I think the state Legislature should have a special session for several reasons. First, the legislators should make rules for same-sex couples and their tax requirements. What is so holy about traditional marriage, when 50 percent of the marriages end in divorce? Second, the legislators should legalize marijuana; drug czars have a long history of lying about marijuana, since 1937. Third, we need building moratoriums on Oahu and Maui. Phil Robertson Kailua [end]
I was disappointed to see California's Prop. 19 regarding the legalization of marijuana fail in the recent election. Currently, 46 percent of the country favors legalization of marijuana and 80 percent favors medical marijuana. In the upcoming legislative session in January, lawmakers should enact laws that provide for a limited number of "compassion centers" on each island for medical marijuana patients to obtain their medicine. We would also need provisions for the marijuana growers to be legally able to sell their product to the compassion centers without fear of legal consequences. Phil Robertson Kailua [end]
We have had the prohibition of marijuana for 73 years and a black market valued at about $50 billion per year in this country. Much of this money goes to the violent Mexican drug cartels. Legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes would create legal jobs, much the same as in the tobacco and liquor industries. Anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of our country's population admit trying marijuana. The true percentage is probably considerably higher. If marijuana is harmful, then where are all the birth defects, the paranoid schizophrenics, the bank robberies and stolen car rings attributable solely to marijuana addiction? Phil Robertson Kailua [end]
Wow! After years of lies about marijuana from people like the drug czar, I thought we were making progress in reforming our marijuana laws. Now the editorial staff wants to go back in time. What's next? Shall we put people in prison for 30 years, like the state of Texas tried to do to Timothy Leary in the 1960s, for possessing one joint of marijuana? Phil Robertson Kailua [end]
Mahalo to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for his new policy on medical marijuana. For years, I have thought it was a waste of taxpayers' money to put people in prison for marijuana. The authoritative LaGuardia report, published in 1944 by the New York Academy of Medicine, concludes that marijuana is not addictive in the medical sense of the word, is relatively harmless, and largely demonized in the media. In the mid-1980s, reports circulated that marijuana would cause birth defects. I think this is largely false because we have not experienced a large increase in the number of birth defects, even though civil disobedience of marijuana laws is quite common. The marijuana black market is huge -- probably around $50 billion per year in this country. I think we should legalize marijuana and tax it like we do liquor. Phil Robertson Kailua [end]
I was pleased to read that the Big Island is going to vote on marijuana enforcement priorities. Most of the anti-marijuana laws are based on lies and faulty research. For example, if marijuana is addictive, then where are the bank robberies and stolen car rings attributable solely to marijuana addiction? The government is wasting tax dollars "stamping out the marijuana" and the federal government wastes billions of tax dollars each year. Millions upon millions of Americans have used marijuana. Where are all the bad effects in the general population if marijuana is harmful? The government in the nation's capital lies to us all the time; why should we believe them, waste our tax dollars, and put people in jail for puffing the weed? Phil Robertson, Honolulu [end]
As concerns the intended searches of student lockers and the random drug testing of teachers, I would like for the Drug Enforcement Administration to tell us exactly why marijuana is a dangerous drug. I understand the parents would want the drug testing of the teachers in the hopes of preventing their children from being negatively influenced. However, which drugs are we going to test for -- aspirin, cough drops and vitamins? Searching student lockers might catch some drugs. But there is such a thing as an illegal search when there in not enough probable cause. "Probable cause" is defined as "that which causes reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, to act." [continues 134 words]
Anti-drug warrior Ray Gagner (Letters, June 11) is all hyped up for his cause. But what does the government do about tobacco and alcohol except take "soft money" to smear opposing politicians? I have not touched marijuana for 20 years, but when I was young it associated me with dealers who dealt harder drugs. Prudently, I stayed away from harder drugs. Gagner cited government studies in his letter. I do not think the government has much credibility when 80 percent of the American people favor medical marijuana, while the federal government opposes it. The drug business is a huge black market and the politicians are corrupted by soft money and power. [continues 57 words]
I wish to refute the belief that marijuana is dangerous (Letters, June 3). Forty-seven percent of Americans have smoked marijuana. If there were a direct causal effect between marijuana use and addiction, criminal behavior and birth defects, would not 135 million people in the United States be afflicted with some of these maladies? One of my close friends, a case analyst for the U.S. Supreme Court, is fond of saying that many government employees are incompetent. We were fed all sorts of propaganda during the Cold War, and we are still looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What incompetence! The same is true about what the government tells us about marijuana. If I were dying of cancer, going blind from glaucoma or wasting from AIDS, I would want to smoke marijuana if it alleviated the symptoms. Marijuana associates the user with the dealers who deal harder drugs. If marijuana were legalized and put in the same category as alcohol, we might solve part of the problem of harder drugs such as heroin, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, morphine, opium and others. Phil Robertson [end]
Eighty percent of the American public want marijuana legalized for medical purposes, and 47 percent have experimented with marijuana, according to a recent CNN/TIME poll with a large sample size and small margin of error. I think the spokespeople for the federal government are giving us a line of bull when it comes to marijuana. Phil Robertson [end]
Editor -- The furor over television and movie violence, pornography, gambling, and marijuana brings to mind the example of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages which formally ended with the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 5, 1933. Because some people had trouble with alcohol, the 18th Amendment prohibited all alcoholic beverages. For years, gangsters such as Al Capone would smuggle the liquor into speakeasies and people would party away, despite the laws, and much to the profit of the fine gangsters. [continues 57 words]
