Tag: hawaii

Maui Fire Victims’ Families Offered Up to $1.5 million in Compensation if They Don’t Sue State Agencies

Over 6 months ago, a devastating wildfire swept through the Maui island town of Lahaina in Hawaii and incinerated much of the surrounding region.

Legal Insurrection readers may recall that a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners wanted to help protect their property from fires because water is to be revered and not used. Additionally, Hawaiian green energy mandates may have led Hawaiian Electric to divert fiscal resources away from fire-prevention practices.

There was also a delayed evacuation order.

A detailed timeline of events describes a series of calls to emergency dispatchers, reporting a fast-spreading fire at 2:55 p.m. Officers soon began evacuating neighboring areas, the report said.

But it does not explore the county’s delay before issuing a broader evacuation alert. The county made a decision not to use its all-hazards siren system and waited until 4:16 p.m. to send a cellphone evacuation alert. That alert was targeted at residential neighborhoods above the Honoapiʻilani Highway.

Fire had already consumed much of the area targeted for evacuation. At the exact time the evacuation alerts were going out, the new timeline shows, officers were reporting that the fire had spread all the way down to the highway and was jumping the road — toward waterfront areas that never received an evacuation alert.

Now, the relatives of fire victims could receive over $1 million in compensation…as long as they choose not to sue state agencies and companies involved.

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Hawaii Governor Says Legalizing Marijuana Can ‘Blunt’ Negative Effects Of Other ‘Horrible’ Drugs

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) spoke about the state’s path to marijuana legalization this legislative session during an interview this week, calling the policy change a “big social issue that remains” to be addressed in the state and saying he’d likely sign a bill to end cannabis prohibition if one is sent to him by lawmakers.

But Green also said the change “is a little more complicated because the feds have not changed the way they schedule marijuana yet, which is really wacko.”

The governor also pushed back against opponents’ fears that legal cannabis would cause public health problems in the state, saying it could actually bring some benefits.

“I don’t think the sky would fall, honestly, if marijuana were legalized,” Green told Hawaii News Now in an interview that aired on Tuesday, adding: “I also have some thoughts that marijuana might blunt the effect, if you will, of people on these heavy drugs, these horrible drugs.”

Though Hawaii has among the lowest drug overdose death rates in the country, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, 269 people died of drug overdoses in the state in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

Cannabis, by contrast, “is a relative sedative,” the governor said.

“People are far less violent. They are much hungrier, but they—aside from the snacking and stealing Cheetos—will probably do less harm,” he quipped.

Legalization advocates struggled under former Democratic Gov. Dave Ige, who resisted the reform in part because he said he was reluctant to pass something that conflicts with federal law. But since Green took office, activists have felt more emboldened. He’s said since 2022 that he’d sign a legalization bill.

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New Hawaii Bill Would Create A Limited Therapeutic Psilocybin Program To Treat Certain Mental Health Conditions

Newly introduced legislation in Hawaii would create explicit legal protections around the therapeutic use of psilocybin, with eligible patients able to possess and consume the psychedelic under a trained facilitator’s care.

The measure is the result of a task force on breakthrough therapies that was formed last year to explore the issue, its sponsor, Sen. Chris Lee (D), told Marijuana Moment.

SB 3019 would not legalize psilocybin itself but would instead create an affirmative defense for qualified patients and their caregivers, effectively exempting them from state laws against psilocybin. A companion bill in the House, HB 2630, is sponsored by Rep. Della Au Belatti (D) and 13 others.

“There’s a lot of use cases where these kinds of things can really help improve quality of life, and significantly, at minimal cost compared to other kinds of alternative treatment,” Lee said of psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA, both of which have been designated by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as breakthrough therapies.

In Hawaii in particular, he noted, there are large numbers of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other behavioral health ailments, as well as older people seeking end-of-life care—groups that might benefit from facilitated psilocybin use.

Under the new legislation, mental health professionals would need to identify a person as having at least one of several listed eligible medical conditions, then write a recommendation for therapeutic psilocybin. Patients would be allowed no more than five grams of psilocybin per session and would need to complete a preparation session prior to the drug being administered.

Eligible conditions for treatment with psilocybin would include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); treatment-resistant depression or major depressive disorder; end-of-life anxiety, existential stress and demoralization; eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, substance use disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Additional qualifying conditions could be added by the state Department of Health in response to requests from patients or mental health professionals.

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US Navy FINALLY recovers spy plane stuck in Hawaii bay two weeks after it overshot Marine base runway and ‘destroyed’ endangered ocean coral – as crews find a dead sea turtle at recovery site

The US Navy has finally recovered a spy plane that crashed into the sea after overshooting a runway in Hawaii two weeks ago. 

But the extraction has cost an estimated $1.5million and, as a sea turtle is found dead onsite, experts warn the plane has damaged the endangered ocean coral. 

The US Navy P-8A plane missed its mark while attempting to land at a US Marines base, located ten miles from Honolulu, on November 20. 

For two weeks it sat floating in Kaneohe Bay – home to coral reefs and a range of marine life, from sharks to octopus and fish.

Its wheels lodged in the coral bed and Navy contractors had to design a complex inflatable and rope system to float it to the surface and remove it from the water. 

Officials said the removal operation took 13 hours starting around 6.30am Saturday.

‘Our team went through a detailed planning process to develop the best course of action to get the P-8 out of the bay as quickly and as safely as possible,’ Rear Adm. Kevin P. Lenox, the salvage operation’s on-scene commander, said.

‘At times, it took us an hour to move the aircraft five feet.’

The Navy estimated the total cost of the operation will be $1.5million as they focus on preserving the aircraft so it can return to service once removed.

But the cost to marine life has been high too, and on Thursday, a ‘deceased sea turtle’ was found ‘floating between’ two of the Navy barriers around the plane.

‘This one is unfortunate. DLNR observers this morning found a deceased sea turtle floating in between two of our barriers,’ Lenox said. 

‘I have no information on the cause of death on that particular sea turtle. DLNR did report a sick sea turtle struggling in the vicinity yesterday, we suspect that may be related. 

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Hawaii Attorney General’s Office Defends Marijuana Legalization Proposal From Law Enforcement Attacks

The office of Hawaii’s attorney general is pushing back against criticism of the official’s recently released marijuana legalization plan, defending its public health and safety provisions as members of the law enforcement community voice opposition to the reform.

After announcing in April that her office would support efforts to enact legalization, Attorney General Anne Lopez (D) unveiled a comprehensive cannabis bill last week, earning praise from supporters in the legislature and mixed reactions from advocates who want to see it revised to more aggressively address equity issues and reduce criminalization.

On the other side of the debate, however, Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm says representatives of law enforcement are firmly against legalizing marijuana in general and the attorney general’s plan specifically, arguing that the current system of prohibition is “not broken,” and regulating adult-use cannabis would lead to increased hospitalizations without mitigating the illicit market.

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My dad was killed by an insane satanist ‘phrogger’ who secretly lived in stranger’s home – I want justice

A US Navy veteran slammed Hawaii‘s lax prison policies for placing his father in a cell with a Satanic ‘phrogger’, who beat him to death while hapless guards failed to open the door due to allegedly faulty locks. 

Nelson Coburn condemned a string of failings that allowed mentally-ill Satanist Ezequiel Zayas to be placed in a cell with his father Vance Grace, 62, who was just weeks away from freedom after spending 34 years behind bars for theft and drug offenses. 

With dreams of starting a Koy Pond business in Hawaii and reconnecting with his family, Grace was placed in a cell with Zayas, then-29, who captured headlines the year prior in 2019 when he was caught secretly living in a Honolulu family’s home. The crime known as ‘phrogging’ and is named after the practice of leap-frogging someone into their home. 

After Zayas was discovered, the family later realized he planned to perform nightmarish surgeries on them. Despite his clear mental illness, he ended up in a cell with Grace, leading his son to speak out over the short-sighted policies that resulted in his father’s grisly death. 

‘The problem is no one speaks up, and you think ‘it’s just another inmate that got killed in prison, oh well he’s a criminal” Coburn told DailyMail.com. ‘My dad did his time and he was working to improve his life.’ 

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Media Blackout: Black Curtains Go Up In Lahaina Blocking View of Ground Zero Investigation, Clean Up

Footage out of fire-ravaged Lahaina, Hawaii, shows crews have erected an extensive line of black curtains blocking citizens from seeing what’s going on as hundreds of people are still reported missing.

Video courtesy of citizen journalist Geoff Cygnus on TikTok depicts miles of fencing and curtains have been put up alongside Front Street, one of Lahaina’s main highways, obstructing the view of ongoing activities.

“There seems to be a huge emphasis on ensuring that the media and anyone else can’t see what’s going on,” Cygnus reported in a recent video.

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Thanks to government, Maui’s Lahaina fire became a deadly conflagration

The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.

And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina last week, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.

Though details are still emerging, it’s becoming clear that government failure did much to make this disaster worse — and possibly even started it. While the so-called experts are blaming climate change — and in the process demanding that government grab even more power and authority ostensibly to someday give us better weather — the destructiveness of this fire was the product of an all-powerful and all-incompetent régime.

The specific origins of the fire are still being investigated, but there is much we already know. The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.

Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.

Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.

The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

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To Tackle Highest Housing Costs in the Country, Hawaii’s Governor Declares YIMBY Martial Law

The loss of life from the deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui has been made even worse by the loss of shelter. Some 2,000 homes have been destroyed so far, leaving thousands more homeless or displaced.

The fire has only worsened an insufficiency of homes on the island and in the state more broadly. In Hawaii, median home prices are close to $1 million and regulations on adding new supply are incredibly strict.

Weeks before the fires, Democratic Gov. Josh Green had already proclaimed a statewide housing emergency with the purpose of slashing through all that regulation to get thousands of new homes built.

“We don’t have enough houses for our people. It’s really that simple,” said the governor at a press conference last month, where he promised “bold action to streamline processes for creating thousands of affordable housing units.”

Green is in fact taking bold action by suspending whole sections of state and local laws and regulations that relate to homebuilding.

Local governments are given far more flexibility to expedite housing approvals, while developers will have the chance to route around basically all existing regulations on home building to get housing projects approved.

It’s a radically deregulatory approach that’s received praise from across the political spectrum.

“This is probably the single most significant state-level action on accelerating housing production maybe in the whole country, maybe ever,” Sen. Stanley Chang (D–Honolulu) tells Reason.

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A LOT of Coincidences Surround the Maui Fire That Destroyed Lahaina

Maui just suffered its worst disaster, with a death toll at 115 as of Thursday and nearly a thousand people still missing. While this loss of life is tragic in and of itself, as time goes by, more questions pop up.  How did the fires begin?  How did they get so out of control?  How come damage seemed to occur almost exclusively to the natives while celebrity estates in the area were miraculously unharmed?

Why was the governor almost immediately making plans for the land?  Why has media been so restricted in what they can report on?

Officials always start by blaming climate change whenever some sort of natural disaster occurs.  I always start by assuming incompetence, and there was certainly plenty of that to go around in this situation.

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