A fiction for now!
Overcoming decades of disunity and ineffectual action programs, thousands of demonstrators from the Hawaii marijuana community converged on the Honolulu International Airport on Saturday calling for the release of one their spiritual leaders held nearby. For nearly a year, Reverend Roger Christie has been held without bail at the federal jail towering adjacent to the Hawaiian Airline gates.
Chanting, “ CANNABIS IS SAFER THAN YOUR GOVERNMENT!” or, “U.S. OUT OF MY MOUTH!”
strolling demonstrators –airport security estimated in excess of 5,000–filed thru public and unchecked corridors of the sprawling airport.
Rev. Roger Christie has been held in federal detention in Honolulu for nearly one year without bail.
Hawaii state airport security and dozens of Honolulu Police Department officers stood in clumps near doors and entrances at loading zones eyeing sign holding and chanting demonstrators pacing by.
No arrests were made; though, the distinct odor of burning cannabis could be noticed everywhere as individuals or small groups cloistered briefly in the parking structure or stairwells passing marijuana joints. The exhaled scent was impossible to ignore for arriving tourist. One visitor, arriving on Untied Airlines from outside Schenectady, noticed the smell right away. According to visitor Sal Berner, “If people could come to Hawaii to smell that, Las Vegas would be underwater already! Look at it this way: Marijuana is nice while gambling is a vice.”
Also sniffing were increasing numbers of Honolulu policemen arriving in riot gear.
—The pro-marijuana-Free Roger Christie demonstrators, identifying themselves as Freedom Marchers, also fielded an all pervasive and effective public address system. So besides the distinct transformational aroma permeating the locked-down post 911 Airport of Aloha, media savvy demonstrators broadcasted speeches and even live music, performed amidst the throngs of irregular marching demonstrators via selected cell phones.
Their broadcast -emitted from hundreds of radios from cars pre-parked or roving- also came from the hundreds of cellphones with speakers on and held aloft by the Freedom Marchers. Since the statements and music came from every direction, as long as selected speech makers or entertainers minimalized emotional gesticulating, they were unidentifiable and unremarkable to the crowd-surveying authorities. Airport and police authorities were unable, even once, to interrupt the ‘virtual soapbox’ with its constant provocative promotion of the famous plant and the denouncing of the war against it.
One speaker, only identifying himself as the Tiger! Repose in Paradise Park (TRIPP!), spoke the longest of any other the luminary speakers including, one former Hawaii State Senator, a former governor and other now confessing Hawaii and international social icons.
Here is the text of his speech sent exclusively to Lightonhawaii.com.
THE GET THIS, BRAH, ADDRESS
Four scores and and seven seasons ago,
Painting by Barry Wilkinsen
Our Mother brought to this Aina a new strain, conceived in Puna and dedicated to the proposition that all plants are NOT created equal.
We are now engaged in a corrupt civil war, testing whether that plant or any medicinal Plant from seed grown organically, may long endure.
We are now oppressed by a great criminal war. We have met, outside one of its shitty prisons. We have come to celebrate the sacrifices of one of our teachers, and inspire more to start growing so that others can live. It is only humane and civilized that we do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave people, imprisoned or dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
................Painting by Barry Wilkinsen
they did here. It is for us the still free, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of propagating what they who fought here have thus far so nobly germinated. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored incarcerated we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these shall not have suffered hardship in vain—that this Hawaii Nation, under Wisdom and All Divine, shall have a new birth of freedom—and The PLANT of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from Planet Hurt.”
Attempts to reach TRIPP! by news staff at LightonHawaii were only answered with this cryptic recorded message:
“IN POLITICAL/SPIRITUAL BATTLES, THE PURPOSE OF A MARTYR IS TO MAKE THE PEOPLE SMARTER.
THAT IS ALL THE CHANGE YOU GET.”
By noon, the throngs of demonstrators that had arrived just after ten, had mostly departed. Police and airport security noticed just a few dozen people of various age groups with identical green t-shirts and white plastic bags picking up litter, some of it left by the demonstrators. But officials were soon in for a shock.
After the green clad litter picking people had all but left, HPD officer Joseph Make’enekine spotted one of their white plastic bag tucked below an airport coconut tree.
“This has been a crazy day!” said the 22 year Honolulu police veteran. “At first, they caught us by surprise. There were thousands marching along the mall here before we knew it, and there was marijuana smoke and speeches and music
coming from everywhere. We called for back-up and even the SWAT came though they remained hidden for the tourists’ sake. Then we realized that though there was marijuana smoke everywhere, the crowd was going to be peaceful as we all know tokers and smokers to be.”
As the demonstrators and smoke disappeared, police started to breathe a sigh of relief. The green shirted, white bagged clean-up crew, the police thought was a friendly gesture from the mostly Hawaii Medical Marijuana crowd. That, until the rude discovery by Officer Make’enekine.
The bag had hundreds of marijuana seeds.
“I didn’t think anything when I first saw the bag. I mean, I didn’t think it was a bomb or anything terrorist, so I went to pick
.........Light On! By Barry Wilkinsen
it up. I was shocked when I saw the seeds. I knew right away what it was because I, -ahhh, grew-up on the Big Island and —ahhh, I —ahhh.. Now we believe the demonstrators were tossing marijuana seeds, maybe shipped from Canada, heck even from the —ahh, Big Island, all around the Honolulu International Airport. In fact we have identfied some seeds in two planters just down from here. And a criminal investigation has been initiated.We believe there is more, and we are going to have to review all the airport security cameras to see what we can come up with. Honolulu Vice, the DEA, FBI, Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture and even the FAA are all now looking into it. We thought maybe even HAZMAT might help clean-up.”
“The big worry,” says Make’enekine, “are the sprinklers. They are all on a computer schedule and when the seeds get wet they’ll start germinating. In, -ahhhh, a couple of days, can you imagine what it’s going to look like here at the airport…for the arriving tourists? We might have to destroy all the plants around the airport to spare the kids of tourists from getting the wrong message while in Hawaii. But this place could end-up looking worse than Fukushima!”
prophet
on Sep 2nd, 2011
@ 8:36 pm:
i have just recently become aware of the situation in Hawaii, which i regard as my second home. i was stationed on Oahu for four years and lived there free of my military obligation of almost a year. do to the economy i was unable to retain a decent job, and regrettably had to leave the island. i had never touched marijuana before in my life, i had been around it but never partook. i made a deal with my supportive hawaiin friends who never thought any less of me for my morals at the time. on the day my contract ended my roommate of almost three years was waiting in our normal evening sitting are with a smile on his face asking “bah you ready”. since that day cannabis has been a big part of my life, i have become a better man with it. my anger level dropped dramatically, my patients grew, and i found it easier to deal with the things i had done overseas. sleep finally came to me, my mind was free to relax. i am free to live the no worries life still that my hawaiin friends had always talked about. reading what has happened to mr. christie is outright unfair. now if what he did was against the law then so be it the law is in place for the most part to keep order, but not knowing the whole story, i dont understand why cant the government leave us alone we choose to partake in using the plant that naturally grows and not at all man made. its not forced on us, and peer pressure would not be a problem if the government wasnt portraying it as no no. u tell someone not to do it they are going to just cus they can, but take that restriction away and it looses its luster as the forbidden fruit. all and all i support him in how he chooses to live his life with marijuana in it if he did nothing wrong then they should just leave him alone. this isnt waco. every little thing is gunna be alright just remember that mr christie