What is the point of the ordinance if it doesn’t make marijuana legal in the County of Hawaii?
The ordinance expresses the will of the majority of the people of Hawaii County that non-violent adults should not have to fear prosecution and the stigma of criminality for their cultivation and use of marijuana for personal, medicinal, religious and recreational purposes. This expression of community standards is important for getting the Courts of Hawaii to recognize a personal right to use marijuana for recreational purposes, something which they refused to do in 1998, in State v. Mallan, 86 Hawai‘i 440, 454, 950 P.2d 178, 192 (1998). The Court said that, even though the Hawaii Constitution now contains a provision protecting the right of privacy, it doesn’t protect the use of marijuana just for fun (Article I, section 6 of the Hawai`i Constitution provides: The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. The legislature shall take affirmative steps to implement this right.) The Court reached this concl
