Lawmakers balk
at putting off probeThe issue: A legislative committee
is moving ahead with its investigation
of special education costs.
If state lawmakers were to suspend their investigation into the cost of special education as an attorney has requested, they would be abdicating their responsibility to the voters and taxpayers.The public should be informed about whether money is being spent properly and if not, how it can be better managed. Further, the absence of a determination could provoke a perception that children in special education are receiving more than their share to the detriment of other students.
The legislative committee is correct in pushing ahead with its inquiry despite the contention by attorney Eric Seitz that it would interfere with the state's efforts to bring schools into compliance with the Felix consent decree. Seitz, who represents Felix plaintiffs, had asked that the probe be put off until after Nov. 1, the court-set deadline by which two-thirds of public school complexes must reach certain goals for special education. Seitz, who has resisted committee subpoenas for information, told the committee he would provide full access to witnesses and documents if lawmakers held off.
However, Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, committee co-chairwoman, properly rejected his offer. "We still have to answer to the taxpayers as to where the money is going," she said.
The investigation was triggered by a state auditor's report in January that could not sort out the budgets of the education and health departments to see if special education funds were being used productively. With more than $300 million a year being spent on special education, the inquiry is certainly justified.
There's little doubt that having to gather the information the committee has requested puts an extra burden on health and education officials who at the same time are struggling to meet the compliance deadline. School superintendent Paul LeMahieu told lawmakers he will need three more months to retrieve data while Health Director Bruce Anderson said he may need a month beyond that.
Legislators may be frustrated by the delay, but they should be patient because their task is important. At stake is the financial responsibility of the government to its taxpayers and to its 11,000 special education students.
Don’t let DEA’s dogs
loose on medical potThe issue: The new chief of the
Drug Enforcement Administration says
he will enforce the law against distribution
of marijuana for medical purposes.
THE threat by the new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to enforce the federal ban on distribution of marijuana should not strike fear into the hearts of Hawaii residents using marijuana for medical purposes. The labyrinth created by the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of medical marijuana as an exception to the law effectively empties the threat, although possibly driving some patients to illicit behavior in obtaining the substance. Congress should make their lives simpler by carving out the exception they have sought in the states where it is legal.Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas, told reporters on his first day as chief of the DEA that he would enforce the federal ban on marijuana distribution after considering "a lot of different aspects." One of those aspects, of course, is that using marijuana for medical purposes is legal in eight states, including Hawaii.
Proponents of marijuana's medical use say it relieves pain from AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other illnesses. However, the Supreme Court in May ruled that federal law against marijuana allows no exception. The ruling was based on legal, not medical, grounds, and dealt with organized manufacturing and distribution of marijuana, not its use.
Ted Sakai, Hawaii's public safety director and administrator of the state law allowing medical use of marijuana, said after the high court's decision that Hawaii would continue registering patients for treatment with marijuana. Those registered are allowed to grow and possess marijuana for medical purposes; the state law does not pertain to how they obtain it.
That places Hawaii's legally authorized users of medical marijuana who are unable to grow it at home in a precarious situation. Doctors who may legally prescribe marijuana and administer it in private face the same problem: How do they get their hands on it?
Canada this year announced plans to make it easier to possess and cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, but importing marijuana into the United States is illegal. The only alternative is for medical marijuana users to seek out illegal drug traffickers willing to risk Hutchinson's snare.
If Congress is unwilling to create a nationwide exception to marijuana distribution for medical purposes, it at least should permit its distribution in states where its use is legal. That would recognize states' rightful role as laboratories for innovation.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, President
John Flanagan, publisher and editor in chief 529-4748; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
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