COUNTY POT INITIATIVE IS A BAD IDEA

There is an initiative on the ballot in November that would require
the Hawaii County Police Department to treat marijuana possession for
"adult personal use" as the "lowest law enforcement priority."

The proposed ordinance would prohibit the county from expending funds
for investigation, arrest or prosecution of such offenses, and would
prohibit the County Council from accepting "funds for the marijuana
eradication program."

This is a bad proposal and should be decisively defeated at the
polls.

The proponents of this ordinance say that it is intended to allow our
court systems to run more efficiently and create space in our prisons
to hold serious criminals. The implication is that the police are
scooping up pot smokers by the busload and carting them off to prison.
The facts tell a different story.

According to the Hawaii Police Department Annual Report, there were
625 marijuana arrests in the County in 2005. That's fewer than two
arrests per day for growing, selling or using marijuana. Hardly a
reign of terror!

Nor are people arrested for small amounts of pakalolo going to jail.
Possession of less than an ounce of pot can get you 30 days in jail in
Hawaii, and possession of one ounce to one pound can get a year in
jail. The courts, however, can -- and usually do -- offer probation
for first offenders, with dismissal of charges upon completion of
probation. Unless you are a big-time dealer or a repeat offender, you
are extremely unlikely to do jail time. Whomever is crowding our
prisons, it's not small time pot smokers.

The proponents also claim that the Hawaii marijuana eradication
program has increased the use of methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and
other hard drugs. This is ridiculous.

On the one hand, pot legalizers insist that the drug is harmless and
does not lead to the use of "hard drugs." On the other hand, they
would have us believe that zealous police enforcement has created a
shortage of marijuana and driven desperate pot smokers to meth and
cocaine.

And, by the way, what marijuana shortage? In a 2003 survey by the
State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division, 56 percent of 10th-graders and
70 percent of high school seniors said that marijuana was "fairly
easy" or "very easy" to obtain.

Despite all the propaganda about how harmless pakalolo is, marijuana
is illegal for very good reasons. Marijuana is a dangerous drug with
high potential for abuse and dependency among its users.

How dangerous is marijuana? A standard measure of risk in recreational
drugs is the "emergency room mention" or ERM. An ERM is a case where
someone comes into an emergency room with an injury or physical or
psychological distress and tells the physician that he or she has been
recently using a particular drug.

In 2002, 32,953 people in the United States ended up in emergency
rooms after using marijuana. They smoked pot and fell off a ladder,
cracked up their car, got physically sick, or had acute psychological
distress serious enough to send them to an ER. Any "legal" product
that sent 30,000 people to the hospital each year would be taken off
the market in a heartbeat. That's how dangerous marijuana is (source:
Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, Drug Abuse Early Warning Network, 2002).

Contrary to popular mythology, marijuana use does lead to dependency
and addiction. In 2006, 289,988 people in the United States entered
drug treatment programs for marijuana/hashish abuse. In fact, 16
percent of all substance abuse treatment admissions in 2006 were for
marijuana/hashish abuse.

More people entered treatment for cannabis use than for heroin,
cocaine, or methamphetamine abuse. (source: Office of Applied Studies,
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Treatment
Episode Data Set). Using the generally accepted "rule of thumb" that
there are 10 substance abusers in the community for every one who gets
into treatment, there are perhaps 3 million people in the United
States grappling with cannabis dependency.

There are good reasons why marijuana is illegal. Let's keep it that
way.

Ray Gagner, of Laupahoehoe, is a retired Department of Health
substance abuse prevention specialist.