Letters | 7-7-15

Dispensary bill a big failure for patients

Most Big Island cannabis patients will not be celebrating when the dispensary bill becomes law. They grade it with a resounding D- for content.

The Legislature rather than follow the recommendations of the task force chose the corporate model. It’ll cost millions to start a dispensary and with so few of them, high prices are guaranteed. Most patients unless they’re rich will continue black market buying. Even more onerous, dispensary owners will also have exclusive rights to grow the plants thus snuffing out small mom and pop growers. But the real kicker is that the thousands of caregivers that currently provide lower income patients with medicine will be eliminated after dispensaries open. Those patients will flock to black marketeers, as well.

It’s ironic that the very bill that was intended to knock out illegal sales will do the exact opposite.

Conspiracy theorists tell us the bill was designed to do that very thing. Set the law up to fail and then blame the patients because it’s not working. Many wish the bill had died in committee. Yes, we needed a dispensary bill but not this bill.

It’s incredulous for Sen. Josh Green to boast his contribution to the bill (“Medical dispensaries likely to begin next year, ” West Hawaii Today, July 4). Cannabis patients cringe when his name is mentioned and for those familiar with his divisive style of legislative monkey wrenching, he is more a saboteur than a facilitator on medical cannabis issues.

The real credit goes to Rep. Della Au Bellati who worked hard on drafting task force recommendations that would vastly improve the lives of medical cannabis patients. It is sad to see her good efforts and the work of others disregarded.

Nevertheless, we will have dispensaries where a well-off person can buy expensive strains. For the rest of us, nothing really has changed.

Andrea Tischler

Chairwoman, Big Island Chapter, Americans for Safe Access

Hilo

Excessive use of Taser questioned

Reading in your paper on July 5, the story about a man killed in Honolulu by police who confronted him because he was “acting strange” bothers me for a number of reasons.

First, when is it illegal to act strange or for that matter be high on drugs to the point where police need to pepper spray you and shoot you with high voltage Tasers? Second, why do the police say he was being combative, when, in fact all he was trying to do was get away? Isn’t that an oxymoron to say that? Is it better to condone killing a person for a bad decision they temporarily make? Was this man being a danger to himself or others?

I don’t know all the details and I’m not judging the police for their impossible jobs, I just think these people enforcing the laws need to weigh their actions when death may be the outcome — like high speed chases through neighborhoods. Pepper spray is not going to kill anyone and you are not running far with it in your eyes. Did they really need to shoot him with the high voltage, not once but twice? Haven’t police figured out yet that when the voltage doesn’t work chances go up real high that death can occur from that second shot?

I have friends who are police officers and I feel for them in their thankless jobs, but it seems that all the media coverage of recent overzealous officers should be taming them and their heavy handling of the public.

I am sure this man had family and my heart goes out to them. I hope these officers are held accountable for their actions and I hope that new and better police protocol goes into effect for future use of these new police tools.

Another thing I’d like to see is the manufacturer to stand there and take double shots to prove how safe these Tasers are.

Paul Bradley

Kailua-Kona