ANOTHER BARK IN THE DARK

ANOTHER BARK IN THE DARK: Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (see left rail) continues be a Kaua`i best seller and to draw readers to this space with another dozen or so perusing its pages just this weekend.

In addition to exposing the corruption in the Kaua`i Police Department, the book details the political machinations that led to the removal of two chiefs and the no-so-coincidental resultant hiring of current chief Darryl Perry whose promoters saw to it that Chief KC Lum and Police Commission Chair Michael Ching were purged after Lum originally beat out Perry for the job.

The result for the island has been that, while Lum and his predecessor George Freitas were adherents of progressive tenets of modern policing who understood and kept up with the dynamics of the changing face of law enforcement, Perry remains something of a dinosaur.

And when it comes to drug policy Perry seems incapable of examining national studies and trends and seems entrenched in his own provincial rigid views rooted in the 1950’s if not the 1930’s marijuana scare campaigns.

There are few left who won’t admit that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. Drugs are more prevalent than ever, our jails are overflowing with non violent users and the streets are littered with bodies that are the result, not of the drug use itself but of the war being waged.

The rational examination of the absurd circular logic of “all drugs are bad because they are illegal and they are illegal because they are bad” has led to a movement including most of the past national “drug czars” and top leaders in law enforcement calling for an end to the war and a more rational harm reduction approach including the elimination of programs like D.A.R.E. which refuses to distinguish between more innocuous drugs like marijuana and destructive drugs like crystal methamphetamine or “ice”.

Studies, including a 2003 US General Accounting Office report, have shown that lumping all drugs together for the purposes of demonizing them equally in anti-drug programs like D.A.R.E has actually caused the use of more dangerous drugs and even related deaths when kids find out that they’ve been lied to about marijuana and assume the warnings about the more lethal drugs are equally untrue.

Worse still has been the appropriation of scarce funds to engage in these marijuana eradication programs which not only waste money and destroy medicine used for medical treatment but make scarce a substance far less harmful than “meth” which kids who can’t get marijuana any more flock to.

While it is certainly preferable that kids don’t ingest any drugs- alcohol and tobacco included- the undeniable fact is they do and always will and if we don’t engage in a little “harm reduction” we’re not just whistling in the grave yard but actually causing the rise in the use of the more harmful drugs.

Those whose ignorance perpetuates that increased harm should be the ones who are held responsible for the results.

Enter Perry who in his column in the local newspaper yesterday unequivocally joins the team of kid-killers who cling to outdated and outmoded ideas.

Presented in a Q&A format, yesterday’s “On The Beat” column was as usual characterized by another of those quite obviously solicited “Q’s” along the lines of “you’re so wise and good- please tell us how others could possibly be so stupid?”

In it, “Greg” asked.

Q: Recently there have been several articles in the newspapers about marijuana. The first was in the Honolulu Advertiser on May 25, “War on marijuana a waste of time, money,” and then the next day there was an opinion in The Garden Island, “Alcohol vs. marijuana,” but the worst one was The Garden Island editorial on May 31, “Red light for Green Harvest.” Then just the other day, “Don’t fear the reefer.” It seems as though you guys are being blasted from all angles for doing your job.

It also seems to me that the stupid editorial by The Garden Island didn’t help matters any. I supposed we should just let all the druggies take over. Sorry about my rant, but I’m just frustrated. Well, I want to get it from the horse’s mouth, where do you stand on this?

Predictably Perry responded

I certainly understand your frustration, as I have experienced those same feelings throughout my police career. The comments and criticism don’t change just the faces and names who believe that they know better... I do agree that it sent the wrong message to our community.

The problem is that it’s not a matter of “believing” anything or sending some kind of “message” except on the part of Perry who can’t seem to digest the facts that have emerged, especially the differences between substances.

It’s pretty scary to think about what it takes to say this but this sentence tells you all you need to know about what Perry thinks.

Drugs destroy families, whether it’s marijuana, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, or alcohol.

Marijuana does not destroy families. It is a medically accepted treatment for a wide range of maladies and is used responsibly and recreationally by tens of millions of Americans. To lump all those drugs together with marijuana is an absurd constriction that doesn’t jibe with reality.

But Perry seems unable or unwilling to grasp that the data is in and that marijuana is a fairly innocuous substance which when used in a responsible manner has no long term ill effects.

To his credit he does acknowledge that treatment is a key to harm reduction for those who use dangerous drugs. But he still demands money for marijuana interdiction due to his inability to distinguish between harmful and innocuous substances.

He writes

Do we stop eradicating marijuana because the numbers were low on this mission? That is exactly what commercial growers would want so that they could continue to sell dope to your children. Or, do we continue in our efforts? Remember that in prior missions we eradicated thousands of marijuana plants that did not find there way into homes and the brain cells of individuals cruising the same highways as you do...

We have not lost the war on drugs and it is not a failed policy...

The contorted logic and “brain cell” warning are reminiscent of the reefer madness campaigns of the distant past. Yet Perry seems stuck in just that “boogey-man” model.

His conclusion, based on that illogic, is to continue to throw money down the rathole of marijuana eradication programs even criticizing those on the Big Island who put a stop to the practice.

Perry concentrates on a recent reported $27,000 that destroyed 75 plants asking of it was worth that much for so little. But he fails to ask the bigger question of whether no matter what the result is this a wise use of scarce funds.

What’s more he fails to mention that the $75,000 is a small fraction of the approximately quarter million a year that our county accepts from the federal government to fight the “marijuana scourge”.

And that doesn’t take into account the time that police officers put into the effort. What isn’t widely reported is that police in each of the state’s four counties have a contingent of officers who go to the other three islands to assist in the eradication efforts there, taking them off the streets and away from the efforts to stop methamphetamine use and violent crime.

Perry writes

I also disagree with the suggestion that the citizens on the Big Island got it right by deprioritizing marijuana and not accepting federal funds to conduct eradication missions. I can only imagine the negative impact this decision will have in the long-term.

Fortunately, the Drug Enforcement Administration will continue its efforts with the assistance of county police.

What is most dangerous here is that Perry’s attitude- which is shared by other island PD’s- seems to forget who is running things in this country... at least theoretically.

Just as the political apparatus of a democracy maintains civilian control of the military so do the civilian police commissions provide for oversight of our paramilitary constabularies.

If nothing else “KPD Blue” describes the lead up to how, in Perry’s case, that civilian control mechanism failed when independent elements of the civilian control were purged and the commission bowed to political pressure born of internal department attempts to control policy.

What we sadly have as a result is Perry- the old soldier whose vision has been warped by too many years in the trenches and too set in his ways, incapable of seeing contemporary reality, caught up in circular reasoning and in fact committing the very atrocities he seeks to end.

SNIFFIN’ THE WRONG PACKAGE

SNIFFIN’ THE WRONG PACKAGE: It sounds like KPD has nothing better to do than bust low level drug offenders, according to an article in today’s local paper.

Apparently 24 “targeted street level users and dealers as well as mid-level dealers” were arrested over the last 2 ½ days, for various “drug” offenses.

No telling if, as is usually the case, the “dealers” were actually “overcharged” users or if the rights of the “innocent until proven guilty” were violated during the raids as the Kaua`i vice squad has famously been accustomed to doing for many years.

We can only hope that the reported presence of “members of the Maui Police Department, Hawai`i County Police Department and United States Marshals Service” kept their overzealous ways in check this time

But the lack of a mention of what specific “drugs” were involved makes us wonder how many were simple marijuana users and, if so, what the heck we’re doing using our already short staffed and thinly-funded police department for busting people for using an innocuous safe and effective medication.

Going after “street level users” of any drug is really absurd enough. Even if the type of drug being “used” is dangerous and destructive like methamhetamine, these people have a treatable illness and the fact that treatment-on-demand in virtually unavailable especially on Kaua`i speaks to the bass ackward nature of what our priorities are.

It raises the question as to how disconnected we on Kaua`i are from realties that are sweeping the rest of the country and, as reported recently, on the Big Island where people will be voting this year on a measure to make “personal use of marijuana a lower priority than all other laws”.

According to Big Island journalist/blogger Hunter Bishop

The Peaceful Skies petition that fell short of getting onto the November ballot by more than 2,000 signatures was revived by the Hawaii County Council on a 5-4 vote about an hour ago in Kona.

So a question will be on the November general election ballot that, if passed by a majority of voters, would direct the county Police Department to make enforcement of marijuana laws Hawaii County's lowest law enforcement priority.

According to the ordinance itself:

(t)he citizens of the Cities of Hailey, Idaho; Denver, Colorado; Seattle, Washington; Columbia, Missouri; Eureka Springs, Arkansas and Santa Barbara, Oakland, Santa Monica, and Santa Cruz, in California, and the citizens of Missoula County, Montana, all voted for Cannabis (marijuana) to be placed as law enforcement’s lowest law enforcement priority within the past five years.

But Kaua`i continues to dwell in the dark ages preferring to still persecute and prosecute the personal use of pakalolo and waste our resources in doing so.

According to a summery in the Hawai`i Tribune Herald the proposed ordinance- available in full at the Project Peaceful Sky web site- would, if passed,

-Make the possession of marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority for all cases, when the amount involved is less than 24 plants or 24 dried ounces, and the marijuana is on private property or being used on private property by people age 21 or older. (The distribution and sale or marijuana will not be protected. The use of marijuana on public property will not be protected.)

- Prevent law enforcement officials from being deputized or commissioned by the federal government for applicable marijuana cases.

- Prevent the County Council from accepting any funding for the handling of applicable marijuana cases.

- Prevent the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney from prosecuting applicable marijuana cases to the extent permitted by state law.

- Prevent the county from spending any money for the handling of applicable marijuana cases.

- Prevents the County Council from accepting any funds for marijuana eradication.

- Have the County Council work with the Police Department to develop a grievance procedure for individuals who believe they were wrongly prosecuted.

- Require a report every June 1 and Dec. 1 about the county's enforcement of marijuana laws.

- Require a letter from the county clerk every June 1 to the mayor, state lawmakers, Hawaii’s congressional delegation, the governor and the president. The letter will include this sentence: “The citizens of the County of Hawaii ... request that the federal and state branches of government remove criminal penalties for the cultivation, possession and use of Cannabis for adult personal use ...” These letters will continue “until state and federal laws are changed accordingly”

Yet all we hear is wacko postulates and fear mongering from our local politicians who believe the shibai of “gateway drug” and other absurd “reefer madness” rantings of those whose jobs depend on defending us from the scourge of marijuana.

While a short 500 miles away on the Big Island rationality apparently reigns

Stated in the findings of the ordinance are the following:

(a) The Institute of Medicine has found that Cannabis (marijuana) has medicinal value and is not a gateway drug.

(b) According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the use of Cannabis (marijuana) directly results in 0 (zero) deaths per year.

(c) According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the marijuana eradication program has not stopped Cannabis cultivation in the County of Hawai`i, rather the program has only decreased the availability of the plant, which increases it’s ‘street’ value, resulting in more crime.

(d) The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) also reported that a large increase of the use of methamhetamine, crack cocaine, and other hard drugs was related to the marijuana eradication program’s implementation.

(e) According to public record, the ‘mandatory program review’ for the marijuana eradication program, required by Section 3-16 of the County Charter to be performed at least once every 4 years, has never been performed in the 30 years that the program has existed.

(f) Law abiding adults are being arrested and imprisoned for nonviolent Cannabis offenses, clogging our court dockets, overcrowding our prisons, tying up valuable law enforcement resources and costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hawai`i County alone each year.

When the heck are we going to wake up over here?.

Even if somehow you’re been brainwashed to think marijuana is a “dangerous drug” it’s impossible to deny that the “ice” epidemic is specifically tied to the eradication of marijuana as (c) states.

And nowhere is it more true than on Kaua`i.

It’s impossible to rationally dispute the fact that people who are prone to use drugs and can’t get “pot” turn to what’s available. And here and in other places- what’s available is methamhetamine and other more dangerous. drugs

There are, however, a growing number of progressive communities who have come to grips with this and no matter what they think of personal use of marijuana, they’ve figured out that if nothing else “harm reduction” is a no-brainer

But Mayoral candidate Mel Rapozo, and our next prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho routinely applaud and fund marijuana eradication with a psychopathic zeal while waxing poetic on the dangers of the evil weed.

They and the other five current councilmembers- and all past ones as well- have never opposed eradication much less the stridency of the local over-the-top rabid marijuana enforcement efforts.

As a matter of fact it’s plain to many that by any rational analysis politicians who support marijuana eradication and refuse to support legislation to basically stop enforcement of laws against its personal use can only be called a murderers.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it..

DOGGIN’ IT

DOGGIN’ IT: The sentencing of the three vice-squad cops who ditched marijuana eradication schools in Maui a couple of years back is in the news and it was not only a slap on the wrists but a slap in the face of accountability for the Kauai` Police Department, (KPD) the laughing stock of the state and the only unaccredited department in Hawai`i.

Not only did the three receive five years probation for the felony conviction, their attorney’s “(Michael) Green and (George) Burke said the two lawyers “would pay all the restitution and court fees for their clients....(s)ince they have had difficulty finding work”, according to the Honolulu Star- Bulletin article today.

In the understatement of the year Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe said to the three "(y)our actions contributed to the broken trust the community has in the Kauai Police Department."

Well don’t worry. The Kaua`i branch of the State’s DOCARE - the secret, private, unaccountable Department of Land and Natural Resources police force- is famous for taking disgraced Kaua`i cops so they can do their unaccountable law “conservation and resource enforcement” activities unencumbered by any civilian review.

Although Green reportedly said “the damage alone from losing their careers and their reputations was punishment enough for their crimes” the case may be emblematic of the very attitude that has been prevalent among a few “good old boys” in the KPD for decades – that the officers can do anything they want as long as they don’t get caught.

And if recent stories are true, despite the reigning in of that kind of cop during the administration of the last two chiefs, it may be back today.

According to a mostly un-sourced and unattributed account by Island Breath’s Juan Wilson and another by Koohan “Camera” Paik, Dayne Aipoalani of the Kingdom of Atooi and his family were harassed and Aipoalani was arrested on an outstanding warrant and then mistreated after being tailed by police following their presence at a Westside community meeting on the evening of April 30.

Some of the events were previously reported by Joan Conrow at Kaua`i Eclectic.

Some accounts said that there were many cop cars and officers- more than would usually be on duty or available- and although the Island Breath accounts were apparently conflicting it is apparent something out of the ordinary might have happened and there’s no doubt that some degree of harassment was involved- whether or not the arrest was actually a valid one.

Wilson and Paik say that Aipoalani was arrested on an outstanding warrant for failing to appear on charges stemming from an incident at the Superferry’s attempted landing last August when Aipoalani allegedly presented a fake police badge to police.

The Island Breath column say that Aipoalani had a doctor’s note for his failure to appear and that the court was aware of it although we have been unable to confirm the circumstances.

PNN has requested comment from County Administration Public Information Officer regarding the incident but because they are “in the final stages of preparing (the) supplementary budget (they) have not been able to get a comment”... but apparently we will have one soon so we can all get some facts.

This all come on the heals of a slew of letters and emails circulating recently condemning what many in the community see as the recent direction new Chief Darryl Perry has been taking- away from the “community policing” established by the past two chiefs and toward purchases of riot gear and tasers.

We know many officers personally and most are, despite the nature of the job, great people who do their job with as much compassion and care as is humanly possible, especially given what is essentially an impossible job.

But when cops like Channing Tada, Wesley Perreira and Lawrence Stem think that it’s ok to do what “everybody does” and fill out false reports and going holoholo instead of dong their job, what must we assume about the honesty of the way they do their job day to day?

According to the newspaper article “Christopher Young, deputy attorney general, said the state had to bring the case because their decision to lie and cover up their mistakes damaged the reputation of the Kauai Police Department and the trust of the community.
‘This is not about the $800’ each for salary, flights and the hotel room, Young added. ‘This case is about integrity and honesty.’”

PNN can now report that according an extremely reliable source, around the time just before these three were put on paid leave from the vice squad because of the charges, at least one Kaua`i attorney was telling people that he/she was seeing more than the usual number of defendants coming in for drug charges saying that the drugs were planted by the vice squad.

But the strange part was that in addition many were all saying that yes, they had a small amount of drugs but that when they got to the station house there were massive quantities or that vice squad members apparently threw bags into their cars and “discovered” drugs that weren’t theirs.

This was at a time when the Mayor was up in arms over the methamhetamine epidemic and appointed a Kaua`i “drug czar”, vowing to crack down and put pressure on the vice squad to not just bust users to “go after the dealers”.

This comes on the heals of reported and confirmed drug-dealer protection by KPD officers-if not internal drug dealing- in the Curnan and other cases of the late 90’s and early ’00’s.

Meanwhile we wish Rich Hoeppner, who reportedly suffered a heart attack after trying to help Appliooni through the ordeal, a speedy recovery from the triple bypass he will be undergoing the day after tomorrow (Thursday).