On Politics: Push for gambling, recreational pot begin again

There is something about sun and sand in a tropical setting that makes folks think, “I should be in a dark, noisy, off-smelling casino happily feeding money into a slot machine.”

Yes, gambling is back before the soon-to-open 2023 Hawaii Legislature, with supporters hoping this will be the year for legalized gambling.

Hawaii’s latest supporters, House Vice Speaker John Mizuno and state Rep. Daniel Holt, both Democrats, say they will introduce a bill to allow poker and sports betting, at one establishment on Oahu.

I am fairly confident this will not pass and Hawaii will continue to forbid gambling, just as it has done for the past 173 years.

Yes, gambling has been illegal in Hawaii since 1850 when King Kamehameha III ruled the islands. After the king, the provisional government said, “No gambling.” This was replaced by Hawaii penal code giving a thumbs down to gambling in 1972, according to research done by the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office in 2016.

“In the absence of a specific exclusion or defense, gambling is prohibited in the State of Hawaii,” wrote then Attorney General Douglas Chin in a 2016 opinion spelling out that daily fantasy sports contests are considered gambling under Hawaii law and therefore a no-go.

Specifically, Chin said gambling under Hawaii law is when a person stakes or risks something of value upon a game of chance or upon any future contingent event not under the person’s control.

“The technology may have changed but the vice has not,” Chin wrote.

”This is a very responsible proposition,” said Holt, who added that there are 70 to 100 illegal game rooms in operation on Oahu.

The problem is that Hawaii is running a strong budget surplus. In past years when gambling supporters have pushed the bill, lawmakers were facing deficits or economic trouble; in days of lots of money, gambling pales even more.

Not so the case of the other hardy legislative perennial, legalization of marijuana.

In this case, past legislatures have repeatedly toyed with the issue and moved to weaken the laws making possession a crime.

The move is supported by Rep. Jeanné Kapela, a Big Island Democrat, first elected to the Legislature in 2020. A Honolulu Star- Advertiser report quotes Kapela as saying with the legalization movement “we stand on the precipice of history.”

“We now have a road map for legalizing recreational cannabis in our islands,” she said.

Previous supporters have looked as marijuana’s legalization as a source of money by taxing the purchase of marijuana, but the latest argument in favor is that marijuana can be a cash crop.

“Agricultural and business practices would be based on sustainable and indigenous cultivation methods, ensuring that cannabis operations uplift the needs of U.S. residents, the needs of Hawaii’s people, not the profits of multistate corporations,” Kapela said.

In Hawaii’s risk-avoiding Legislature, nothing is a sure bet until it clears the final vote. But in 2023, when finding extra cash is not an emergency matter, there’s more green to be found in Hawaii’s fertile fields than on the betting table.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.