Irreplaceable resources squandered
Hawaii Island encompasses a finite amount of space and is ill-equipped to handle unlimited hoards of visitors without negatively impacting its environment and residents.
Power boats loaded with tourists race frantically up and down the coast, disrupting marine life and polluting pristine waters. Bulldozers level native forests, destroying endemic species and wildlife found nowhere else on Earth. Irreplaceable resources squandered. For what?
We need to diversify, focus on clean energy, self-sufficiency, sustainability and preservation of natural resources. As long as our elected officials believe money, also known as the almighty tourist dollar, to be the highest priority, the desecration of our precious aina and culture will continue.
Tami Warren
Kealakekua
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Right a wrong
Gov. David Ige can right a wrong and choose Hawaii’s youth over big tobacco. Our legislators made the wrong decision by repealing the state’s successful Tobacco Control Trust Fund. This dangerous move eliminates stable funding for tobacco prevention and cessation efforts and will reverse decades of progress in reducing tobacco use.
At the same time, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and smoking causes nearly one-quarter of Hawaii’s cancer deaths. Additionally, our keiki have some of the highest rates of e-cigarette use in the country, making them more likely to smoke cigarettes. We need strong, well-funded tobacco control programs to reverse these dire statistics.
Unfortunately, without any funding for tobacco prevention and cessation we will not be able to defend our communities from the aggressive, predatory marketing by the tobacco companies.
Sadly, more youth will likely become addicted to these deadly products and more lives lost to a preventable death.
Ige can right this wrong and establish his legacy as a health care champion. As an American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network volunteer, I urge him to veto this harmful legislation. Please put the lives and future of Hawaii’s youth and communities over the tobacco industry’s profits.
Gay Okada
Volunteer – American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Kailua-Kona
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