest boardroom. No spreadsheets, no projections. Just a face in the glass asking the only question that’s ever really mattered: Is what you’re building worth defending? Is what you’re building worth the time, the hassle, and the stress? Yes, it certainly is.
In an industry where the rules are written in disappearing ink, like the new federal hemp ban, you become your own cartographer. You draw the map as you walk through it. And the only compass you get is internal: a quiet, constant check between what’s possible and what’s right. The margin between them isn’t just a legal space—it’s where my character lives or dies.
In this company, we’ve built our own standards. Not because we’re forced to, but because anything less would make the morning mirror useless. It’s the third-party lab test we run after the first ones come back clean, just to be sure. It’s the extra verification calls before we commit to a new partner. It’s looking a customer in the eye and recommending a cheaper product because it’s what they actually need, not what we need to sell. These aren’t policies. They’re promises we make to ourselves before we ever open the register.
This also shows up most clearly in who stands behind the counter. I don’t hire for hemp expertise—you can teach cannabinoids in a week. I hire for the kind of attention that can’t be taught: the instinct to listen before speaking, the patience to explain something for the third time without a hint of condescension, the calm that makes a nervous tourist feel safe. The resume question is, “Can you do the job?” The real question is, “Will you care about it the way we do?” If the answer isn’t a clear yes, the interview ends. This strategy has assembled the most reliable team I’ve ever been a part of.
Our footprint here is about more than square footage. You can’t profit from Hawaiʻi’s beauty and people without feeding that beauty back. So we plant trees. We clean beaches. We show up with food for those who have none, and we show our customers the love and generosity that no other businesses could conceive. Not for a photo op, but because it’s the price of admission to a place this sacred and beloved. A business that only takes is a parasite. A business that builds is a partner for life.
This approach has a cost. It’s slower. It’s more expensive. There’s no column on the spreadsheet to justify the extra lab test, the higher wages, the hours spent planting rather than selling. You have to believe, in a place deeper than logic, that a company built on this kind of intentionality is building something money can’t measure: resilience, loyalty, a reputation that becomes your bedrock when everything else shakes.
There are two kinds of equity. One is financial. The other is moral. The first can be wiped out by a bad law or a bad quarter. The second compounds quietly—in the trust of a repeat customer, in the pride of an employee, in the quiet knowledge that you’re building something that doesn’t just serve a market, but honors a community.
I don’t know what the regulations will say next year. I don’t know what the market will do. But I know this: when the ground is unstable, you don’t want a foundation made of loopholes and luck. You want one made of choices you can stand behind with both feet. The mirror doesn’t judge your profits. It judges your peace and your character. And in the end, that’s the only bottom line that matters.
Lance Alyas
Oahu Dispensary and Provisions