What is the purpose of Hawaii’s Legislature? To solve problems, right? Other, more high-minded things, too, of course, like envisioning a brighter future for the keiki, expanding economic opportunity and innovation for the state, preserving the aina and culture and all that.
But mostly, before the fancy visionary stuff, lawmakers are supposed to fix problems.
One of the biggest, most intractable problems Hawaii has faced for years now is homelessness.
Homelessness is connected to so many things: preservation of public parks and spaces. Public health. Crime and safety. Economic disparity. Drug use, mental health services, inpatient treatment, police resources, jail overcrowding … so many problems.
At this point no one can point at lawmakers or government agencies and say that they are ignoring the problem. They’re not. But they haven’t solved it, either. And now we’re at the point where this Legislature is in session, ideas are being discussed and there’s a dizzy feeling of disorientation, like an uncoordinated mission to affect an unidentified cause.
It’s been like this from the start. Remember when we were toying with the term “houseless” as supposedly a more compassionate, less pejorative term to convey the idea that Hawaii is still home to these people who are just like everybody else except they are unfortunately, through no fault of their own, without the physical structure of a house? We were arguing polite semantics. Now Hawaii is just flat-out buying people plane tickets to send them back to the continental location from which they originated, essentially saying, “Go be homeless back home.”
In between the first carefully worded discussions of how to help and the more recent frustrations of “just go back where you came from,” there have been complicated, conflicting, maddeningly liberal and equally maddeningly conservative attempts to deal with those who are quite disabled and shuffling along the sidewalks in their own filth and those who are quite able and who persist in building and rebuilding encampments on beaches and public parks.
The frustration is so pervasive and the solutions so unknowable that something like a proposal to reduce penalties for possessing a small amount of crystal meth or heroin are bouncing through the Legislature like that might be a helpful thing in our community. Or maybe it’s a sign of giving up.
While it is true that prison time doesn’t end drug problems, the threat of prison time can certainly serve as a deterrent to drug use. Prison time might not help the drug user, but it sure can make the crime victim of that drug user feel better and it can make it easier for law enforcement to put a criminal who has evaded capture in larger crimes behind bars.
Making the possession of a small amount of crystal meth a misdemeanor doesn’t solve the problem of drug use or prison overcrowding or access to rehab, just like buying one-way tickets for homeless people doesn’t solve their homelessness. The goal is to solve problems, not to legislate around them.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
