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Event Launches Marijuana Ballot Intiatives
Maui News | 02/04/06

WAILUKU – Two voter-driven ballot initiatives relating to marijuana use in Maui County will be launched at a kickoff celebration from 3 to 7 p.m. today at 71 Baldwin Ave. in Paia.

Brian Murphy, director of Maui County Citizens for Democracy in Action, said that of 688 patients on Maui with licenses to use medical marijuana, only eight have been able to get enough marijuana to meet their needs. Those who attempt to grow it themselves often have their crops stolen by thieves, he said.

One ballot initiative would address that problem by proposing to create a system under which local farmers could lease a “garden plot” and provide assistance for medical marijuana patients to grow their own plants. “By doing it this way, we don’t ever sell marijuana, and the farmers would never sell marijuana, but we’d have a secure way for the patients to get the product they need,” he said.

Murphy runs Patients Without Time, which helps patients who use medical marijuana for pain and appetite problems.

“I have 680 patients who need help,” he said.

A second ballot initiative proposes that Maui police not enforce drug laws for people caught with less than an ounce of marijuana. Murphy said the goal was to have marijuana use treated equally with alcohol use.

“This is for the person in the privacy of their home. If they want to be a cannabis smoker rather than an alcohol drinker, they should have that right,” he said.

To get on the 2006 ballot, Murphy’s group needs to collect for each initiative 8,301 signatures of registered Maui County voters who voted in the last mayoral election, within 90 days of filing papers. Murphy said his goal is to actually collect 10,000 signatures, to cover for mistakes or unusable signatures on the petitions.

An easier way to get the proposals on the ballot would have been to have it sponsored by a Maui County Council member and voted on by the full council. But Murphy said he was turned down when he transmitted the initiatives to all nine council members last year.

“They didn’t even want to talk about it,” he said.

He was confident his group would get the signatures it needed to put the two marijuana proposals in front of voters this fall.

“The response has been overwhelming,” he said.

Today’s event will include speakers, pupu and music, and will be broadcast live online at www.mccfdia.com.

For more information, call 579-8315 or e-mail info@mccfdia.com.

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