For those who are not normally involved in the legislative process, what a great time to speak out with everything you have. This is thanks to (D) Sen. Karl Rhoads’ recent proposed legislation to fluoridate (poison) your water here in Hawaii. For anyone who is in doubt of how toxic fluoride is, simply look at the side of your toothpaste where it says, “If swallowed call poison control.”

The painful irony behind the proposed legislation is the supposed benefit to our teeth. Just one of the many known negative effects of fluoride is dental and skeletal fluorosis. So why in the world would we put it in our water? I’d say that’s a great question that also applies to the long list of known poisons our government allows in our food and water.

By definition fluoride is a drug. A drug should be dosed appropriate to a patient’s needs, not be flagrantly “dumped” in the public water supply. There are far too many negative effects of fluoride to list but I say as the people of Hawaii we only need one simple premise to reject fluoride. That is we all have the right to decide for ourselves what drug we wish and not wish to take. We should never allow our government to drug the population in mass for any reason.

Many other municipalities around the country have also awakened to the toxicity of fluoride in the water and are starting to remove it. We should be eliminating fluoride from the water supply nationwide, not adding it!

Michael Newgent, Kapaa

*Original letter online at https://www.thegardenisland.com/2019/02/07/opinion/letter-for-thursday-february-7-2019/