POLICE PAN POT PROPOSALS

Pamphlet Aims to Enlist Public in Fighting Changes in Law

After seeing more and more bills in the Legislature intended to
liberalize marijuana use, Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta said the
department is taking a more "proactive stance" to show the public its
opposition to marijuana by reaching out to Maui residents at public
places.

On Monday, officers went to Walmart to pass out pamphlets on what
experts say about marijuana as medicine and related health risks, a
news release said. They will be there again today.

The goal of the effort is to gather the public's support this
legislative session and to ask people to submit e-mail testimony on
the bills relating to marijuana. Yabuta said police will also be glad
to pass out the pamphlets at any other shopping area or public event.

He said the effort to lobby residents is not that different from
passing out brochures and presenting talks to the public at community
events and at schools.

Yabuta did not know the cost of the brochures that are being passed
out but said they were nothing fancy. Funding came partly from a grant
that initiated the brochure, as well as county funds.

"It's something that we feel is an important message for the public to
know from what we believe is the reality of marijuana, that if we
continue to have an attempt to lax the marijuana law, we are going to
be advocating the wrong message to the youth that it's socially OK to
use marijuana. We feel that it will be contradictory to character
building, job skills, academics, all the skills necessary to become a
productive citizen," Yabuta said Monday.

Medical marijuana advocate and former state legislator Joe Bertram III
said he understood why Maui police would go to public places to rally
support of measures the department supports and opposes.

"It is the numbers (of people and testimony) that can make a
difference. If you want to sway (people) to get some kind of
legislation to pass or not pass," he said.

Bertram said he doesn't believe marijuana is a gateway drug, as some
opponents claim.

"It's a medicine. It has been used and abused like any other
medicine," he added.

Bertram said what needs to be done is to control and tax
it.

In its press release, the Maui Police Department said it was throwing
its support behind a bill that would "clarify" the state's medical
marijuana law as well as increase the penalties for a fraudulent
medical marijuana application to a Class C felony, punishable by up to
five years in prison. Fraudulent medical marijuana application is now
a petty misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in jail.

But according to House of Representatives staff in Honolulu, the
measure, House Bill 1169, will likely not move forward, since it has
not been heard in any of the three committees that it was referred to.
Speaker of the House Calvin Say had set a deadline of last Thursday
for bills referred to three committees to be heard in at least one
committee.

The police department also is voicing its opposition to two Senate
bills, one (SB 58) that would increase the amount of medical marijuana
that one could possess; and the other (SB 175) that would transfer the
jurisdiction of the medical marijuana laws from the Department of
Public Safety to the Department of Health.

Bertram said he was in favor of both bills. As a caregiver for someone
who uses medical marijuana, he said it is important to have additional
marijuana on hand, as it is not like a pill that can be picked up from
a store or ordered. It takes time to cultivate.

He also said that moving medical marijuana laws to DOH has been an
ongoing drive in the interest of making medical marijuana use a
rational and compassionate medical treatment, as he believes it was
supposed to be from the beginning.

Both bills were heard and passed with amendments in at least one
Senate committee. There are no current hearings scheduled for either
bill, according to the legislative website.

The police pamphlet quotes agencies such as the Food and Drug
Administration saying that "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted
or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved
medical treatment."

It also says the American Medical Association discourages medical
marijuana use and that cannabis is a dangerous drug and is a public
health concern.