Hawaii County is set to receive $2.1 million from the state to stop underage drinking, the lieutenant governor’s office announced Tuesday.

The amount coming to the county is just $200,000 less than what the City and County of Honolulu will receive. The money is part of a 2006 federal grant awarded to the state to address underage drinking, Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona said in a statement released Tuesday. Aiona was unavailable for additional comment.

A spokesman said community organizations in each county will decide how the funding will be distributed. The allocations to each county were based on a complicated formula that considered equity between the four counties, population of 12- to 17-year-olds, the burden on each county and the magnitude of resources available in each county to address underage drinking, spokesman Travis Taylor added. The goal was to get each community to back up their funding request with data on underage drinking in the county and not to make all the spending decisions in Honolulu, he said.

According to a 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Underage Drinking Enforcement Center, underage drinking cost Hawaii $188 million in 2007. That figure was calculated based on youth violence, traffic crashes, property crime, injury and alcohol treatment. Excluding pain and suffering costs, the direct cost to the state is about $89 million annually. The center ranked Hawaii’s costs as the fourth-lowest among the 50 states.

Additionally, the report cited Centers for Disease Control statistics showing about 36,000 underage youth in Hawaii drink alcohol each year. In 2007, 59 percent of ninth- to 12th-graders had consumed at least one alcoholic drink; 21 percent reported having their first drink of alcohol, more than a few sips, before they turned 13. Fifteen percent of high schoolers reported having five or more drinks in a row, the definition of binge drinking, in the last 30 days. Six percent had had at least one alcoholic drink on school property in the last 30 days.

Young people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence and two and a half times more likely to become alcohol abusers than those who begin drinking at 21, the report said. In Hawaii in 2007, 809 people 12 to 20 years old were admitted to alcohol treatment, about one-third of all treatment admissions in the state, the report added.

The state ranks fourth in the country for alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths, according to a 2008 study.

There were 28 people who testified, all in favor of the LLEPCO. Everyone was there to remind the council of their responsibilities.

Although good questions were posed by Council members, nothing was resolved.

We appreciate all who showed up. The Council will hear us, but we must keep at it. We will keep you posted of upcoming Council meetings and any developments.

Cannabis legislation

With regard to Mr. LeGendre’s letter, (Tribune-Herald, Jan. 24) I respectfully clarify that the adult decriminalization bill introduced by state Sen. Kalani English before the Legislature will not legalize cannabis. Decriminalization will make possession of 1 ounce or less a civil proceeding like a traffic violation rather than a criminal one. The $100 fines will be directed to prevention programs that help at-risk families and provide drug counseling.

Decriminalization will free up space in our crowded prisons, unclog the courts, and allow police more time and resources to fight serious and violent crimes as it has in 18 states which have cities and county jurisdictions that have passed decriminalization laws.

It was disappointing but predictable that the County Council missed an opportunity to urge the state Legislature to pass a decriminalization bill. With the police and prosecuting attorney strongly opposed to decriminalization, it would be politically risky during an election year to vote otherwise, or so they think. It doesn’t seem to matter that the citizens voted for lowest law-enforcement priority.

Why do the police and the prosecuting attorney fight so hard to maintain the status quo? They are opposed to decriminalization because they are addicted. Not to pot, but to the federal and state grant money for cannabis eradication, a bloated budget, asset forfeiture and the many government jobs (police, prosecutors, judges, prison personnel, probation officers, etc.) that feed off the nonviolent victims of the cannabis war. The annual cost to Hawaii taxpayers is an estimated $6.2 million. Added to these costs are the defense attorneys, cost of court-mandated urine analysis, counseling costs and lost wages, and it burgeons into a huge business.

Sen. English said, “We’re in really tight economic times … so I thought it was timely to put this forward, because we don’t have the money.” Indeed.

Andrea Tischler

Hilo

Published: Sunday, January 17, 2010 7:54 AM HST

I am always reading that the Police Department leaders and the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office keep insisting that they will continue to ignore the “Peaceful Sky” initiative because marijuana is still illegal under state and federal laws, and therefore they will continue “green harvesting” and harassing marijuana users.

I am under the impression that the Hawaii Police Department and the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office are employed by the citizens and representatives of Hawaii County.

The police and the prosecutors are not employees of the state of Hawaii, nor are they employees of the federal government, and as such are legally bound to obey rules created by Hawaii County citizens and our representatives.

That means, by extension, they are in open rebellion against the citizens of Hawaii County. They will do what they want to do, and the citizens be damned!

Citizens need to be aware that if this rebellion is not put down, someday some civil rights organization will notice, and the cost of their lawsuits will make the Police Department hiring scam settlement seem like “chump change.”

J. Stoeckel

Keaau

A helicopter crashed on Wednesday that belonged to Sunshine Helicopters of Maui

Two people were injured after their helicopter made an emergency landing Wednesday afternoon in Hana, Maui. The injured persons, a pilot and an inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration, suffered non-life threatening injuries, said Ian Gregor, FAA spokesman. They were taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center for treatment.

The pilot and the inspector left Kahului Airport at 1:15 p.m. aboard a Sunshine Helicopters Aerospatiale AS350 helicopter for a routine proficiency check. The check is required for commercial pilots under FAA regulations, Gregor said.

But the helicopter experienced unknown mechanical problems and the pilot made an emergency landing on the shoreline in Wai’anapanapa at about 1:45, Gregor said. The helicopter’s tail boom broke during the landing, he said.

The FAA inspector suffered a broken ankle, but the extent of the pilot’s injuries was not immediately available.

FAA safety inspectors were on the scene of the incident and secured the wreckage, Gregor said. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident.

The Kahului-based Sunshine Helicopters offers air tours of Maui, Moloka’i, Kaua’i and the Big Island. Ross Scott, company president, did not return a phone call yesterday.

In April 2007, a Sunshine Helicopter Eurocopter EC 130 B4 crash-landed in Makawao after taking off for Kapalua. Five of six people on board received minor injuries.

The NTSB said pilot error was the probable cause of the accident.

In January 2006, a Sunshine Helicopters helicopter crash-landed on the slopes of Haleakala, injuring five people. The NTSB determined that the accident was caused by a “total loss of engine power due to a fatigue failure of a turbine blade.”

By Charmie Gholson,  Originally published Monday December 7, 2009 on AlterNet.

On November 10th, the AMA reversed its long-held position that marijuana has no acceptable medicinal value and adopted a new policy position favoring medical marijuana. The AMA called on the U.S. government to reconsider its current classification as a Schedule I substance. (The government categorizes drugs into “Schedules.” Four of the five actually regulate the use of substances, but Schedule I drugs—such as marijuana, heroin and LSD—are completely banned.)

However, a week after the announcement of this historic reversal, the DEA still hadn’t removed mention of the AMA’s old, anti-medical-marijuana position from its website.

So, the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of cops, judges and prosecutors calling for the legalization and regulation of all drugs, created an action alert asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order the DEA to scrub the bogus statements from the web.

After just one day of emails from activists, the information disappeared. One might conclude this quick response was the handiwork of Obama’s tech-savvy team, if it weren’t for the other government websites still spreading misinformation about the AMA’s position on medical marijuana. Both the White House “drug czar’s” office and the DEA’s “scare the children” youth website still contain inaccurate statements about AMA’s position on medical marijuana.

Of course, the drug policy reform advocates at LEAP won’t settle for anything less than the whole truth and are still urging membersto send more letters to Attorney General Eric Holder and White House “Drug Czar” Gil Kerlikowske, asking them to stop spending taxpayer money to spread false information about medical marijuana.

Meanwhile, other public health officials are going even further than the AMA in criticizing current drug policies. For example, on October 18th, the California Medical Association endorsed a resolution stating that the criminal prohibition of marijuana, even for non-medical reasons, is a “failed public health policy.”

These bold statements from public health officials do more than buoy the hopes of drug policy reformers; they point to a clear trend of health officials joining ranks with the outspoken law enforcers at LEAP in saying that current drug policies aren’t protecting the general health, well-being and safety of the public. The second-largest physician group in the country, the American College of Physicians (ACP) endorsed the use, reclassification, and further study of medical marijuana, making the case that the red tape surrounding the medical use of cannabis has obscured good science for too long.

Speaking of good science, the second in command at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Deputy Drug Czar Thomas McClellan, saidon November 18th: “It’s time to use science and common sense to direct our efforts — not ideology, not positions of the past, but a fresh look at what the data tells us. We also need the willingness to rethink old positions and particularly to change direction when the science says it’s time to change direction.”

McClellan’s statement is a reminder of President Obama’s inaugural pledge to construct federal policy informed by “the most complete, accurate, and honest scientific information.”

Hopefully both President Obama and Thomas McClellan will honor their word, but if they don’t, they should at least know that LEAP and other watchdog activists are poised to help them do so.

Update: Less than a day after this piece was uploaded, the DEA changed the remaining claim on their website that the AMA still opposes medical marijuana, replacing it with a reference to the AMA’s call for a review of marijuana’s Schedule I status. Unfortunately, the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s site is still inaccurate. Please take action and demand full accountability from our federal government on this issue.

“Police officers in Canada have a common-law duty to protect life and property, and drug prohibition makes that more difficult.”

David Bratzer wanted a steady job that would both provide for his family and allow him to connect with his community of Victoria, British Columbia. With two brothers already working for the police department, the choice was self-evident. And David loves being a police officer. It’s just that he sees that some of the laws he is asked to enforce do not help his community and really are unrelated to what the police ought to be doing. Almost all of those laws fall under one heading: drug prohibition.

David has no trouble enumerating societal improvements that would result from ending the “War on Drugs”: safer communities because of the reduction in drug- and gang-related violence; a shift in law enforcement priorities into areas that historically were ignored or underfunded and what he terms a “peace dividend” of economic growth, revitalized downtown neighborhoods, decreased healthcare spending, and a better relationship between law enforcement and the public.

The final step on David’s journey to enlisting actively in the fight against prohibition came as he followed the 2007 murder trial of Willie Pickton in Vancouver, who to date has been convicted of murdering six women and is awaiting trial for the killings of 20 others. All of Pickton’s victims were drug-addicted prostitutes, and David can’t help thinking that “if this country had sensible drug laws some or all of these women might still be alive. Women should not have to resort to street prostitution-and all of the risk that entails-in order to fund a drug addiction.” That is what comes of criminalizing drug use.

David struggled with the decision to speak out publically about ending prohibition. He knew as an active duty officer his decision would prompt additional scrutiny at work. So why did David decide to speak out? With a simple elegance he will tell you, “I am saying in public what many of my peers have said to me in private. I have a lot of respect for my fellow officers but I felt it was important to speak up. I feel strongly about this issue and I didn’t want to have any regrets at the end of my career.” By his example, he is confident that other officers who feel likewise will step out of the shadows and help LEAP to end prohibition.

* The opinions expressed by Dave Bratzer do not reflect the official position of his employer. The appearance of the name “Victoria Police Department” solely constitutes biographical background information and should not be construed in any way as an endorsement of LEAP by the Victoria Police Department.”

The Road to Peace for Hawai’i County

HERE’S THE  HAWAII COUNTY ORDINANCE THAT MAKES CULTIVATION OR POSSESSION OF SMALL AMOUNTS OF CANNABIS THE LOWEST LAW ENFORCEMENT PRIORITY:

The Hawaii County Code has been amended to add a new articlethat is titled and known as ”The Lowest Law Enforcement Priority of Cannabis Ordinance”.

The Lowest Law Enforcement Priority of Cannabis Ordinance was presented as Ballot Measure #1 in the election of November 4, 2008 and was passed by 34,392 votes.

It is now the law in the County Council of Hawaii.

AS THE LAW NOW READS…

1.  The County is directed to make Law Enforcement related to cannabis (marijuana) offenses, their lowest law enforcement priority when cannabis is only intended for “adult personal use”.

2. Adult personal use is defined to include the use of cannabis on private property only by persons twenty one years of age or older.

3. County Law Enforcement officials are prevented from accepting deputization from a federal law enforcement agency for purpose of investigating, citing, or arresting citizens or searching or seizing their property if doing so is inconsistent with the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority for Cannabis Ordinance.

4. County Council is Prohibited from authorizing the acceptance of funding to investigate, cite, arrest, prosecute, search or seize property from adults when doing so would be inconsistent with the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority for Cannabis Policy.

5.County Council is directed not to support the acceptance of any funds for the Marijuana Eradication Program.