Letters | 10-17-14

The farmer in the cell

Maureen Fagan’s anti-genetically modified organism letter last week in West Hawaii Today was a crude rallying cry to the Maui mob of Luddites who seek to eviscerate most of the agriculture in the state. Taking their lead from Hawaii County’s ban they go one step further by including papaya growers as well as seed corn growers. While stating the bill is not a threat to farmers, she neglects to mention it comes with a $50,000 fine and a one-year prison sentence.

While claiming that only big, bad, multinational agribusinesses are against this bill, she never mentions the source of the millions funding the “science be damned” opposition to biosynthesis technology.

In 2011, the seed corn and papaya industries were worth $250,000,000, while sugar came in at only $80,000,000. Fagan wants the ban in place because she thinks genetically altered crops such as papaya are inherently bad.

“Hybridizing” in the traditional manner is her solution to pests, diseases, climate change and market preferences. Hybridization is far more problematic than gene splicing when it comes to safe, effective outcomes. Dangerous recessive traits in a plant’s DNA can be brought out unexpectedly, creating the very problems that so trouble Frankenfood activists.

As far as her citing drug companies releasing products before they are proved safe, if you were suffering from a lethal disease such as Ebola you would take anything medical science could offer no matter how untested. A case in point is the new drug being used to treat Ebola patients derived from GMO tobacco plants.

Seed corn companies are seen by her to be in Hawaii for some nefarious reason, as if they are hiding out in a secret lair. No one mentions the fact that the climate is ideal for year-round production, and that different varieties can be grown on different islands. If the viable economic farming of agricultural lands is to be disqualified for purely ideological reasons then our only alternative crop will be timeshares.

The laundry list of plagues Fagan enumerates to frighten us is the standard set we have seen for years. Everything from power lines, to household chemicals, or fast-food diets, and vaccines, have for decades been seen as the source of all our health problems. The far left has adopted genetically modified food for their high horse, the extreme right uses stem cell technology as their scarecrow. All of us in the middle will be the losers if we don’t stand up and look at the hard science as well as the risks to benefits ratios inherent in these issues.

Brian Lievens

Holualoa

Christie statement did not sit well

Kudos to the Rev. Roger Christie for staying on his dedicated path and true to a belief that cannabis needs to become legal. Those in the movement and many other open-minded people share similar convictions.

However, in the Oct. 12 West Hawaii Today article on Christie, he made one statement that did not sit well with the medical cannabis community. As chairwoman of the Big Island Chapter of Americans for Safe Access, I was somewhat taken aback by Christie’s comment that he was not in favor of medical marijuana laws. And although he seeks to legalize cannabis, reality is that it may be a while for that eventuality in Hawaii. In the meantime and far more pressing is that patients suffering from neurological disorders, AIDS, cancer, chronic pain and other life-threatening conditions have access to medical-grade cannabis now.

We are on the threshold of creating a long overdue dispensary system in Hawaii, which will allow safe access currently unavailable to patients to a large variety of efficacious cannabis strains, oils and tinctures that treat specific symptoms and diseases. The Legislature will consider recommendations from a medical cannabis task force soon and formulate laws early next year. Compassion and caring dictates that the sick and dying receive cannabis relief and dispensaries first.

Further, medical cannabis laws, legalization and decriminalization laws are not mutually exclusive. Whereas, legalization would only allow 1 ounce possession as in Colorado and Washington, medical patients require more than that setting them apart from those that seek to use it recreationally.

All those advocating for liberalization of the cannabis laws including the good reverend need to work toward all these goals to be successful. Divided we fail. When medical cannabis laws are passed establishing a regulated statewide dispensary system for safe access to medical cannabis, legalization will surely soon follow.

Andrea Tischler

Chairwoman of

Big Island Chapter Americans for Safe Access

Hilo

Follow the money in cesspool proposal

I spoke with a friend in Switzerland who told me when he was a young boy his family used an outhouse, which had a bucket instead of a hole. When the bucket got full, his job was to sling the contents on his family’s garden. The garden thrived from the fertilizer and the people thrived from the food grown in their home garden. This is still in practice today.

There are people on remote South Pacific islands who have no toilets. They walk out into the surf to relieve themselves. They eat the fish they catch in the same water with no ill effects. Humans eat similar food as all the birds and animals so our waste is very similar.

On this island, we have pigs, goats, cows, cats, dogs, rats, cockroaches, horses, birds and mongooses all relieving themselves on the ground where rain and gravity take it down to fertilize the root systems of our plants. This process has been going on since the beginning of time and works very well.

It makes me wonder why our Health Department is trying to pass a law to ban cesspools on the Big Island when cesspools add nothing but nutrients to our earth. To find the answer, just follow the money. I would surmise that in this case some peddlers of sewer systems and the owners of excavating equipment took some politicians out to lunch. Over lunch, they told the politicians they would like a bill passed that would ban cesspools and gave them money to do so. Or, does the Health Department think this will be a money maker for them via permits?

These two groups will reap stupendous profits if they can get their bill rammed down our throats. Please contact your politicians and say “no.”

Tim Schutt

Ocean View