• Pesticide effects, dangers are not new • Thank you Dennis for capturing our lives • Corporations should give organic farming a try • Has anyone thought about the landowners? • Designer drugs, not pot, should be the focus Pesticide
• Pesticide effects, dangers are not new • Thank you Dennis for capturing our lives • Corporations should give organic farming a try • Has anyone thought about the landowners? • Designer drugs, not pot, should be the focus
Pesticide effects, dangers are not new
With regard to the current differences of opinion about safety of GMO products and pesticide use, is it not obvious by now that the long-term effects are unknown in the former and very well known in the latter? Is it not obvious that the prudent path is to be cautious about both?
I originally come from a farming background in the San Joaquin Valley in California. It is well documented that the “cancer clusters” in that area are, at least in part, due to pesticide use especially among farmworkers and that these diseases usually do not surface for many, many years.
If anyone would like a graphic and moving example of what greed and improper farming techniques can do please watch Ken Burns documentary “The Dust Bowl.” I am watching that and the local scene with great sadness and a heavy heart at the folly of mankind. One cannot eat money nor in most cases cure cancer.
There are many solutions to the jobs issue. It takes many workers and much time to rebuild soil but it also takes a paradigm shift among the people and our leaders.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to follow the little country of Bhutan’s example and go all organic? We could then attract tourists with a new marketing slogan: Kauai — Clean and Green.
Michael Wells, Moloaa
Thank you Dennis for capturing our lives
The extraordinary beauty of Kauai is evident in so many ways. The Na Pali coast, Hanalei Bay, the beautiful windward beaches, our rivers, Waimea canyon, unbelievable sunsets are but a few of the everyday things we are blessed to call home.
I would like to thank Dennis Fujimoto, The Garden Island photographer, for the incredibly wonderful way he captures the culture and people of Kauai. Three photographs, in particular, in the Tuesday, Aug. 6, issue of The Garden Island titled “Lanterns of Life” are some of the finest exhibits of his perceptive and artistic craftsmanship.
We are fortunate to have this man illustrating our lives.
Thank you for the many years that you have been doing your job so well.
Beverly Gianelli, Koloa
Corporations should give organic farming a try
It has been a crazy year with the battles that the GMO corporations are facing in Kauai, it will be sad to see them leaving due to the loss of income the workers will suffer.
Obviously the big companies have deep pockets to fly all the employees from all over the state to this small rock we all called our home to testify on their favor.
These people do not live in this island and they should not be counted as a vote. If they want these farming practices at their own island they can have it, but please do not come and tell the Kauaians about food growing here.
I strongly feel GMO companies are financially stable and they are able to be here even when they are going upstream. We would love to have them here for as long as they want under one condition: That they start organic farming right here to set a good example to the world, be proud of the great food they are to produce and feed the world and also create jobs and make everybody happy.
GMO, if you can grow this unhealthy food going against the current then you can do the opposite, do what is right, grow organic seeds, then you will smile and be nice to the island of Kauai and the whole world.
Goretti Perdue, Kilauea
Has anyone thought about the landowners?
In all the back and forth on Bill 2491, I haven’t heard anything from the landowners yet.
If the GMO companies do leave, what is their plan? Are there any other tenants that would lease such large tracts of land? Will they be able to pay their property taxes? Will they be forced to either sell or pressure the county into allowing more hotels and luxury housing developments?
Roger Barques, Koloa
Designer drugs, not pot, should be the focus
Your report on Keith Kamita’s presentation to the Kauai Chamber of Commerce brings back “Reefer Madness.” Mr. Kamita, head of the state Narcotics Enforcement Division, employs exaggeration and fear mongering.
He asserts that marijuana used to be 1 to 4 percent THC (a psychoactive component), but it’s now 15 to 20 percent. The “Drug Czar’s” office, says current potency levels are 10 percent. Kamita states there are 2,000 chemicals in marijuana.
This is both inaccurate (there are 400) and irrelevant: coffee has more than 1,000.
THC is not inherently harmful. Prescription Marinol, is 100 percent synthetic THC. Even if today’s marijuana were as powerful as Kamita says, people would use less with less potential for lung damage.
He is out of touch stating we should be as concerned with marijuana as with meth. In a 2013 poll, 76 percent of Hawaii voters agreed that, “Compared to possession of marijuana, ice and violence are much bigger crimes. Our police should spend more time/resources going after violent crime or hard drugs.”
We agree that synthetic marijuana and other “designer drugs” are far more harmful than marijuana. But it’s impossible to keep up with the influx of new drugs: “Every time a new drug comes out I have to research it and schedule it. Then they change the drug … and I have to make the whole family illegal again.”
Mr. Kamita is so enthusiastic about this part of his job, that he often declares drugs illegal even before the DEA does so. Is this how people here want our tax dollars spent?
Pamela Lichty, Honolulu
