I read with shock and dismay your front-page story about building hemp homes ("The house that hemp built," Star-Advertiser, June 4). Don't people realize that hemp is a dangerous "gateway plant" that invariably leads users down a slippery slope of botanical addiction? It's high time we nipped this nefarious practice in the bud - before people begin making bricks from peyote cacti and poppy plant stems. John Wythe White Haleiwa [end]
I read the Aug. 26 article, "Medical marijuana could help counter painkiller deaths," with great interest, especially the last sentence about how people "may never start opioid medication use if they are able to get pain relief from medical marijuana." I remember the days of Green Harvest, the federal marijuana eradication program that was highly successful in Hawaii. People went to jail, lost their homes and switched from smoking pot to snorting and/or shooting up crystal methamphetamine. We traded mellow, stoned-out hippies for sick, psychotic thieves and murderers who might never have begun using meth if they had retained their access to marijuana. John Wythe White Haleiwa [end]
