Project Prevention's presence in Hawaii is troubling. It perpetuates two dangerous myths: that drug use is endemic to the poor, and that addicts are throwaways, with no hope of recovery and undeserving of the basic freedom to manage their reproductive health. The truth is that substance abuse among pregnant women cuts across all socioeconomic and ethnic groups, and there is help. Planned Parenthood of Hawaii offers family planning services on a sliding scale basis - allowing our lowest income patients to obtain services, including birth control, for free. [continues 107 words]
Kudos to Police Chief Louis Kealoha ("It is possible to scale back in tight times," Star-Bulletin editorial, Dec. 11)! He is brave to admit something that has been known for a decade or so: that D.A.R.E. (the Drug Abuse Resistance Program) does not accomplish what it set out to do. Although D.A.R.E. was entertaining and exciting, prevention programs must do more than engage children with lights and action; they must result in a long-term resistance to drug use. [continues 81 words]
City Councilman Rod Tam compares the bed-and-breakfast controversy to the failure of alcohol prohibition ("B&Bs need permits with regulations," Star-Bulletin, Sept. 30), saying that regulation works better than prohibition. We agree. Policy makers should reform our drug laws for exactly the same reason. Our government has spent billions of dollars on law enforcement and incarceration over the last three decades. After all that expense and effort, drugs are cheaper and easily obtained. The first step should be to regulate and tax the sale of marijuana, in much the same way that alcohol and tobacco are regulated. Jeanne Y. Ohta Executive director Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii [end]
The Star-Bulletin's May 22 editorial, "Medical marijuana research should not be hampered," admirably argues against "absurd" federal policies discouraging science. Unfortunately, equally difficult state policies hamper Hawaii's seven-year-old medical marijuana law, and unduly interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. For instance, medical marijuana clearly is a health issue and should fall under the Department of Health, not law enforcement. Bureaucratic roadblocks faced by physicians and their patients can be eliminated. And instead of forcing sick patients to shady dealings in the black market, there must be a safe, legal source for the medical marijuana their doctors recommend for their serious illnesses. [continues 66 words]
Your April 24 editorial aptly describes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's statement on medical marijuana as "patently political," as the Bush administration continues its misplaced campaign of fear and intimidation against chronically ill patients and their physicians. Fortunately, federal prosecution of individuals using marijuana as medicine is almost nonexistent; most marijuana cases are handled by state and local authorities, and Hawaii's pioneering medical marijuana law protects sick patients from prosecution at those levels. But for the 3,300 seriously ill patients in Hawaii relying on doctor-recommended marijuana to alleviate chronic pain and suffering, the FDA statement can only be seen as the latest heavy-handed threat to access to a treatment scientists repeatedly have found safe and effective. [continues 62 words]
