I see unending discussions on the evil of Ice. Ice has to be ingested into humans to be harmful. The problem is people -- individuals -- who choose to ingest ice.

Let’s be clear on this:

The problem is not ice, it is lack of personal discipline and character.

To clarify:

One does not walk down the street, minding his own business, only to have ice jump from a doorway and attack him. Instead, he decides to ingest it. He might have lots of “friends” egging him on, but he decides.

To make it even clearer, the “treatment” of an ice over-user is centered on how to say and do “No.” That is character building, and it is damn difficult.

Consequently, we do not have an ice epidemic. Instead we have an epidemic of poor character.

That is more personal and uncomfortable than blaming ice, but it is the unvarnished truth.

Here is some discomfort:

If Hawaii leads the nation in use of ice, Hawaii has more bad character than the rest of the nation. We must face the truth before we face the problem. Otherwise, our focus is off, and the problem, unclear, persists while a bunch of money and resources go down lots of drains.

In summary, “Ice” cannot be reformed, but individuals can be helped to develop into productive participants in a civil society.

Until we properly define the problem, we roll the dice on so-called “Ice” difficulties.

Richard O. Rowland is president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute focused on promoting the free-market, individual freedom and liberty. He is now in his third career; the first culminating in his retirement as a Colonel, U.S. Army Military Police Corps, from the second he retired as a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual Network. He has a premonition that any further careers will not be in government service. He can be reached via email at: mailto:grassroot@hawaii.rr.com