The state says flower, pre-rolls and vapes were already prohibited. Hemp retailers say years of limited enforcement allowed a market to develop that is now being removed.
Lance Alyas says other hemp retailers in Hawaii have contacted him privately since he sued the state over its hemp rules, but few are willing to discuss the dispute publicly.
“I can’t tell you how many have reached out to me throughout this process expressing shock at my willingness to sue and then take this on in the media as well,” Alyas, owner of Oahu Dispensary and Provisions, told High Times.
He says enforcement visits have contributed to that reluctance. Alyas described Department of Health inspectors as “old marshals and sheriffs from a western movie” who were “brash, abrasive, stern, and domineering.”
Alyas operates four stores on Oahu. He and another hemp retailer, Kyler Falces-Cachola, are suing Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez and Department of Health Director Kenneth Fink in federal court, challenging several parts of the state’s hemp regulatory system.
The lawsuit comes as the Department of Health and Attorney General have begun statewide enforcement against retailers selling noncompliant products, including hemp flower, THCA flower, pre-rolls and vapes.
Alyas says officials visited two of his stores simultaneously, photographed products and explained which items could no longer be sold.
“They gave us a warning about the products that are not able to be sold, so we had to take them off our shelves to make sure we’re going to the court with clean hands,” he said.
No inventory was confiscated, Alyas said, but officials warned about possible seizures, embargoes, fines, enforcement and arrest if prohibited products remained for sale.
The state says nothing new was banned
The Hawaii Department of Health says the current enforcement should not be understood as a new ban.
“The 2025 changes to Hawaiʻi’s hemp law created a registration system for hemp retailers and distributors, it did not newly prohibit hemp flower, pre-rolls, vaping products, or concentrates. Those restrictions predate the registration requirement.”
Hawaii Department of Health, to High Times
Act 14, adopted in 2020, prohibited the sale of hemp leaf or floral material intended to be smoked or inhaled and cannabinoid products intended for aerosolized respiratory delivery. It also established penalties of up to $10,000 for each separate offense.
The 2025 legislation, Act 269, created a registry for manufactured hemp product retailers and distributors and expanded the state’s ability to inspect businesses, seize noncompliant products and pursue violations.
Licensed medical cannabis operators had been pressing for stronger enforcement before Act 269. Noa Botanicals CEO Karlyn Laulusa lobbied House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee Chair Scot Matayoshi and other lawmakers, arguing that licensed dispensaries were losing business to unregulated hemp retailers. According to Honolulu Civil Beat, Alyas later obtained correspondence between Laulusa and Matayoshi through a public-records request. He characterizes Hawaiʻi’s eight medical cannabis licensees as “the Hateful Eight.”
Noa Botanicals, Aloha Green Apothecary and Cure Oahu all supported the new rules during the legislative process.
The situation reflects a recurring feature of cannabis markets: written law and enforcement do not always move together.
A prohibition that is rarely enforced can coexist with an open market for years, allowing stores, suppliers and consumer demand to develop around it. Increased enforcement can then change the market without the underlying prohibition itself being new. The conduct was tolerated long enough to build businesses around it. Now the prohibition is being enforced.
Ninety percent of the revenue, gone
For Alyas, the change has been substantial.
He says his company lost about 90% of its revenue and roughly 25% of its workforce after removing the affected products. He has kept current employees at the same pay and hours but says the company cannot continue for long under present conditions.
The legal dispute
Alyas and fellow hemp retailer Kyler Falces-Cachola are plaintiffs in Alyas et al. v. Lopez et al., Case No. 1:26-cv-00035-JAO-WRP, before the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi. The defendants are Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne E. Lopez and Department of Health Director Kenneth S. Fink, M.D., both sued in their official capacities.
Alyas is now waiting for U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake to rule on two pending motions: the retailers’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement while the case proceeds, and the state’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint. After hearing arguments on both on July 2, Otake took them under advisement and said she would issue a written order.
“If we don’t get a judge’s decision soon, we will have to close down probably within two or three weeks,” he said.
DOH acknowledges that businesses may be affected and confirms that there is currently no pathway allowing retailers to continue selling the prohibited categories.
“The Hawaiʻi Department of Health recognizes that removing certain hemp products from sale can have an impact on businesses,” the department told High Times.
That position is consistent with what Andrew Goff, head of DOH’s Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation, said shortly before enforcement began. “You had time to change your inventory or pivot from whatever industry you want to go into,” Goff told Hawaii News Now in June, adding that the state had provided businesses sufficient time to adjust.
Under current DOH rules and guidance, retailers can continue selling compliant CBD products and certain topicals, tinctures, softgels, gummies, tablets, capsules, powders and beverages, subject to product-specific THC limits, testing, packaging and labeling requirements.
“At present, Hawaiʻi law does not provide an alternative pathway for hemp retailers to continue selling prohibited products,” DOH said. “DOH can, however, provide education and technical assistance to help businesses understand the existing law and prepare for future law changes.”
Alyas says those categories cannot sustain his stores.
“Our business is a majority, 90% of sales, of these types of product,” he said, referring to flower, pre-rolls and other products removed from sale. “We cannot sustain selling only these products. That’s currently what we’re doing now, only selling the topical, and soft gels, etc., and this is killing us.”
“People want smokable, not topical, that they can get online.”
Where the demand goes
The enforcement also changes how adults can access cannabis in Hawaii. Adult-use marijuana remains illegal, sitting outside the regulated market, while cannabis is available through the state’s medical dispensary system.
The possibility that some hemp retailers would close was also addressed publicly before enforcement began. State Rep. Scot Matayoshi, chair of the House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee, also defended the policy in June. “If putting these people out of business means getting these products off the streets … then they should be out of business,” he told Hawaii News Now, referring to products he said were reaching minors and circumventing other state laws.
A 2025 economic analysis commissioned by DOH estimated Hawaii’s total cannabis market across medical, gray and illicit sources at between $16.5 million and $32 million per month. Legal medical dispensaries generated about $5.3 million monthly.
Removing hemp flower and other intoxicating products from retail therefore reduces one channel through which adults outside the medical program have been obtaining cannabis.
Some of that demand could move toward medical dispensaries, while adults who do not qualify for or participate in the medical program have fewer regulated options, and some of that demand could move to the illicit market.
The delayed federal hemp ban and Hawaii
The future of the same products remains under debate at the federal level.
The 2018 Farm Bill defined hemp using a limit of 0.3% delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis. That created room for products containing considerably more THCA while remaining below the federal delta-9 threshold.
Two flower samples provided by Alyas illustrate the difference. One contained 0.2104% delta-9 THC but 28.329% THCA, producing 25.055% total THC after applying the standard conversion formula. Another contained 0.169% delta-9 THC and 16.804% THCA, producing 14.906% total THC.
Congress changed that framework in Public Law 119-37 in November 2025. The new definition uses total THC, expressly including THCA, and places additional restrictions on finished hemp-derived cannabinoid products. Those provisions were scheduled to take effect November 12, 2026. On September 2, President Trump signed a funding bill that delays most of them until December 11. A carve-out leaves the November 12 date in place for products containing cannabinoids that cannot be naturally produced by the plant, which does not include THCA flower.
The additional month is intended to give Congress more time to consider a longer-term regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoid products. Bills already introduced in Congress propose alternatives ranging from longer implementation delays to new rules for particular hemp products.
Alyas believes naturally occurring THCA flower and pre-rolls could remain part of that market if federal lawmakers eventually choose regulation instead of prohibition.
Hawaii’s rules do not currently make that distinction for smokable hemp. Flower and pre-rolls remain prohibited regardless of their labeled delta-9 THC or THCA content, leaving retailers such as Alyas dependent on the narrower range of manufactured hemp products permitted by the state.
