Pubdate: Mon, 14 Apr 2003
Source: Honolulu Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2003 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Contact:  http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/195
Author: Kevin Dayton, Advertiser Big Island Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

BIG ISLAND PLAN FOR POT GOES UP IN SMOKE

HILO, Hawai'i -- It was a simple, if provocative, idea: Big Island police 
regularly harvest marijuana, and county officials reasoned the state might 
need some for patients who use cannabis under the state's medical marijuana 
law.

So, the county offered to supply the state with pot.

As it turns out, the situation isn't simple at all, and the state doesn't 
want the county's marijuana.

That oddball bit of intergovernmental communication began in 2001, when the 
Hawai'i County Council approved a resolution authorizing Mayor Harry Kim to 
accept federal money to help pay for marijuana eradication missions.

The resolution imposed a number of conditions on the program, including 
instructions that there were to be no aerial herbicide spraying and no 
rappelling from helicopters within 500 feet of houses during the raids.

The council added a section instructing county police to work with the 
state to "develop a plan where a portion of the confiscated marijuana can 
be set aside for medical marijuana use."

Councilman Gary Safarik, who represents Upper and Lower Puna, where much of 
the Big Island's illegal marijuana crop is grown, said he and Councilman 
Curtis Tyler got the idea for redistributing confiscated marijuana from 
constituents who use medical marijuana and complained that neighbors were 
stealing their plants.

Safarik, a former Honolulu police officer, said some of his old police 
buddies ribbed him about the resolution, but Big Island police gamely 
approached the state about the idea.

Not likely, replied Kurt Spohn, deputy attorney general. In a written 
response to the county, Spohn warned that anyone who tries to implement the 
council's novel proposal risks federal prosecution.

And as the chief law enforcement authority in the state, the attorney 
general won't knowingly violate a federal law prohibiting marijuana by 
developing a plan to distribute the stuff, Spohn wrote.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager