Beach partiers create hazards for others

There is a group of young people that descends on a section of Kailua Beach on weekends and holiday nights to party. They build bonfires, then throw their beer bottles into the fire where they burst. When they leave they cover the mess with sand, subjecting children and other beachgoers to hidden broken glass, nails and hot coals.

Neighborhood alertness and police involvement have been unable to stop this thoughtless behavior. Possibly, these people are not totally brain dead and after reading this letter, will shape up before they are caught and prosecuted for reckless endangering.

Current leaders didn't lie to us, Clinton did

I must disagree with the Jan. 17 letter writer who said President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice lied to the people of the United States. A lie is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive. If the statement is made based on inaccurate information, that is not a lie.

When a person knows of his transgressions, looks directly into the camera and tells the nation, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinski," that, sir, is a lie.

Gun laws punish only the law-abiding

On Jan. 14 you had an article informing the public that the Brady Campaign had rated Hawaii an A- on its gun control laws. Seems to me you should also inform the public that the National Academy of Science recently found that gun control laws have no effect on violent crime rates. It's not just the National Rifle Association saying this but an organization that has no gun control agenda.

Washington, D.C., has had the most restrictive gun laws in the nation for many years and for quite a few of those years has had a higher violent crime rate than anywhere else. Violent criminals tend to like having their potential victims disarmed; it makes their job a whole lot safer. The Brady Campaign is little more than an erstwhile OSHA for the criminal set.

If you think banning or restricting guns will keep them out of the hands of criminals, maybe you need to ask yourself how well that idea is working for ice, crack or cocaine. Gun control laws do nothing more than restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens and prevent them from being able to defend themselves.

Redemption centers are too inconvenient

My family has recycled with the convenient school drop-off points for years, an activity that takes only a few minutes. I went to one of the new redemption centers at an off hour during midweek. It still took 45 minutes, including the round-trip drive.

Assume that time can be cut to 30 minutes. With roughly 400,000 households that must recycle, say twice monthly, that would be 400,000 hours taken away from its citizens per month. With the minimal money return, most folks are not going to give up their valuable time. The people who never recycled before will just start throwing their bottles in the garbage can again. And the rest of us, who used to recycle anyhow, will start dropping our recyclables off at either charity drop-off points or schools so we don't have to spend an hour per month standing behind a grocery store.

Either make it efficient, such as drop-offs inside of all stores that sell such products, or get rid of this ridiculous tax. As far as beach litter goes, do as before -- let the low-risk prison inmates continue to handle it. They must love getting to walk the beach anyway.

Many ways to enjoy pleasures of cannabis

Roger Christie's Jan. 17 letter to the editor about the many benefits of the cannabis hemp plant left out one glaring benefit: The leaves, when dried and rolled into a cigarette form, provide hours of pleasure.

Smoking cannabis also assists in the enjoyment of "Grateful Dead" albums.