POLICE MISDIRECTED

Last month, a Maui police officer killed his wife, then shot and
killed himself. How many medical marijuana patients commit
murder-suicides? Perhaps the efforts of "law enforcement" are
misdirected.

Perhaps raids and incessant fly-overs should focus on armed and
dangerous police, not on the generally nonviolent health care
providers and farmers of rural Hawaii.

So far, local authorities have ignored the officially sanctioned will
of Big Island voters ("Peaceful Skies" initiative) and the state's
medical marijuana ordinance, citing the preeminence of federal
statutes (debunked as ridiculous more than 60 years ago by Mayor
Fiorella LaGuardia's presidentially appointed commission) over state,
county or local ordinances!

The federal government has specifically instructed its employees and
contractors in the 14 states with medical marijuana ordinances to
cease and desist from arbitrarily persecuting care providers who are
sincerely trying to conform and comply with state laws. Now that the
Justice Department, DEA and other federal agencies have been enjoined
from persecution of medical marijuana growers/providers, what ethical
gymnastics will local police use to justify their continued campaign
to pile up overtime hours?

Maybe they should embrace the sovereignty movement and say that
Kamehameha the Great appeared to them in a dream and told them to bust
these people for the good of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The County Council turned down "Green Harvest" funding, the voters
overwhelmingly told the police and DA to stop messing with their
neighborhoods (c'mon when was the last time somebody said, "Boy, it's
sure cool having helicopters buzzing my property?").

Somehow the police just keep on busting people, ripping them off, and
then one goes home and kills his wive.

Timothy Hunter

Mountain View