Thirty years ago, a college kid in Kentucky was caught growing marijuana plants in his closet.

That turned him into a convicted felon, and though he's been on the right side of the law ever since, he still can't vote. On any job application, he must check the box next to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

All this misery for growing a plant whose leaves the past three presidents admit having smoked.

We know this story because Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky keeps telling it. That a Southern Republican probably running for president is condemning such prosecutions as unfair speaks volumes on the collapsing support for the war on marijuana - part of the larger war on drugs.

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Kevin Sabet just doesn't get it ("If you think Big Tobacco was bad, wait until you see Big Marijuana," StarAdvertiser, Insight, Sept. 24).

Big Marijuana already exists in the form of Mexican drug cartels. These are ruthless people who cut off heads to resolve business disputes, sell drugs to anyone regardless of age, and have a vested financial interest in providing cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin to consumers.

Like it or not, marijuana is here to stay. We can collect taxes on legal marijuana or we can subsidize drug cartels. Punitive laws have little, if any, deterrent value. Despite the dire predictions of drug warriors, the sky is not falling in Colorado.

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Saying changes need to be made to reduce their pain and inconvenience, patients and caregivers testified Wednesday evening in favor of establishing statewide medical marijuana dispensaries.

But at least a few residents, including a physician, advised that the dispensaries should be centralized and that marijuana in its various forms should be kept out of the hands of children and put in child-proof containers, in view of some research that shows its early use can hamper brain development.

More than 70 people attended the public meeting held by the Medical Marijuana Dispensary Task Force at the state Capitol auditorium.

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Proponents of legalization and other drug policy reforms make some important points.

It is true that most people who try drugs do not get addicted - they stop after using a few times.

It is also true - and regrettable - that America's incarceration rate is embarrassingly high and that blacks and Latinos bear the brunt of harsh arrest policies.

And, finally, despite our best efforts, fully eradicating drug use and its consequences remains a distant dream.

But placing faith that legalization will help any of these issues is misguided. In fact, legalization threatens to further contribute to disproportionate health outcomes among minorities, all the while creating a massive new industry - Big Tobacco 2.0 - intent on addicting the most vulnerable in society.

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Research Focuses on Marijuana's Harm, and Ignores Its Medical Benefits

Is America's scientific research biased to focus on the harmful effects of drugs?

That was one of the questions at the heart of a congressional hearing this summer seeking to understand more comprehensively the scientific evidence related to marijuana. And it was how Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found herself being grilled by Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va.

"Dr. Volkow, your testimony seems to completely disregard lots of other data," he accused.

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Legal Medically, but Difficult to Obtain, Lawmakers to See If Loophole Can Be Fixed

This is the first in a two-part series looking at a loophole in the medical marijuana industry that allows patients to possess and use the substance, but not obtain it unless they grow it themselves. Part two will be published in Monday's TGI.

LIHUE - It has been just over 14 years since Hawaii made history.

At the time, the 50th state became the first in the nation to establish a medical marijuana program through legislation rather than ballot initiative.

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The state has agreed to eliminate a rule requiring permits for protests at the Capitol and other state properties.

In a settlement reached in federal court earlier this month, the state said it will repeal a requirement for groups of 25 or more to obtain a permit to demonstrate on state property.

The permit had to be requested 14 business days in advance and required the applicant to get insurance to protect the state from possible damages.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii sued the state in March, claiming the administrative rule violated the First Amendment by stifling spontaneous demonstrations. The lawsuit also said state officials would sometimes waive the permit requirement without outlining the guidelines for waivers, which allowed officials to approve demonstrations based on their message.

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Marijuana ministry advocate Roger Christie has finally been released after four years in federal custody to a halfway house, and, boy, he said upon his release, would he like to once again consume some of his favorite plant. He added wisely, though, that would be only "when I'm legally allowed to do so."

But, not even counting his four years of probation, that might be never - unless he moves to Washington state or Colorado, where marijuana is legal, and assuming Hawaii doesn't follow those states down that road.

Here in Hawaii, Christie could try to qualify as a medical marijuana patient - his effort to secure a religious exemption obviously didn't succeed - but otherwise his greatest joy might be to just breathe the fresh air of freedom, such as it is.

[end]

Roger Christie Enters a Halfway House As His Term Ends, and He Plans a Federal Appeal

Marijuana ministry advocate Roger Christie emerged from four years in federal custody Thursday and said he's looking forward to his first hit of marijuana - "when I'm legally allowed to do so."

"I want to juice it, I want to eat it, I want to wear it," Christie said in a brief interview before checking into an Iwilei halfway house called Mahoney Hale, where he will stay until his Nov. 14 "expiration of sentence date." Then Christie will be on four years of federal probation and supervised release.

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Big Island Resident Roger Christie Has Been in a Federal Detention Center Since 2010

Hawaii island cannabis advocate Roger Christie, who pleaded guilty in September 2013 to federal charges of marijuana trafficking and failing to file tax returns, is being released to a halfway house.

Christie is considered an icon among some marijuana supporters and has been in custody in Honolulu's Federal Detention Center since his arrest in July 2010 on the trafficking indictment.

State Sen. Will Espero had planned to visit him but was told that Christie was to be released Thursday, Espero said. Jeff Davis, a Christie friend and Libertarian candidate for Hawaii governor, also said Christie is being released Thursday.

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Meetings on How to Address Hawaii's Regulations Are Set for Oahu and the Big Island

Any system of medical marijuana distribution centers in Hawaii would likely incorporate policies and programs that have proved successful in other states, but also accommodate the unique needs of the state's roughly 13,000 medicinal cannabis patients, officials say.

Those concerns include consideration of the fact that all interisland transport of marijuana is now illegal and that the product can be grown outdoors in Hawaii year-round, unlike in some other states where weather will not permit open-air cultivation, said Peter Whiticar, a branch chief with the state Department of Health and a member of the Medical Marijuana Dispensary Task Force.

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Fourteen years after Hawaii legalized the use of medical marijuana, the state still lacks a dispensary system allowing eligible patients to obtain the drug easily and lawfully.

Patients are left to grow pot themselves, or buy it on the black market.

A new report by the Legislative Reference Bureau highlights the challenges patients face in Hawaii, and describes how medical-marijuana programs operate in the other 22 states that have them.

We've said it before, but we'll say it again: Hawaii needs a dispensary system to match the 2000 law.

We hope this latest report will be the springboard to establishing one.

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A young couple recently visited me at my stall in the Hilo Farmers' Market. The man was on disability from service in Afghanistan, with a marijuana medical card from California.

As I sketched their portraits, we chatted. He said he needed some medicine, and was dumbstruck to find that there were no certified dispensaries on the island where they were spending two weeks.

"What kind of thinking is that?" he asked me.

I grew embarrassed because no logical answer was available to me.

This situation is not uncommon in this day and age. One would think the tourism agencies would want to rectify this situation without bureaucratic harassment of such visitors.

Tomas Belsky Hilo

[end]

A Report to the Legislature Details Obstacles to Care Caused by the Lack of Dispensaries

Despite being among the first states to approve the use of medical marijuana, certified patients in Hawaii still face challenges tied to access and transporting the drug in the isles, according to a new report to the state Legislature.

The Legislative Reference Bureau report is to be presented Tuesday at a meeting of the Medical Marijuana Dispensary System Task Force, a working group convened by the Legislature to make recommendations for establishing a dispensary system for marijuana in Hawaii.

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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]

Contrary to what you may have heard, the armored vehicles that appeared on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown did not come from the Pentagon.

"Most of the stuff you are seeing in video coming out of Ferguson is not military," Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department's press secretary, told reporters last week. "The military is not the only source of tactical gear in this country."

In other words: Don't blame the military for militarizing the police.

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In 1996, when he was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Eric Holder urged the D.C. Council to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, which it had abolished in 1994.

Two decades later, as an attorney general who has repeatedly criticized "draconian" mandatory minimums and sought to limit their use, he faces resistance from the federal prosecutors he oversees.

Holder alluded to that resistance in a speech to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on July 31, saying, "Any suggestion that defendant cooperation is somehow dependent on mandatory minimums is plainly inconsistent with the facts and with history."

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In 2003, a Nebraska state trooper stopped Emiliano Gonzolez for speeding on Interstate 80 and found $124,700 inside a cooler on the back seat of the rented Ford Taurus he was driving.

Gonzolez said the money was intended to buy a refrigerated truck for a produce business, but the cops figured all that cash must have something to do with illegal drugs.

Although there was not much evidence to support that theory, under federal forfeiture law the government managed to keep Gonzolez's money based on little more than a hunch. A bill introduced last week by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would make that sort of highway robbery harder to pull off.

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I have worked in the addiction field in Hawaii for 35 years and facilitated the Family Program at Hina Mauka Recovery Center in Kaneohe for 12 years.

I know well the impact that addiction has on the family and the suffering that families experience while their addicted family member is focusing on their drug of choice.

So I read with interest last month's article, "Epidemic Coming," by Rob Perez (Star-Advertiser, June 22). Whether an epidemic is coming or is already here, I certainly agree that drug addiction and drug abuse are very serious public health problems.

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As thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America seek refuge in the United States, some commentators are blaming American drug users.

"If there weren't a lot of Americans seeking marijuana and heroin and cocaine," says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, "there would not be a drug war."

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady seems to agree.

"This crisis was born of American self-indulgence," she writes.

If so, it was not the self-indulgence of people who consume arbitrarily proscribed intoxicants. It was the selfindulgence of prohibitionists who insist on exporting their disastrous policy to other countries.

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