Solar tax credits are good energy policy

John-David Nako misses the point about the solar tax incentive ("Solar tax credits a form of corporate welfare," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, April 7). By incentivizing solar investment, the Legislature is not "trying its hand in predicting the industries of the future."

Rather, the government is setting policy to address the fact that Hawaii has the highest electric rates in the nation, and that we depend almost entirely upon imported fossil fuels, an increasingly unreliable resource.

The incentives work, but we’ve got a ways to go. Hawaii has the highest per capita installation of solar hot water in the nation, and more than 127 MW of installed PV capacity, all of which offset the extraction, shipping, and burning of over 831,000 barrels of oil in Hawaii each year. Yet reduced incentives means fewer installations, and now is not the time to make it harder on Hawaii’s homes and businesses to invest in our green infrastructure.

Energy prices, like the cost of food and housing, drive the state’s economy and well-being, and the Legislature and governor know this.

Leslie Cole-Brooks
Executive director, Hawaii Solar Energy Association

Profits can weaken doctors’ decisions

Rob Perez’s article, "Probe targets isle drug pricing practices" (Star-Advertiser, April 7), identifies the costs associated with "big markups."

Both the human and financial costs are unacceptable. If physicians profit from their actions, how can they be objective about what patients need?

In most cases, evidence-based medicine (science) would not support their decisions and quality physicians would not dispense medications. The dispensing physicians often profit several hundred dollars per month per patient by prescribing unnecessary drugs, including narcotics.

Studies have shown physician-dispensing also increases the length of disability. The longer it takes a patient to get well, the more these physicians profit.

Drugs are associated with significant risks and interact. It is estimated that more than 100,000 deaths occur per year as result of drugs. It is morally wrong for physician-dispensing companies, repackagers and dispensing physicians to use patients for greed and manipulate our legislature.

Christopher R. Brigham, M.D.
Kailua

Nurses contract step in right direction

As a registered nurse at the Hawaii State Hospital, I am thrilled that the arbitration panel has seen the great disparity in wages and benefits between private-sector nurses and state nurses.

We encounter on a daily basis extreme danger working with an unstable psychiatric population remanded by the court for hideous crimes. I applaud our union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, for standing up for the Unit 9 nurses and trying to narrow the difference between us and those in the private hospital settings.

State nurses have a ways to go before equality will be full circle, but this is a great start.

Michael Springhetti
Nursing supervisor, Hawaii State Hospital

Decriminalization is not legalization

Your story on the "death" of the marijuana decriminalization bill reveals continuing confusion about decriminalization versus legalization ("House abandons bill to decriminalize pot," Star-Advertiser, April 4).

The latter has been enacted (via voter initiative) in only two states, Washington and Colorado. It will include state taxation, regulation and control. Decriminalization would replace the criminal penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana with a citation and fine.

Rep. Marcus Oshiro proclaims, "We don’t have to be the ones to be first in line, spending enormous time, energy and money, and exposure of our young people in this untested area."

In actual fact, Hawaii would have been the 15th state to decriminalize marijuana— joining states like Ohio, Nebraska, and Mississippi. And youth usage in those states is stable or has even gone down.

One goal of decriminalization is preventing people from getting a permanent criminal record. It would save Hawaii millions of dollars and let law enforcement target violent crimes and dangerous drugs such as ice.

Pamela Lichty
President, Drug Policy Action Group

Shield law proposal bad for journalism

I was disappointed last week to see the state Senate chose to advance a measure that handicaps the future of journalism ("Panel defangs press shield law," Star-Advertiser, April 4).

What the Legislature must understand is that technology and society are changing in ways that blur the lines between what in the past would have been considered a traditional news organization and what today is considered "social" journalism among individuals who maintain video blogs, Internet podcast stations and websites that sometimes have thousands, even millions of Web viewers. We now live in an era where, as seen during the Arab Spring, whole social revolutions can begin on Twitter or with a single blog post.

A journalist’s ability to boldly write and report without fear is critical to the success and future of our information society.

Transparency and accountability at all levels requires an informed public.

Danny De Gracia
Waipahu