Sorry- I didn’t know that part off the top of my head But since you asked, Russia’s presence in Hawaii was sort of like its presence in Alaska and California: early 1800s outposts established by agents acting on behalf of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian-American_Company, which the Russian Crown had granted a monopoly on operations in North America and the Pacific but was unable to back or support such claims.
While on the one hand I can agree there’s a place and time to be present and participate appropriately, on the other hand it’s so goddamned tiring to see politics that in situations of nuance zoom in on ‘control them’ as a thing everyone can rally to as if the solution of phone control was really going to be simple and accomplish its objectives.
I mean, criminalizing drugs seemed on its face to be a simple-enough thing to do, and a good idea- who could object to that, right? Who favors addiction, right? What could go wrong? Fundamentally, the ask for enough power to ban anything isn’t a trivial ask, and it shouldn’t be undertaken lightly.