The paradox is two decades old and still unresolved; in 2000, Hawaii became the first state to legalize medical cannabis through legislative action with Act 228, signed by Governor Ben Cayetano.
California was the first to legalize medical cannabis overall; voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996 with 55.6 percent of the vote, per the California Secretary of State’s records. Hawaii chose to act legislatively, which was supposed to signal something about institutional commitment.
26 years later, there is still no adult-use legalization. The Senate has passed legalization measures more than once. The House kills them every time. The question is — who is blocking it and why?
“We were the first legislature, this nation, to pass medical cannabis. The first legislature,” says Will Espero.
Will served in the Hawaii State Senate from 2002 to 2018, holding roles including Majority Floor Leader and Vice President of the Senate, per his Ballotpedia biography. Before that, he served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 1999 to 2002, introduced and passed over 100 bills and resolutions across his career, and ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, losing the Democratic primary to his colleague Josh Green.
“A lot of people thought, okay, we’re one of the first. Hopefully we can be a leader. And we weren’t.”
The Inside Story: How Hawaii’s One Medical Cannabis Bill Got Passed
The gap between Act 228 in 2000 and the medical cannabis dispensary program was 15 years.
“It took 15 years to get the medical cannabis dispensary business,” Espero says. “The right people were not in the committee chairmanships.”
The 2015 sequence played out as political drama. Josh Green, then a state senator, chaired the Health Committee. Espero was the second chair. The dispensary bill moved through committees and into conference with the House. A conference committee — the joint negotiating body formed when the House and Senate pass different versions of the same bill — is where Representative Della Au Belatti led negotiations. Talks broke down.
“She said, ‘I’ve had enough, we’re done,'” Espero recalls. In his account, the bill died on the last day of the session.
Then it came back to life. “Some of us wanted to bring it back to life,” Espero says. “The legislature can do that, because we make our own rules, kind of.”
As Vice President of the Senate, Espero went to Senate President Donna Mercado Kim. Then to House Speaker Joseph Souki of Maui. Souki agreed to reopen negotiations. In a move reported by Hawaii News Now on May 4, 2015, Green was removed from the conference committee — having, in Espero’s telling, “basically failed in his first trial” — and Espero was installed as the new chair.
“I became the chair. And we passed the bill, 2015.”
The bill became Act 241, Session Laws of Hawaii 2015, establishing the Medical Cannabis Dispensary Program under the Hawaii Department of Health, with eight licenses and up to two retail locations per licensee, per the Hawaii DOH Medical Cannabis Registry’s laws and rules page. First dispensaries opened in 2016 and 2017.
The lesson Espero draws is structural, not personal: “There’s an art to passing legislation.”
It required a backroom maneuver, a leadership change on the negotiating panel, and a senator willing to spend political capital after another senator’s negotiations collapsed.
The Champion vs. Supporter Distinction
This is the framework Espero returns to repeatedly — the analytical distinction he considers most important for understanding why Hawaii has stalled.
“In every legislature, in every place where you have advocacy, you have to find a champion,” he says. “Right now, I don’t think we have a champion in the state legislature. We have supporters. There’s a difference.”
A supporter votes yes. A champion builds coalitions, negotiates with opponents, sacrifices political capital, and gets removed from committees to be replaced by someone who can close the deal. Espero was that person in 2015, and he is asking who occupies that role today.
On Governor Green (the same Josh Green), Espero’s assessment is pointed on policy rather than personal.
“He’s a medical doctor, really keen on cannabis. He said he’s gonna be pro-cannabis, and he would support legalization.”
But: “Since he’s been in office, I think he’s been a dud. And I think people in the cannabis industry might agree that he hasn’t done enough for medical cannabis.”
“I’m a doer,” Espero says, drawing the contrast directly. “In my career, I had over 100 bills and resolutions passed.”
The Money Problem Behind Legal Cannabis
KT, the behind-the-scenes organizer of the Hawaii Cannabis Expo, points to two overlapping interests driving institutional resistance: the money flow from Japanese tourism, and the political pressure Japan’s government applies to protect its own prohibition at home.
Japanese Tourism Incentivizes No Legal Market
“The Japanese conservatives that run a lot of money — they’re protecting it. The Japanese consulate doesn’t want it because they don’t want their tourists that they have a good relationship with that come over here to just start smoking and then it becomes something in Japan.”
The evidence supports him. Japan maintains some of the strictest anti-cannabis laws among developed nations — the Japanese government has historically treated cannabis comparably to methamphetamine and heroin.
During Hawaii’s legislative debates, industry opponents and law enforcement officials have raised Japanese tourism concerns repeatedly. But a December 2025 economic analysis commissioned by the Hawaii Department of Health found that 57.5 percent of surveyed Japanese respondents said legalization would not affect their plans to visit Hawaii.
Guam’s experience after legalizing adult-use cannabis in April 2019 showed no significant decline in tourism from Japan or South Korea, according to the same report. Retail Merchants of Hawaii president Tina Yamaki has formally testified in opposition, and Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm has cited Japanese tourism agency concerns in legislative hearings.
KT connects this to the state’s broader fiscal reality: “Basically, what it comes down to is we’re running out of money. The rail, and then education — they’ve cut back, there’s just a lot of cutbacks. And then now that NHOs [Native Hawaiian Organizations] aren’t getting funding, a lot of SBAs [Small Business Administration contracts], or AAs [affirmative action set-asides], small businesses for minorities… So, state — where the fuck are you gonna get money from?”
His logic: if tourism revenue is threatened by federal policy changes and residents are tapped out on taxes, cannabis revenue is the obvious answer.
“That’s just my personal opinion,” KT notes. “It’s not like part of the expo.”
Legal Issues Abound, from Banking to Access
Anthony Ali Enjena of United States of Ganja — confirmed as an expo vendor — tells the banking story from the trenches. Enjena started petitioning as Cannabis Credit Co-op in Colorado after the governor created cannabis credit cooperatives.
“The first permit went to Fourth Corner Credit Union,” he says. Fourth Corner was chartered in November 2014 in Colorado. It spent over three years in legal battles with the Federal Reserve over a master account, the account a credit union needs in order to process transactions through the federal banking system. The credit union eventually received conditional approval, but the conditions excluded plant-touching businesses — companies that directly grow, process, or sell cannabis, as documented by Leafly and MJBizDaily.
“I want to be able to help the industry launder their money in an organized fashion,” Enjena says. He uses “launder” deliberately and provocatively, because getting legal cannabis revenue into the banking system technically constitutes money laundering under federal law as long as cannabis remains a Schedule I substance, classified by the federal government as having high abuse potential and no accepted medical use.
“Everybody’s having to do it their own little crazy way. This helter-skelter thing of everyone trying to figure out what to do with all their cash is not a good situation for anybody.”
The Workaround to Legalize Cannabis in Washington D.C.
Enjena’s sharpest illustration comes from Washington, D.C. “D.C. voted for it,” he says. Voters approved Initiative 71 in November 2014 with 64.87 percent of the vote, legalizing possession and home cultivation of limited amounts of cannabis for adults 21 and older.
Immediately, Congress inserted what is known as the Harris Rider — a budget amendment introduced by Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, in December 2014. The rider prohibits the District from using any funds to enact or carry out laws legalizing or reducing penalties for cannabis. The rider has been included in every federal budget since, confirmed by Cannabis Business Times, The Hill, and the Marijuana Policy Project.
The constitutionality of this maneuver remains unresolved: D.C. officials have argued that Congress overstepped its authority over purely local matters under the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, while Congress maintains plenary legislative power over the District under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution — a tension no court has definitively adjudicated.
The result: a gifting economy — a workaround where businesses sell an overpriced item and include cannabis as a complimentary gift, never as a purchased product.
“You would overpay for this bag, and I would then put ganja in it, according to what you paid. So I gift it to you,” Enjena explains. For over a decade, D.C. has operated with legal possession but no legal retail sales.
“They even threatened to throw the mayor in jail,” Enjena says. Congressional Republicans invoked the Anti-Deficiency Act — which imposes criminal penalties on government employees who spend public funds in excess of appropriated budgets — threatening prosecution of Mayor Muriel Bowser, the first Black woman to serve as D.C. mayor.
“She said, ‘Look, guys, this passed by an overwhelming percentage — and I’ve got to write it in the law.’ And so she did. They never threw her in jail.”
Enjena draws a parallel from his experience in India, where he runs a software company. “I was there when they changed the law and made beef illegal. Overnight, butchers became criminals. I realized the same thing happened here — with farmers of ganja.”
The India beef ban — enacted in various states under Hindu nationalist governance, documented by Human Rights Watch — created overnight criminalization of a previously legal livelihood. The parallel to cannabis prohibition is structural, not cultural.
His vision: a cannabis credit co-op — “the Alibaba of Ganja” — providing microfinance to keep grassroots operators in the industry. “They’re being overtaxed and over-regulated to death. We should be able to put seeds in the ground and come up through the industry.”
Hawaii’s House Problem
“The Senate is the one that took the lead on legalization,” Espero says. “The House of Representatives is a chamber with younger members on average. And they’re the ones that have been blocking it.”
The blocking is comprehensive. Not just legalization bills, but even resolutions to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot — letting voters decide directly.
“Even a resolution or bill, an idea to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot so people can vote on it — they don’t want that to happen. They’re not even willing to see what the people want.”
HB 1624 and SB 2420, the most recent legalization efforts, were killed in the House in February 2026, as documented by the Marijuana Policy Project and Maui Now. The opposition coalition includes every county police chief, every prosecutor’s office, Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm, and the Retail Merchants of Hawaii. Speaker Nakamura has acknowledged that some of her chamber’s Oahu members are not on board.
Espero attributes part of the resistance to entrenched stigma: “If you grow up thinking something is bad, and you don’t know the history of marijuana and the good it does — they’re not open-minded.”
He reaches for the comparison that frames his frustration: “We have gin, we have tequila, wines, and beers that are legal. This is different, but if anything, it’s a better distraction.”
Jackey420, the cannabis influencer who has attended the expo for seven years, offers the street-level version of the same argument: “It’s just the law. Once it goes legal, it’s going to be a different story.”
What Could Change Hawaii’s Attitude Towards Legal Cannabis?
Espero’s prediction: “Maybe another 4 to 10 years.”
The variables he identifies: a new president. The boomers passing. Medical cannabis in 40 states and half the states with adult use. “The trend is positive. Just slow. We could win the midterms. Suddenly, he’s [Trump] in check. Congress can pass bills. If you got the right person at the right time, anything can happen. And right now, we’ve got the wrong person in the wrong place.”
At the federal level, the rescheduling process — moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III — remains the most discussed accelerant. The SAFE Banking Act has stalled repeatedly in Congress despite bipartisan support.
Espero sees economic potential that transcends the recreational debate. “Cannabis can really be a savior for a lot of blue-collar working families. You could create a home-based industry in cannabis. Every little bit of income counts. That part-time income can be the difference of whether you live in Hawaii or not.”
The vision extends beyond flower. “You could not only grow, but manufacture cookies, oil. The oil is the magic. Then you can really turn it into anything.”
He is particularly animated about hemp: hempcrete — a building material made from hemp fiber mixed with lime — for construction, hemp fiber for textiles, Henry Ford’s 1941 prototype car with panels made partly from agricultural plastics, including hemp. He wants hemp panels at next year’s expo.
On social equity, Espero is direct: “There has to be an opportunity for the disenfranchised. For the low-income. For the felons who had cannabis crimes.”
KT frames the expo’s own constraints the same way. Corporate sponsors are hard to attract to a medical-only state where they cannot generate revenue. “It’s hard for the big corporate sponsors because it’s a medical state and they can’t make money here.”
Lifestyle brands, seeds, and genetics companies — those are the realistic targets. “Seeds, you don’t need to bring anything,” he notes. Seeds are legal to sell at the expo.
The 10th annual is next year. Espero and the expo owner have discussed bringing back Cheech and Chong, who appeared at a previous expo and drew strong attendance. Post-COVID expos, both acknowledge, have not matched pre-COVID turnout.
“I’m at a point in my life now — I’m tired. I’m not hungry,” Espero says. “But people got to be hungry.”
Does Legal Cannabis Have a Future in Hawaii?
The prohibition history that Espero recounts — William Randolph Hearst’s forest interests competing with hemp for paper, the DuPont family’s polyester competing with hemp fiber, Rockefeller’s hospital-based medicine displacing herbal remedies, Henry Ford’s agricultural plastics car prototype never reaching production — belongs to an advocacy historiography that cannabis reform communities have circulated for decades. The broad outlines are consistent with documented events; the specific causal chains remain contested among historians. The narrative is presented here as Will Espero’s framing, representative of how many in the cannabis movement understand their own history.
“These white, European, half-American industrialists said, let’s ban it, for our own personal economic gain,” Espero says. “Cannabis in the 1800s — medicine.”
Whether or not the historiography is precise in every detail — it is widely circulated in cannabis advocacy and broadly consistent with documented historical patterns, though debated among historians — the core pattern is documented: a plant with medicinal applications and industrial uses was criminalized on economic and political rather than scientific grounds, and the consequences persist in Hawaii’s inability to legalize despite being first to act legislatively.
The expo is where the community gathers while it waits — building, connecting, judging the Aloha Cup, teaching seed science, bartering on the last day, but waiting.
Espero says 4 to 10 years. The question Hawaii faces is whether it waits for the federal government to move first, or finds its own champion — someone willing to spend the political capital, navigate the backroom negotiations, and do what Espero did in 2015 — to make it happen from inside.
