My cousin who used to be a public prosecutor here has since October become a public defender. Apparently, the benefits were better and she was not getting along with her boss, so it was a good move for her.

Her claim to fame which made the island paper, "The Garden Island", was she prosecuted a mentally retarded beekeeper for cruelty to animals and the judge threw the guy in jail for 8 months. My cousin wanted a year.

Here's the story. A nine-year old girl was walking her two dogs with her friends. The dogs got out of their leashes and entered into the beekeeper's property, which by the way was fenced off. The beekeeper had chickens and the dogs were chasing the birds around, so the guy got upset and got some kind of stick and started chasing the dogs around. One of the dogs escaped, but the other dog wasn't as lucky.

The beekeeper hit the dog in the head and rendered him unconscious, and then just kept hitting the dog. All in front of the nine-year old girl who was screaming the whole time. The girl got cited for a leash violation, and mentally slow beekeeper appealed his conviction but was thrown in jail anyway.

My cousin had all kinds of story about the kind of people she's seen come through the Kauai courts. Two women in their 60's bought some hippie lettuce from some guy at the beach. They smoked a little of it, and then put it in their suitcase to take back home. They were busted at Lihue airport for possession of hippie lettuce.

Kauai has zero tolerance for marijuana possession. My cousin has prosecuted people on possesson because they had left over resin in their pipe. Memo to hippie lettuce smokers coming to Kauai. If you want to enjoy hippie lettuce, buy it here and smoke it here. Don't be stupid and get caught with it on the plane. Airport security goes through and opens up everything. My cousin told me people still transport their hippie lettuce in film containers. DUH! That is such an old trick. Everyone stores their hippie lettuce in film containers. Find a new place! They used to be dogs at Honolulu sniffing through the luggage for hippie lettuce. Well, now they have dogs here sniffing out hippie lettuce carriers.

Hippie lettuce is apparently very easy to buy here. You can just walk on the beach at night and people will ask you if you want some. It's just like in New York, when you used to be able to buy joints in front of the public library.

But hippie lettuce for the locals is a drug only the kids do. Crystal meth is in, so in, that on Kauai they regulate the amount of cold medicine you can buy in the drugstores here. Cold medicine is a main ingredient of crystal meth. My cousin said it is very cheap to make and incredibly addictive. There was a crystal meth lab in some old bakery I remember in childhood here, which eventually exploded. Some motel in Lihue call the Tip Top Motel is as rumor at the courts would have it, is the place to buy drugs galore on Kauai.

Kauai also apparently has zero tolerance for drunks and speeders. Too many people, tourists mostl, getting killed in car crashes here and suing the heck out of the county and the state. If you go over 30 miles above the speed limit, you can be cited for reckless driving. Get a DUI on Kauai, and it's $1,000 fine and five days in jail. Worse yet, if you get convicted for a DUI the court has the right to look at whatever arrests you've had in all 50 states. If you had DUIs in other states, they will sentence accordingly and may suspend your license. The limit of alcohol on Kauai you can have in your blood is 0.08. I have no idea what that means, but apparently in California our alcohol tolerance is higher.

All these DUI laws make me laugh because at the interisland terminal in Honolulu while I was waiting for my flight to Kauai, I saw people tanking the cocktails away before their flight. My cousins says there are a ton of tourists who get DUI convictions on Kauai. Some vacation huh?