LEGALIZATION EFFORTS

The politics of pot in Hawaii play a role from the State Capitol --
where the House and Senate approved bills this session to legalize
marijuana for medical purposes -- to the Hilo government center, where
hemp and legalization advocates failed last year to recall the mayor
and six council members.

Jonathan Adler is pushing the legalization of medical marijuana in his
campaign for Big Island mayor. He grows marijuana around his home in
Puna's Hawaiian Paradise Park and was indicted last year on felony
drug charges.

Adler says he has a prescription to smoke marijuana for his chronic
asthma. He dreams of the day when he can offer pakalolo openly to ease
patients' suffering. He can't wait to go to trial so he can argue his
right to smoke and grow marijuana.

Each year on the Big Island, the County Council considers whether to
accept federal marijuana eradication money. Each year, a parade of
hemp advocates, medical marijuana practitioners and legalization
proponents fills the council chamber.

Three of the nine council members now are questioning the wisdom of
continuing the Counter Cannabis Field Operation.

Dissident council members are led by Curtis Tyler, a Republican, small
businessman and former Navy lieutenant who has become an unlikely hero
to the pro-marijuana forces. Tyler doesn't support legalizing
marijuana. He's simply against what he calls misguided government
policies.

A Big Island audit last year reviewed the $353,294 the county received
in federal money for marijuana eradication in 1997-98. The money
helped pay for 100 arrests for marijuana cultivation and the seizure
of 331,109 plants.

But the audit didn't answer Tyler's more fundamental
questions.

"Why are we doing this, and what are we accomplishing?" Tyler asked.
"My assessment is we're winning a lot of battles, but we're not
winning the war. My bigger question is: `What is the war we're
fighting?' "

If the goal is to win a war against marijuana, Tyler said, perhaps
more money needs to go to prevention and treatment.

Otherwise, a law enforcement eradication program is "like putting a
Band-Aid on a cancerous mole. This is indicative of so much of what
government does. We address the symptoms and not the cure."

Paula Helfrich, president of the Hawaii Island Economic Development
Board, knows that marijuana continues to pump money into the Big
Island economy. During the 1980s, it paid for new cars and trucks,
founded businesses and bought everyday things, such as groceries.

But she doesn't want to hear that marijuana is good for the Big
Island. Its reputation as ground zero of a marijuana war hurts the
island's hopes of attracting new agriculture to replace the dead sugar
industry, Helfrich said.

"Having the majority of the marijuana crop here has been the single
biggest detriment to ... viable, legal, agricultural alternatives,"
she said.

Coffee, papaya and forestry representatives have looked at investing
in the Big Island, she said, but they don't like the "perception that
we're the pot capital."

"They're either put off by the perception or the reality," she said.
"And the reality is that marijuana growers still sneak onto other
peoples' property and grow illegally."