Dear Editor, This writer sat in the High Court, Criminal Division, on Friday and watched two sentences handed down from the 2021 Police operation on Aitutaki – the operation that brought an end to the international, million dollar drug cartel carried out by the young criminals of that island. I would have sat through more of the sentencing, but it was just too painful seeing young lives destroyed.

Not a single Member of Parliament was in that courtroom to see that assembly line of destruction. Destruction that those lawmakers not only allowed to take place, but required take place. None of you saw the 4-year-old child sit on her father’s lap after his sentencing, while he waited to be taken to the over-crowded jail where actual criminals will be his roommates for months.

The Judge was simply following the law. And the law is an ass. Our lawmakers are either lazy or stupid to have left these laws on the books. We hear rumours of this or that Member of Parliament who smokes dope or snorts the white powder. If there is an ounce of truth to that, then the Parliamentarian(s) who fit that bill should be run right out of the Cook Islands. That is, after serving months in Arorangi Prison.

Whether you lawmakers are hypocrites or pearly white, you can undo this. You can change the law, and you can wipe out these convictions. You can face the hypocrisy of our unenforced liquor laws. We all know where to buy beer on a Sunday and after hours. We all know where the homebrew is made and consumed before the users of that recreational drug go home and beat the missus.

The Judge repeatedly referred to drug dealers. Tell us, lawmakers, is the owner of a night club who allows his staff to continue to serve booze to drunken patrons a drug dealer?

End this madness.