GET PRIORITIES RIGHT

Editor:

Let me make sure I understand this: Two people with prescriptions for
medical marijuana in Kona are arrested on technicalities, and one of them
being treated for leukemia spent eight hours in our lovely jail after
returning from the hospital. Now, tell me what's wrong with this picture:
The roads in my subdivision have not been paved in the 14 years that I've
owned a home there, but my property taxes were just increased to pay for
county services. The county has the money to go into court, get a search
warrant, send police to execute said warrant, and then put cancer patients
into our jail. They'll spend our tax dollars on Green Harvest, but our roads
look like we live in a third world country.

There is a crystal meth epidemic which has resulted in an increase in crime
here on the Big Island, and our police and judicial resources are being
squandered on prosecuting cancer patients? And the State Public Safety
Director says that the basis for the warrant and arrest were invalid? This
is not only bad for our battered county Police Department's morale, but also
what sort of message are we sending out about the place we live?

If the story was not so dismal it would belong in Jay Leno's stand-up
routine. Instead it sounds like it will result in yet another costly lawsuit
that the taxpayers will once again pay the bill for.

In spite of the fact that many areas of government need our tax dollars, it
would seem that too many of our elected officials still think this is 1972,
not 2002. They continue to allocate valuable and scarce resources to keep
people from using marijuana. All that has happened from this policy is the
price of the evil weed has skyrocketed and we have an ice epidemic. It is
well past time for these officials to realize that the vast majority of
voters want their tax dollars spent wisely, and not on a flawed ideology
that is not based in reality.

As the joke goes, the scariest thing about middle age is the fact that the
people who you went to high school with are running the country. Does
anybody else wonder how many of them inhaled?

It is time for those same politicians to realize that most of us don't want
to support archaic policies that put cancer patients with prescriptions for
medicinal marijuana in jail, at the very least. Let's get our priorities
straight, shall we?

Steve Ward

Kailua-Kona