KAILUA, HALE'IWA FORUMS EXPLORE WAYS TO COMBAT 'ICE' PROBLEM

Two more O'ahu communities held town hall meetings last night to confront
problems surrounding the drug "ice" that is fracturing neighborhoods
throughout the island.

Kailua and Hale'iwa are the latest towns to explore how crystal
methamphetamine is battering people in Hawai'i.

About 200 people attended the Kailua meeting, while about 150 gathered on
the North Shore. The crowds included drug treatment professionals and
recovering drug addicts; law enforcement officers; legislators and other
policy-makers; and concerned residents.

Professionals laid out statistics. Residents poured out their hearts. Law
enforcement officials promised help.

At the Windward meeting, Malia Staggs fought back tears as she spoke of a
life of hardship since her ex-husband committed a murder while high on
drugs. Now she must hold down two jobs to support her son.

"My son has a 90 percent chance of going to prison because his father is in
prison," Staggs said.

Ice has ingrained in Hawai'i's family trees and woven itself into the fibers
of the community, said local filmmaker Edgy Lee, who is making a documentary
on ice use in Hawai'i. The half-hour film is expected to air on seven
television stations at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 25.

The documentary will focus on children and how the drug has taken hold in
the community in the last 20 years, Lee said. A mother who uses ice during
pregnancy addicts her child, who can suffer for 12 to 18 months and maybe
longer after birth.

These babies don't like to be touched and they can't stand light or sound,
she said. Lee said her film will help educate the public but more must be
done for these children.

"We really need to address what's going on with these little children
because they have no control of what we adults are doing to them," Lee said.

Avis Jervis, one of the founders of the Kailua spouse abuse shelter, said
some 70 percent of the women at the shelter are there because of ice.

Substance-abuse counselor Maka Chun told the Kailua gathering that 90
percent of Halawa prison inmates are addicted to ice.

Sgt. Aukake Dapitan of the Police Department said that when he was working
in the property crime division, 90 percent of the arrests he made were due
to ice use.

On the North Shore, most of the people who showed up at Hale'iwa Elementary
School had heard all the hard details, including that Hawai'i leads the
nation in the percentage of male arrestees who test positive for crystal
meth.

Keith Ryder, pastor of Light of Promise Ministries in Kahalu'u, said he
believes in something that could actually be the beginning of a solution to
what he called "this epidemic of ice."

Hope -- a small beginning. Ryder believes that what started in Kahalu'u
recently is going to spread and sweep across communities all across Hawai'i.

"Can anything really be done? That is the question," he said. "There is no
miracle, but the something that can be done right now is giving the
community hope, where there once was no hope at all."

Ryder speaks from tough experience. He has lost a cousin to ice, through
suicide. His brother is addicted to ice. Another cousin is a dealer.

Ryder said law enforcement officers, drug dealers, ice manufacturers and
users are all members of the same families trying to sort out how to deal
with the nightmare of ice.

"We have people who haven't really looked at the damage they are doing to
their own families," he said. "I have cousins who are dealers and I've asked
them, 'How many more of our cousins have to die?' And my cousin told me,
'I'm trying to support my daughter.' And I said, 'At the expense of killing
your family?' "

U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo offered his own vision of hope by promising to do
everything in his power to help residents help themselves.

"By showing your support here tonight ... , you are empowering yourselves,"
Kubo told the North Shore meeting. "One person alone cannot fight the fight.
Nor can two. But the community standing together is very empowering.

"You turn on the light, and the cockroaches scatter."

Kubo pointed to the Weed & Seed programs that have led to dramatic crime
reduction rates in Honolulu communities as examples of what communities can
do when they shine a light on the problem.

"We will help you in every way," Kubo said. "Let me give you a number that
you can call if you know a drug dealer in your community -- and I know you
do." Kubo then gave the phone number of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency:
541-1930.

Likewise, Keith Kamita, chief of the state Narcotics Enforcement Division,
told people in the audience to call 837-8470 if they know of someone making
ice.

"Every day, crystal meth is being made in people's homes here," he said.

Most who spoke agreed that Hawai'i, in waiting so long to realize the scope
of the problem, has forfeited a large portion of its younger generation to
drugs in general and to ice in particular.

Nobody is spared. Crime, physical abuse in the home, suicides -- they're all
largely related to ice, said Kubo.

"We've got to draw the line now," he said. "Because if we don't, then we've
lost our future.

At the Windward meeting, Abby Paredes, executive director of treatment
center Poailani Inc. in Kailua, said drug addition touches all kinds of
people from the very successful to the homeless.

"Drugs do not discriminate," Paredes said. "That's the reality we know. It's
never been realistic to say only a certain person or a certain class of
people do drugs."