I was extremely dismayed to see your headline "New High" above the fold in Tuesday's paper (Star-Advertiser, May 5).

The value of medicinal marijuana is not in the "high," but in the comfort and relief that it brings to sufferers of chronic and long-term illness and pain.

Perpetuating the myth, even if only in sensationalized headlines, that medicinal marijuana can and should be equated with being high, is disingenuous and displays a remarkable lack of awareness about the power of the press.

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A Bill That Would Allow for the Establishment of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Passes Conference Committee and Is Due for a Vote

Some 15 years after medical marijuana use became legal in Hawaii, lawmakers are suddenly on the verge of permitting dispensaries to sell the drug to the 13,000 patients across the state.

In a highly unusual move, House and Senate negotiators Monday revived and then unanimously passed a medical pot dispensary bill that many observers had thought was dead and buried last week. The measure, House Bill 321, would allow for dispensaries at as many as 16 sites across the islands, including up to six locations on Oahu, starting as early as July 2016.

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The reason there is so much trouble with the medical marijuana dispensary bill is because it is not good for the people of Hawaii ("Pot dispensaries measure hangs on," Star-Advertiser, May 2).

All the amendments ruin it, and make compliance unaffordable and discriminatory for all but multimillionaires with health licenses.

For one, the definition of a "person" needs to be an actual person - one license for one aspect (grow, manufacture, dispense) for one person. Give as many Hawaii residents a chance to make a good living, and people and the state will benefit.

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The story of marijuana as medicine at the state Capitol this year was a story of careful preparation, dogged grass-roots politics and compassion for those who suffer from chronic illnesses. And don't forget the impact of money.

Bills to establish marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii have stalled in the state Legislature for years, but dispensaries suddenly emerged this year as one of the most talked-about issues for lawmakers. It was an issue so important they refused to allow it to die.

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Despite an all-out political push reinforced by some of the best-known lobbyists in the state, an effort to establish state-regulated dispensaries to distribute marijuana to legally registered patients in Hawaii remains in limbo.

The measure stalled during last-minute negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers Friday and appeared to be dead, but was later revived in a last-minute procedural maneuver.

Senators said they wanted to reopen the issue, and lawmakers could revisit the bill Monday if there is enough support in the House.

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Legislators responsible for amendments to House Bill 321, the medical marijuana bill, should be ashamed. The $20,000 application and $30,000 renewal fee for dispensaries was the give-away. It was always about the money.

It started out well-intentioned - to get medical marijuana to those who need it. I have personal experience with a sister who relies on medical marijuana for her multiple-organ cancer to relieve pain, nausea, appetite and sleep issues.

Our one-party-dominated state presents no viable opposition to counter the Democrats' thirst for taxation and over-regulation. Greed has taken a good and necessary cause and turned it into a money maker for the state. Lawmakers now propose general excise tax rates and surcharges of 25 percent. This is outrageous and confiscatory on sick people. There should be no GET or surcharges on medical marijuana.

Michelle "Mikie" Kerr Waikoloa, Hawaii island

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Back in 1986, Congress passed the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act, a law aimed at "designer drugs" that were similar to illegal compounds but different enough to escape prohibition.

Nearly three decades later, the government is still scrambling to keep up with the output of creative underground chemists, banning one psychoactive substance after another, only to find substitutes already on the market.

As a case the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday illustrates, the analog drug law failed because it tried to do the impossible.

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Medical marijuana may just be the controversy with a solution in sight.

Fifteen years ago, Hawaii's Legislature became the first in the nation to allow the use of marijuana if ordered by a doctor's prescription.

Yes, although marijuana possession was still illegal on a state and federal level, if a doctor prescribed it and you could somehow get it, then you could use it to treat nausea from cancer treatment, or other problems. But you couldn't buy it; you had to grow it.

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In 2000, Hawaii's Legislature was the first in the nation to pass medical marijuana legislation to provide medical relief for the state's seriously ill.

Existing law recognizes the benefits of marijuana for alleviating pain and other symptoms associated with certain debilitating illnesses, but patients until now have to obtain marijuana on the "black market" or must grow their own supply of medical marijuana. The plain fact is: It does not work.

Fifteen years ago, Hawaii led by example and now we must do it again by passing legislation to create a well-regulated cultivation and retail dispensary system.

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Froma Harrop should give more credit to the Rand Paul, RKy., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., bill ("Half a heart on marijuana better than no heart at all," Star-Advertiser, March 21).

Reducing cannabis (marijuana) from its current discredited classification as a Schedule I substance alongside heroin will allow a chain reaction of credible drug law reform, all by itself.

Like the original experiment with alcohol prohibition, the sequel has been not only a failure; it's one of America's worst policy failures.

Cannabis prohibition has been reinforced by lies, half-truths and propaganda, perhaps none worse than the Schedule I lie. America cannot move forward without fixing that blatant injustice.

Stan White Dillon, Colo.

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For Years, Huge Budgets and Plenty of Manpower Were the Norm - but Those Days Are Long Gone

The Hawaii National Guard was a pioneer in the war on drugs, flying Huey helicopters in support of a big law enforcement roundup of marijuana plants in a 1977 Hawaii island operation called Green Harvest.

Former Gov. George Ariyoshi related in a 1982 New York Times story how 49 National Guardsmen flew into Kauai's mountains by helicopter in 1981 to ferret out a dozen marijuana growers because police were afraid to go.

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Hawaii's Medical Marijuana Patients Could See Outlets As Early As Next Year

The push to allow for medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii - some 15 years after state leaders permitted medical use of the drug - continues to advance through the Legislature, with key lawmakers in support saying they hope to give the state's nearly 13,000 medical pot patients access to such outlets by early 2016.

On Wednesday the state Senate Health and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs committees unanimously voted to approve House Bill 321, which would create a framework to permit medical pot dispensaries across the islands.

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A bipartisan trio of U.S. senators - New Jersey's Cory Booker, New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and Kentucky's Rand Paul - are sponsoring a bill to classify marijuana as a Schedule II drug, meaning the federal government would allow it be used as medicine.

Some critics worry that such a bill could become a "gateway law" to full legalization of recreational weed; defenders say sick patients need the pain relief best provided by marijuana.

Should the bill get approval? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate the issue.

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(AP) - State senators are taking up a proposal to develop a system of medical marijuana dispensaries, which would give patients legal access to the drug nearly 15 years after it became legal in Hawaii.

A Senate panel heard the proposal Friday.

Maria Eloisa Reyes attended the hearing with her son, who, because of a medical condition, has about 14 seizures per month despite taking several medications, she said. The seizures last as long as a half-hour. Reyes wants her son to try medical marijuana, and she has a degree in agriculture, but she doesn't believe she can grow the plant herself because she doesn't have legal access to the correct strain to help her son, she said.

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Why is marijuana illegal in Hawaii? It's safer than alcohol.

Don't legislators represent the people who elected them? According to a poll of Hawaii voters by QMark Research in 2014, 66 percent of respondents said they endorsed legalizing cannabis.

Colorado took in $76 million in marijuana related fees and taxes in 2014. Significant portions of marijuana sales went to tourists.

Colorado is also reporting 10,000 new marijuana-related jobs.

Couldn't Hawaii benefit from an increase in revenue and job opportunities?

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Give thanks for the little things, they say. A bill that would stop the feds from going after medical marijuana users in states that permit such activity is something for which we should give thanks. But it is little.

Let's not criticize the sponsoring senators - Rand Paul, R-Ky., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. - for such a small reprieve from the war on drugs. They've probably gone about as far as they could within the two-faced confines of our national politics.

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A Justice Department report released last week makes a strong case that Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, last August. The report suggests that Robert McCulloch, the much-maligned St. Louis County prosecutor, made the right call when he decided not to pursue criminal charges against Wilson.

McCulloch nevertheless was the wrong person to make that call. His lack of credibility, as illustrated by the upside-down grand jury process that he orchestrated to clear Wilson, highlights the need for independent prosecutors to review police shootings.

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The Measure Would Allow Patients to Legally Obtain Medical Marijuana

A bill to authorize the first legal medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii cleared a critical hurdle at the Legislature this week by winning approval from the House Finance Committee. That nod from the powerful committee that controls state funding means the bill is now positioned for a vote by the full state House of Representatives.

Nearly 15 years after state lawmakers approved the prescription and use of medical marijuana, patients still have no legal way of purchasing cannabis. They are in effect legally required to grow their own supply, and officials say many are apparently relying instead on the black market for marijuana to obtain medicinal pot.

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Last week the newly created Coalition for Public Safety, a bipartisan, transideological campaign to reform the criminal justice system, made a big splash by bringing together political adversaries such as Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress.

Notably absent from celebrations of this strange-bedfellows alliance: any mention of actual policy changes the coalition plans to pursue.

The lack of specifics was understandable but telling. While there seems to be broad agreement within the coalition about what should be done to "make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer and more cost effective," the current Congress may settle for little more than lip service to those goals.

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According to the national group NORML, 18 states have decriminalized marijuana, at a minimum.

Typically, according to its website, that means "no prison time or criminal record for first-time possession of a small amount for personal consumption" - essentially treating offenses like a minor traffic violation.

A legislative bill that would make Hawaii the 19th such state has advanced. Passing it would make sense. Even some of those who look askance at marijuana legalization don't want to see small-time users criminalized and public money spent on prosecuting them.

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