CRYSTAL METH Q&A

Q: How new is the ice problem?

Methamphetamine use in Hawai'i is not a recent phenomenon -- experts
say they have heard accounts of people smoking methamphetamine on the
Leeward Coast of O'ahu as early as the late 1970s -- but the
widespread public outcry and the political push to do something about
it are new.

Alarm about rising popularity of smokable meth, also known as "batu"
or "ice," circulated in law enforcement circles for many years, and
accounts of the spread and effects of the drug popped up in media
accounts throughout the 1990s.

Q: What has government done about this problem?

In 1996, state lawmakers established mandatory minimum prison terms
for felony methamphetamine offenders, but by all accounts the problem
got worse: By the late 1990s, the police, courts and social service
agencies saw signs methamphetamine was more plentiful, the price was
dropping, and use was dramatically increasing.

There were some efforts to seek more money for treatment programs,
including a failed proposal in early 2000 by former Gov. Ben Cayetano
to raise alcohol and tobacco taxes to pay for drug treatment. But the
issue was not a central focus for most state and county leaders.

Q: What has happened more recently?

On the Big Island, Mayor Harry Kim declared "war" on ice shortly after
taking office in late 2000. Kim said he was urged to act by rural
residents who described the destructive effects of the drug in their
communities, and social service providers who said they were
overwhelmed by the problem.

In 2002, Republican Linda Lingle promised in her successful
gubernatorial campaign to build two 500-bed "secure treatment
facilities" where convicts would undergo drug treatment as they served
their time.

Momentum continued to build behind the issue, with neighborhoods
across the state holding town hall meetings to talk about meth-related
crime and family members who have been lost in the epidemic.
Communities have staged anti-drug sign-waving demonstrations that make
it clear ordinary people are feeling this issue, and the political
leaders are responding.

State lawmakers have formed a House-Senate joint committee that is
holding hearings on the issue to draft a plan for the Legislature to
consider next session.

For the Lingle administration, Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona has taken
the lead on the issue with a statewide summit on ice and the drug
problem starting tomorrow in Waikiki.

Q: How bad is the ice problem?

The National Drug Intelligence Center identifies methamphetamine as
"the greatest drug threat to Hawai'i."

On the local level, Big Island Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna called ice
use "worse than an epidemic" and warned: "We're going to be missing a
generation of people if we don't take an active role in stemming the
tide of this drug."

Statistics reported by the Treatment Episode System show treatment
program admissions for methamphetamine abuse nearly doubled from 1994
to 1998, and the state Department of Health's Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Division (ADAD) reported last month that annual treatment admissions
for ice addiction nearly doubled again from 1998 to 2002.

For the first time last year, more people admitted to Hawai'i's
publicly-funded drug treatment programs said their primary drug was
methamphetamine than said their primary drug was alcohol, ADAD reports.

Ice also figures prominently into Hawai'i's crime statistics. During
the first nine months of 2002, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring
Program reports 44.8 percent of male arrestees in Honolulu tested
positive for crystal meth, compared with 38.1 percent in 2001.

Q: How is ice transported?

There have been seizures of methamphetamine intercepted in
overnight-type packages shipped from the Mainland, and meth is also
often imported by concealing relatively small quantities on the bodies
or in the luggage of travelers arriving from the Mainland.

U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said authorities have even received reports of
methamphetamine being smuggled into the state in hand-carried ice coolers.

In other cases methamphetamine has been found hidden among household
or other goods shipped from the Mainland.

To help plug the drug pipeline, Kubo is urging an amendment to the
state constitution to allow authorities to resume their
"walk-and-talk" program, where narcotics investigators questioned
arriving passengers who fit a profile of drug smugglers.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 1992 the walk-and-talk program was a
violation of the state constitution.

Q: Where does methamphetamine come from?

Meth was initially imported from Asia years ago, but smugglers are
seeking safer routes, according to Chris Tolley, special agent and
public information officer for the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration in Honolulu. More recently, ice has been brought in
from California and Mexico.

Hawai'i is not a big "production state," and methamphetamine is not
generally manufactured here, Tolley said. The meth labs that have been
discovered in Hawai'i are usually set up to process the drug from its
powder form to the crystal form, which is preferred locally for
smoking, Tolley said.

One reason that large-scale manufacturing operations are rare here may
be that aerial operations to eradicate marijuana have a side benefit
of giving narcotics agents an opportunity to look for tell-tale signs
of manufacturing labs, he said.

It may also be that the close proximity of many neighborhoods in
Hawai'i present fewer opportunities for manufacturing labs to operate
undetected, he said.

Q: Why is this such a big problem here and nowhere
else?

A: Many other communities have serious problems with methamphetamine.
For example, that same study that found almost 45 percent of
Honolulu's male arrestees tested positive for meth also found that
33.5 percent of the male arrestees in Sacramento and 31.7 percent in
San Diego tested positive during the same period last year.

Missouri, Colorado and Illinois each passed laws this year to crack
down on meth manufacturing, and Missouri has a law restricting access
to the ingredients used to make methamphetamine.

What is different about Hawai'i, Tolley said, is people generally
smoke the drug here, while they are more inclined to snort or inject
it elsewhere.

Police Chief Mahuna said he believes the breakthrough in the
popularity of methamphetamine in Hawai'i came when it was refined into
its crystal, smokable form. Hawai'i drug users seem repulsed by the
idea of injecting drugs, but more comfortable with substances such as
marijuana that can be smoked, Mahuna said.

Similarly, heroin never really caught on in Hawai'i when it was mostly
available as "China white," a powered form of the drug that was
injectable. But heroin use has increased since smokable black tar
heroin became available, Mahuna said.

Q: Is it true that marijuana eradication caused the current popularity
of ice?

This is an often-heard argument in rural Big Island communities where
eradication, with its intrusive helicopter noise, is unpopular among
many residents.

Marijuana advocates such as Roger Christie contend ice began its rise
in Hawai'i in the late 1980s and early 1990s, just when Operation
Wipeout dramatically expanded the law enforcement attack on illegal
marijuana cultivation.

Christie, who founded The Hawaii Cannabis Ministry that promotes
marijuana use as a religious sacrament, acknowledges he has no proof
eradication caused the rising popularity of ice, but points to a 1994
study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that found an
eradication-ice link.

That study was based on interviews with methamphetamine users, and
found users reported eradication had increased the price of marijuana.
The users said they then tried ice, which was available.

The study concluded ice increased in popularity partly because of
eradication, and partly because of an aggressive marketing campaign by
meth distributors.

The DEA's Tolley and many other law enforcement officials don't buy
the ice-eradication connection. They often describe marijuana as a
"gateway" drug that leads to harder drug use, since methamphetamine
users almost always report they used marijuana before they used ice.

Tolley also notes many drug users today are "polydrug users," meaning
they use a number of different drugs in various combinations.

Errol Yudko, visiting assistant professor of psychology at the
University of Hawai'i at Hilo and co-author of a new book on
methamphetamine, said substance abuse prevention and treatment
providers didn't see any reduction in marijuana use because of
eradication. What they saw was an increase in methamphetamine use, he
said.

Underlying the supposed ice-eradication connection is the idea that
many people are going to use drugs no matter what and limiting
availability of one drug simply steers people to another.

That argument has its proponents, including Yudko. Yudko contends drug
abuse "is a symptom of something dysfunctional in our communities. We
need to identify what that dysfunction is in order to correct it."