Gov. Linda Lingle, Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, state Narcotics Enforcement Division chief Keith Kamita, Big Island Mayor Harry Kim, Hawaii County Councilman James Arakaki, Dr. Fred Holschuh, Larry Burnette and the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Agency, just to name a few, the community can't take your "help" any more. Now the Legislature has taken away our precious constitutional right to privacy for our electronic communications because of your -- and their -- policy failures. Why should the good people of Hawaii be made to suffer the loss of freedom for your prejudice and stupidity?

Hawaii used to be lovely. Marijuana cultivation and enjoyment was a key part of that loveliness. Prohibition destroyed it. You blew it. We all know that marijuana is at least medical, yet the Honolulu Police Department's Web site still doesn't acknowledge this fact. Marijuana is still scheduled in Hawaii law as having "no recognized medical value." How can that be, six years after the medical use of marijuana became legal here?

Prohibitionists created, supported and funded the Green Harvest marijuana eradication program, which caused a substitution factor of marijuana users turning to crack, heroin and crystal meth, or "ice." Simple as that. Then you exported this failed policy to other jurisdictions, which now also suffer ice epidemics. If a criminal is one who commits a crime or causes one to occur, you are the biggest criminals in Hawaii history.

How many of our children have you caused to be attracted to ice and crime? Who knows? You refuse to account for it in program reviews or any official studies or reports. Who can blame you for that? I can. Too many of our neighbors and relatives rot in prisons here and on the mainland, yet you're hoping to retire comfortably with big, fat pensions and cushy health benefits.

On your watch and because of your policies the people of Hawaii suffer for decades. No one gets fired for this, and you keep the failed programs going. I will do my best to keep shining a light on your malfeasance until this situation is healed once and for all.

Prohibitionists, you have stolen the liberty, the freedom, the health and the hope of our good people. Now we want it back.

Roger Christie is founder of the THC Ministry in Hilo, Hawaii.

Note: Dear prohibitionists: Please stop 'helping' us.

Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI)
Author: Roger Christie
Published: May 14, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Contact: letters@starbulletin.com
Website: http://www.starbulletin.com/

THC Ministry
http://www.thc-ministry.org/

I understand fears of our government but what seems to be in the reform circles is anger towards us rather then trying to change your laws. We can't change your government. Only you can do that. If your government wants our government to help them ( I'm not agreeing that it is right ) in the drug area then work on stopping it. We as citizens of the United States aren't the enemy. Always remember how tough our laws are down here.

High Hitler: The History Channel: http://tinyurl.com/njzs2

However, it may explain why he was so insane to attack Russia before consolidating Europe (ie defeating britain). That was his real downfall, war on 2 fronts.

He was already insane long before he was ever chancellor given his method of rising to power, anti-semitism. He never had empathy for Jews so I doubt he lost it by using drugs.

Unfortunately when your government kicks over anthills, you have to expect the swarming angry masses of retaliation. Look at the softwood deal. We lose some $1bn after winning NAFTA hearing after hearing and our government considers this a victory? So the people here can be doubly choked. Choked at our government for being spineless, and choked at yours for bullying us into losing when we are the victors in all the 'nafta dispute hearings' We signed the fta so we could have a dispute resolution mechanism that would be fair. When we win, the fight goes on until we get tired of fighting and are willing to lose. This engenders a lot of mistrust and hatred in people, and its MINOR compared to the damage the drug war is causing. The war on terror is a war of creating terror and fear engenders hate.

lombar - the answers to your question are yes, the US utilities cooperate up the wazoo with LEO. The three big phone monopolies, I mean companies, gave every single phone call record to the federal government over the last year, without even telling anyone.

I know Comcast routinely gives any cable/internet related info to the government upon request. Comcast also refused to run medical MJ political ads on its local networks.

I would assume there is zero protection for Americans in terms of utility/phone/internet info being given to LEO. LEO has only to ask. If it's not legal for them to get the info now, believe me, it soon will be.

Let's open our eyes to what's really going on. You ask, is this what the government really wants? Yes, absolutely. Look at the worst case scenario. Violence and hard drug use explode. What's the result from the government's perspective? The media and population clamor for the government to do something about the evil drug bikers (never for an instant blaming the govt). The government gets a free pass to increase in size and power. More tax and budget for more cops, more machines, more jails, more lawyers. Resistance to further erosions of civil liberties eliminated.

Americans are experts in this cycle because we've watched it happen right in front of us since 1970. We have 5 or 6 times as many people in prison as 1970. We have police forces totally militarized and exempt from civil right protections that have all fallen in the name of the drug war.

Don't ever think that government is somehow naive or dumb and doesn't get the big picture. Their policies are driven by the big picture. They know exactly what they're doing. You think it's any different in Canada? Hell, just a few years ago the Canadian Senate had the best minds available analyze the cannabis "problem" and write up a 600 page fully documented report. It advocated legal cannabis for everyone over 16.

The practice of simply turning over wholesale to law enforcement the names of customers using a lot of power is very unconstitutional and wrong for various legal and moral reasons. The large electrical utility in my area has specific privacy rules they have to follow which state that they cannot release customer information without due process, meaning a very narrow subpoena naming the customer specifically and stating why they are after those records. At least in this jurisdiction, cops can't just say to the utility "give us the names and addresses of everybody using unusually high amounts of power compared to their surrounding neighbors", unless that's changed as a PATRIOT Act thing, but even in that case it would be an obvious abuse, as they cannot credibly maintain that they are looking for terrorists with that kind of information and then use it to bust growers. If/when they use the PATRIOT Act to monitor the sales of things like chemicals that can be used to make explosive compounds, and biologically hazardous materials, etc. that is credible and anyone can understand that.

Hard drug usage can be opposed and fought against, I just don't want the cops doing it anymore. 80 years of miserable failure is enough for me. The respect for the rule of law in this person will not be restored until these issues are dealt with in a SANE fashion. The law stopped being about 'providing freedom to the people'(which I believe was the intent of the USA founders) and has become 'keep the people in line'(which is the philosophy of every totalitarian despot).... all stick, no carrot.

If they legalize the cannabis and separate it from the hard drugs I believe that would go a LONG way in reducing use of the other substances. However for freedom to reign, people must be allowed to make their own mistakes... when that mistake directly harms OTHERS then the state has an obligation to intercede. Until then, step along citizen, step along.

Some days I think that I really understand the intent of the USA founders and would have NO PROBLEM erasing the border and adopting the Constitution here and just ditching Ottawa (cos' they just do Wash. bidding anyway, extra unnecessary taxes) altogether if the USA society actually reflected the republic which was originally created. Could just be my own misinterpretations though as well as my own dissatisfaction with the apparatus of government and the decidely orwellian turn of the last few years.

It's not that I think its better in the USA, indeed, quite the opposite given what many posters put here daily. It's just more an aknowledgement of reality. The USA could take all our resources and we could not stop you. However in the spirit of peace and co-operation, we are happy to share (at lower than our own costs) our resources with our great friends to the south. The sooner we get over the crying over losing what we never really had, the sooner we can work to improve both nations. The entrenched apparatus is geared towards profit making and not creating a better world and this needs to be changed. I ultimately beleive the world will be a better place without all the borders. I support the idea of a one world government in prinicple, just not a militaristic fascist despotic police state one-world-government. Perhaps that is the inevitable state of all governemnt, they all become despotic ultimately to preserve their own power at the peoples expense of course.

I would be a lot happier knowing my neighbor can pursue his own happiness without that costing the taxpayer a lot of extra money to steal his property and liberty. So maybe it needs to be turned around so we are trying to facillitate happiness rather than wealth... wealth is the tool to do this, not a bludgeon to rule with. We won't chain the great dragon until we sort out the debt-based monetary system.

I wonder if any of the christian proponents of the current monetary system have ever read Deut. 15? Perhaps being a proponent of the debt based money system precludes one from being a christian at all.

I think they should legalize all the drugs for the simple fact that drug prohibition is unenforcable and worse than the original problem. The issue is whether we have the right to self-medicate or consume whatever we want. Simple observation of the truth would disuade most kids from trying meth and if it was all legal, it would just be 'boring adult stuff'. We can have a 'free world' or a 'drug free world' but not both.

I used to totally agree with you FoM about hard drugs but I changed my mind a few months ago. The police just cannot be trusted to deal with this HEALTH problem so I want them right out of it. The rhetoric they use and the slimy tactics to keep putting cannabis beside the hard drugs only shows that they are the LAST group to be trusted to 'help' the addicts. As much as I hate what hard drugs can do to someone, I cannot abide societies hatred to land on hard drug users any more than it should fall on us. The laws response to illicit drugs is hatred and fear and that is just not acceptable, however damaging the drug is to individuals. Alcohol is also a hard drug in my opinion.

I've got bad news, though, the problem ain't just in Hawaii. Nobody got fired for 9/11, either - no one. Not a single government employee. No one got fired for either space shuttle crash, either. Only one person in the entire country has been fired for the Katrina disaster/abandonment.