POLICE RETURN ANTI-POT GRANT

A marijuana eradication grant will be returned to the federal government
because Hawaii County was unable to obtain an insurance policy protecting
County Council members from impeachment over use of the funds.

Police said they expect the result will be an increase in marijuana
production and associated problems on the Big Island, a prediction which
pro-marijuana advocates dispute.

Lt. Henry Tavares Jr. of the Police Department's Vice Section said the
$265,000 grant from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would be
returned today.

Tavares said the DEA grant, most of which would have gone to hire
helicopters for marijuana eradication operations, doesn't expire until
December, but the federal agency wants it back immediately. He said the DEA
apparently needs the time in between to re-appropriate the funding to some
other government entity.

Before voting last month to receive the DEA grant, council members added a
provision to use an unspecified portion of it to buy insurance protecting
them from paying for lawyers to defend council members from any impeachment
actions that may come up. That meant the insurance policy had to be in
effect before police could use the money for its "Green Harvest" program.

At the time, council members expressed concerns the move could be the "death
knell" of the marijuana eradication program if insurance could not be found.

That turned out to be the case, county Purchasing Agent Bill Gray said
Wednesday.

"I'm considering it a dead issue," Gray said. He said despite the efforts of
two agents on the Big Island, two more in Honolulu and his own searches
among mainland insurance carriers, he was unable to secure the coverage.

"I went around in a lot of circles," Gray said.

Gray said during his discussions he got the impression that there were two
obstacles to obtaining the insurance: concern it may be considered
"after-the-fact" coverage since the grant had already been tentatively
accepted, and because of a recent judgment against Police Chief Wayne
Carvalho in civil court for fraud.

Gray said none of the insurance companies he talked to mentioned the
relative ease in which impeachment petitions can be filed against elected
county officials.

According to the County Charter, officials elected to a county office may be
impeached for illegal or improper actions through the submittal of a
petition containing 100 registered voters.

Opponents of the marijuana eradication program, which began 16 years ago,
have in the past filed impeachment petitions against Mayor Stephen Yamashiro
and council members over the program, alleging that the county has failed to
provide an adequate annual review of it as specified in the charter.

In 1999, a Circuit Court judge dismissed impeachment petitions against the
mayor and six council members on technical grounds, but invited the
petitioners to refile the impeachment petitions.

Council members enjoy legal protection against lawsuits, but the County
Charter says they must provide their own defense to impeachment petitions.

Tavares said the loss of the grant "cripples" the department's
anti-marijuana campaign.

"(The council) has taken away our tools," he said, noting that in addition
to the hired helicopters, such grants help pay for police overtime and
necessary equipment.

Tavares said while police still will have the assistance of two DEA
helicopters stationed on the Big Island -- and occasional support from
National Guard aircraft -- the DEA choppers can only direct ground teams to
marijuana patches. He said they cannot be used for the more time-saving
approach of lowering officers directly to the plants.

He said that means anti-marijuana operations will become more
labor-intensive, and vice officers will have less time to spend on enforcing
laws on "hard drugs" such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

Tavares said police believe that the supply of marijuana locally is already
on the rise because of a reduction in aerial searches as a result of the
council vote.

Assistant Chief Wendell Paiva echoed those concerns, adding that he also
expects to see an increase in the number of people moving to the Big Island
solely to grow marijuana. He said the result will be greater lawlessness
such as he said occurred in the 1970s which would include more instances of
trespass, property damage and even violent confrontations as growers seek to
protect their crops from interlopers.

However, marijuana advocate Roger Christie disputed that contention, saying
the only reason the supply is up is because harvest season has arrived.

Christie, who said he was "thrilled" by the news about the grant's return,
also predicted that an increase in the supply of marijuana would decrease
the use of hard drugs, which some argue become a substitute only when
marijuana is unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

"When there's more pot there are less hard drugs," he said.

Council Chairman James Arakaki said it was unfortunate that the grant had
been returned but feels the council did what it had to do under the
circumstances.

Arakaki said before he voted on the grant he was told by the police chief,
his deputy and an DEA agent that the insurance would be available.

"It's their call," he said. "They all lobbied me."

Arakaki expressed disappointment that the Charter Commission chose not to
take up changes to the impeachment process or the matter of the program
review while preparing Charter amendments to be voted on in the upcoming
election. He said it would have been "sensible" to change the requirement
from 100 signatures to 1 percent of the voters. He said state lawmakers also
failed to respond to requests for immunity for council members under such
circumstances.

"I'm against marijuana cultivation, but it's incumbent for the government to
provide protection for government officials who are doing their job,"
Arakaki said.

Tavares said the county will apply again next year for a DEA grant, "and
hope that the County Council will approve it."

Arakaki would not predict what his colleagues would do in the future --
noting that the council makeup could change after the upcoming election --
but indicated that he hadn't changed his stance, saying the Police
Department may have to deal with the loss of funds by shifting schedules.
"If (the council) won't accept it, that may be the way we must go," he said.