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141 US HI: Editorial: Medical Marijuana Raids Amount To HarassmentFri, 02 Aug 2002
Source:Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI)          Area:Hawaii Lines:58 Added:08/03/2002

The Issue

Big Island police have seized marijuana plants from patients using marijuana for medical purposes.

Police on the Big Island apparently don't care much for a new state law allowing the cultivation and use of marijuana for medical use. Patients have been subjected to raids in the past month resulting in confiscation of plants and dried marijuana on the basis that they exceeded, if only slightly, the law's limits. Police should lighten up and grasp the spirit of the law.

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142 US HI: PUB LTE: Incomprehensive ActThu, 01 Aug 2002
Source:West Hawaii Today (HI) Author:Flaherty, Charles Area:Hawaii Lines:74 Added:08/01/2002

Editor:

Crystal methamphetamine or "ice" is a terrible problem within our community. Crime is increasing, families are being destroyed, spouses and children are being abused, and jobs are being lost as a direct result of this horrendous epidemic. As the level of suffering increases, popular opinion grows within our community that our government is not doing enough to address this serious crisis. Meanwhile, we watch the heavy investment in police, helicopters, and dollars to make "Operation Green Harvest" the success that it has been.

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143 US HI: Ice vs. PotWed, 31 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Weekly (HI) Author:Blair, Chad Area:Hawaii Lines:80 Added:07/31/2002

Is the statewide marijuana eradication campaign leading drug users to crystal methamphetamine? An 8-year-old study supports an ice-pot connection, and is making headlines on the Big Island, where concerned citizens are pressing county officials to junk costly Green Harvest raids in favor of cracking down on ice, aka batu ("Police violations," HW, 7/24).

The ice/pot theory is not new, nor confined to Hawai'i County. The Institute for scientific Analysis of San Francisco found that crystal meth use in Honolulu during the 1980s was replacing pot use, most pointedly in low-income areas where marijuana had become scarce and expensive due to eradication (Cover Story, "High Anxiety," HW, 10/27/99).

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144 US HI: PUB LTE: U.S. Should Follow England On MarijuanaWed, 31 Jul 2002
Source:Maui News, The (HI) Author:Bajan, Michele Area:Hawaii Lines:46 Added:07/31/2002

It is a glorious event that England has sensibly rescheduled marijuana, lowering it to a class C. That is the least harmful classification that it has. Their government has made a rational choice to allow for personal use of a natural substance that has never killed anyone, thus, giving their law enforcement the freedom and ability to focus on drugs, violence and problems that really ARE harmful to citizens and society.

I hope this intelligent decision will influence the U.S. and other European countries to review the real effects of marijuana and legitimately determine if those effects are threatening at all, or enough to merit depriving nonviolent citizens of their freedom, invading their privacy, giving them felony charges, and overcrowding our jails with so many casual cannabis users.

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145 US HI: LTE: Tourist Turned Off By Experience In LahainaWed, 31 Jul 2002
Source:Maui News, The (HI) Author:Maurer, Larry Area:Hawaii Lines:38 Added:07/31/2002

I just completed my Hawaiian vacation. I was deplored by the situation on Front Street in Lahaina. My family and I literally had to walk a gauntlet of teen drug users, pushers and characters who made obscene and insulting remarks to us as we passed them.

I noticed that other tourists were also subjected to these indignities. This situation was particularly concentrated in the open beach area near the intersection with Papalaua Street. Teens blatantly were drinking, smoking crack and pot in front of tourists. One was even free-basing. I noticed that they would openly offer hits to teens that were walking with their families. In the week that I stayed in Lahaina I never spotted a policeman. Does Lahaina have a police department?

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146 US HI: PUB LTE: Don't Worry, We're All SafeMon, 29 Jul 2002
Source:West Hawaii Today (HI) Author:Broussard, John A. Area:Hawaii Lines:31 Added:07/31/2002

Editor:

Terrorism, violent crime, drunk drivers - don't worry about them. Here on the Big Island we know we're safe.

All that talk about rising crime rates and the need for improved security measures just doesn't apply here.

That's obvious, since our police have so much time on their hands that they now can spend it arresting people with leukemia and muscular dystrophy for legally possessing marijuana.

John A. Broussard

Waimea

[end]

147 US HI: LTE: 'No Arrests Were Made,' But Why?Tue, 30 Jul 2002
Source:Garden Island (HI) Author:Rice, Tom Area:Hawaii Lines:46 Added:07/31/2002

Letter to the Editor

There have been at least four front page, detailed reports in The Garden Island over the past two or three years about authorities destroying marijuana plants.

The reports name as participants virtually every County, State, and Federal drug enforcement agency: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Kaua'i Police Department (KPD), Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), Hawaii Police Department (HPD), Hawaii Air National Guard, and more.

The reports describe long hours of investigation, aerial recon, and combined task forces swooping in. Plants are cut down (does this kill the root?). Readers can imagine the drama.

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148 US HI: Maui Crime Spree GrowsThu, 25 Jul 2002
Source:Maui Weekly (HI) Author:Tendo, Starr Area:Hawaii Lines:174 Added:07/29/2002

A dramatic increase in crime sweeps Maui as police are swamped and local communities on alert. "Big drug dealers need tougher sentences." Citizen action urged.

On July 1, after a day at work, Doug Baker came home to his Kihei residence to find that the place had been broken into, ransacked and basically "cleaned out" of all of his possessions. He lost cameras, jewelry, a coin collection, a variety of tools, a CD player, and a knife collection. Baker estimated the loss at around $7,000."Working in the construction and maintenance field, I need my tools to be employable," said Baker, "everything's gone, my air compressor, grinders, nail gun...everything."

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149US HI: Medical Marijuana Law Yet To Realize PotentialMon, 29 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Advertiser (HI) Author:Hurley, Timothy Area:Hawaii Lines:Excerpt Added:07/29/2002

When Hawai'i became the first state to enact a medical marijuana law, legislators were praised for their progressive stance on a highly controversial issue.

But two years later, the state's Medical Marijuana Program has yet to realize its full potential.

Criticized by mainstream doctors, in conflict with federal law and held in low regard by many law enforcement officials, the program continues to tip-toe around the forces that opposed its enactment in the first place.

Recent arrests of medical marijuana patients on the Big Island illustrate the problems that can occur when the program crosses paths with police more accustomed to battling marijuana in the war on drugs than upholding a law allowing limited use.

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150 US HI: OPED: It's Time For New Tactics In Failed 'War On Drugs'Sat, 27 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) Author:Young, Rev. Mike Area:Hawaii Lines:60 Added:07/29/2002

Every voice raised against the "War on Drugs" is made to sound like a voice in favor of using drugs. And yet, many of the problems of drug use are the consequence of our misguided drug policies. Respectable people like judges, governors and people in law enforcement, as well as the voters in several states, are publicly coming to that conclusion.

Two years ago the Unitarian Universalist denomination launched a study of U.S. drug policies. What have decades of prohibition, heavy jail sentences, militarized enforcement, eradication programs in Third World countries and massive demonization programs produced? Drug use has continued. Drug entry points have multiplied. The huge amounts of money involved have distorted our own political process and social institutions as well as those of the source countries. We have the largest percentage of our population incarcerated of any country on the planet. We have spent billions of dollars on the so-called war on drugs. And drug use and abuse continues unabated.

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151 US HI: Arrested Medical Marijuana Users Sue PoliceFri, 26 Jul 2002
Source:Maui News, The (HI)          Area:Hawaii Lines:64 Added:07/26/2002

HILO (AP) -- Three Kona residents arrested for investigation of marijuana possession despite holding state permits for medical use of marijuana have sued police for false arrest.

Attorney Jack Schweigert filed the suit in Kona Circuit Court this week on behalf of Kealoha Wells and John and Rhonda Robison.

Police arrested the three on July 8 at their residence in North Kona. They were released without charges after being held for eight hours, but police said charges are still possible.

Police are seen on a videotape made by Rhonda Robison saying the medical supplies of the three must be ''definitively separated'' from each other. But state officials later said there is no legal requirement for separation of medical-marijuana supplies.

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152 US HI: Medical Marijuana Defendants Sue PoliceThu, 25 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) Author:Thompson, Rod Area:Hawaii Lines:48 Added:07/26/2002

The Suit Contends The Big Isle Officers Lacked Probable Cause

HILO - Three Kona residents have sued Kona police officers for false arrest, alleging that police did not have probable cause when they apprehended the medical marijuana users earlier this month.

Attorney Jack Schweigert filed the suit in Kona Circuit Court this week on behalf of Kealoha Wells and John and Rhonda Robison, who have state permits to use marijuana as medicine.

Police arrested the three July 8. Police are seen on a videotape of the arrest, made by Rhonda Robison, saying the medical supplies of the three must be "definitively separated" from each other.

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153 US HI: Police ViolationsWed, 24 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Weekly (HI) Author:Blair, Chad Area:Hawaii Lines:68 Added:07/25/2002

When the helicopter hovered for some 30 minutes at an altitude less than 500 feet above the Big Isle subdivision of Puna Beach Palisades, residents like Kevin Horton decided they weren't going to take it anymore.

"I was angry," Horton recalled about the July 18 incident. "I felt that the sanctity of my home had been violated."

Horton and his neighbors confronted the two helmeted cops who exited the chopper. "We said, 'Look, we know you're just doing your job, but there's got to be a better way,'" said Horton, adding, "The helicopter was so loud!"

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154 US HI: LTE: What About Ice?Wed, 24 Jul 2002
Source:Garden Island (HI) Author:Lawrence, R. Area:Hawaii Lines:40 Added:07/25/2002

Is it me? Or what. Somehow I just don't get it. We spend big bucks to fly around and spot pakalolo growing, so we can eradicate it, but do nothing about ICE. Now personally, I've never heard of a crazed pot smoker going on a rampage and killing innocent people. Anywhere! I have heard of ICE users killing innocent people, and right here on our beautiful island of Kauai. So.... how do we get rid of ICE. Well it doesn't grow on trees like pot, and I really doubt there are enough labs on this island to support the habits of all the users that live here. Where does it come from? There are only two sources. The Air and the Sea. Do we have dogs at the airport to sniff baggage as it passes by on the luggage conveyor or to check people as they exit the cargo daily? No. We need a special task force devoted to this purpose. Oh yes, it will cost big bucks to implement a squad for that purpose. But think for a moment. Instead of spending millions on island beautification for the tourists, and even more money to bring tourists to Kauai, we might try to save our children. Very much like Parkinsons disease, ICE eats holes in the brain until you go maki. These are our children for goodness sake. Think about it, if you've got any money invested in tourism, who wants to come to Ice Island. That's where we are headed. Just like "Garbage Island" from the past, we can whip this problem if we put our minds and money where it is needed.

R. Lawrence, Kapaa

[end]

155US HI: Editorial: Big Island Pot Raids Look Like A StretchTue, 23 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Advertiser (HI)          Area:Hawaii Lines:Excerpt Added:07/24/2002

It is not entirely clear why police on the Big Island have cracked down on local residents who hold medical marijuana permits, but the story offered thus far is less than totally convincing.

Police said they raided residents in Kona and Puna on the basis of a complaint.

That would be an adequate reason to investigate whether the permit holders were growing, selling or holding more marijuana than is allowed under the law. But according to the residents, the police went further than that.

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156US HI: Mayor approves county pot regulationsTue, 23 Jul 2002
Source:West Hawaii Today (HI) Author:Edwards, Tiffany Area:Hawaii Lines:Excerpt Added:07/23/2002

HILO - County officials are taking steps to clarify the state's medical marijuana law for residents and for police.

County rules and regulations spell out how the Police Department is to enforce the law and how it investigates suspected violations.

Before Mayor Harry Kim went on vacation Friday he signed the rules and regulations that govern marijuana eradication operations and reconnaissance missions, as well as investigations involving medical and religious use of marijuana.

"Hopefully by the signing of these rules, we will clarify what procedures the police are to follow," County Managing Director Dixie Kaetsu said Monday.

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157US HI: Lawsuits Filed In Two Big Island CasesTue, 23 Jul 2002
Source:West Hawaii Today (HI) Author:Edwards, Tiffany Area:Hawaii Lines:Excerpt Added:07/23/2002

HILO - A Honolulu attorney said he is filing on behalf of four Big Island residents lawsuits against police officers who recently seized their medical marijuana.

John and Rhonda Robison and Kealoha "Kea" Wells are the plaintiffs in one complaint attorney Jack Schweigert said he mailed Monday to the Kona Division of the Third Circuit Court.

That complaint alleges police invaded the privacy of the Robisons and Wells, falsely arrested them July 8 and wrongfully took 20 marijuana plants from their Kalaoa residence. The three were reported "released pending investigation" eight hours after their arrest. Police also seized 1.5 ounces of dried marijuana but returned it July 16, Schweigert said.

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158 US HI: Kim Signs Medical Pot RulesSat, 20 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) Author:Thompson, Rod Area:Hawaii Lines:50 Added:07/21/2002

HILO - Big Island Mayor Harry Kim signed two sets of rules yesterday intended to guide police dealings with marijuana. But the rules appeared to do nothing to quiet critics of police.

Residents of Puna Beach Palisades south of Hilo were angered Thursday when a marijuana eradication helicopter landed on a vacant lot to seize 14 plants, said resident Judith Mura. Residents are circulating a petition to Kim to halt such activity, she said.

But new eradication rules signed by Kim say nothing for or against helicopters landing in residential areas, although they do say helicopters are supposed to stay 500 feet away from homes.

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159US HI: Big Island Residents Protest Drug RaidsSat, 20 Jul 2002
Source:Honolulu Advertiser (HI) Author:Clark, Hugh Area:Hawaii Lines:Excerpt Added:07/21/2002

HILO, Hawai'i -- Big Island residents in Kona and Puna are up in arms over recent raids that some claim are targeted against medical marijuana permit holders.

Honolulu attorney Jack Schweigert yesterday said he plans to file a lawsuit in Kona's Circuit Court next week on behalf of at least three victims of the raids. He said they appear to be the focus of "frustrated police who have not yet accepted the state law."

Police and county officials denied they're targeting medical marijuana users.

[end]

160 US HI: PUB LTE: Green Harvest Causes 'Ice' Epidemic, CrimewaveFri, 19 Jul 2002
Source:Garden Island (HI) Author:Christie, Roger Area:Hawaii Lines:54 Added:07/21/2002

Aloha. Your editorial of July 8th is one for the record books. Since you praise it so highly, I dare you to report on the unintended(?) consequences of your island's marijuana eradication program.

Kauai has a raging "ice" epidemic and other negative social indicators all around and yet you pretend to wonder where they came from? Duh! From the program you praise so highly, that's where!

Just ask Dr. Patricia Morgan, Associate Professor of Public Health at U.C. Berkeley. She did the Hawai'i study connecting the dots from marijuana eradication directly to the ice epidemic from 1991 - 1994. Her telephone number is (510) 642-4861. Her email is momorgan@uclink.berkeley.edu.

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