DRUG USE TEARING OUR 'OHANA APART

It came as no surprise to hear that Dominic Kealoha was mixed up with
crystal methamphetamine or "ice" when he was involved in the
hostage-barricade situation on Farrington Highway on Jan. 27 and 28.

Ice, crack cocaine and other drug (and alcohol) abuse is tearing up
Hawai`i. It is destroying lives, damaging families and hurting
thousands financially and emotionally through the thefts, burglaries
and other crimes committed by drug addicts to feed their destructive
habits.

Virtually all of the hostage-barricade situations in the last several
years, including John Miranda on Sand Island, Wayman Kaleo Kaua in
Palisades and Dominic Kealoha have involved the deadly mix of guns and
ice.

Child Protective Services reports that it's rare for them to
investigate a case of neglect that does not show evidence of ice or
other drug use.

In spite of declining crime rates for the last four years, several
communities across the state still report serious crime problems, many
of them focused on drug dealers and the resulting criminal environment
they create.

Over the last decade, for example, the area around Mayor Wright Homes
had the highest crime rate in Honolulu, based largely on the criminal
activities of the drug dealers who operated openly there. In 1998,
Kalihi-Palama and Chinatown residents were polled (both in a survey of
3,500 residents and at community meetings), and they overwhelmingly
said that drug dealers and drug use were the biggest problems in their
neighborhoods and the ones they most wanted to be addressed.

Originally manufactured in the Far East, smuggled across the Pacific
and then distributed in Hawai`i, ice is now largely a domestic
product. Cooked up in large quantities in Central and Southern
California by various criminal organizations, ice is now coming to
Hawai`i through a variety of channels, including body-carrying by
airline passengers and through the use of the U.S. Postal Service and
private parcel services such as UPS and FedEx.

Ninety percent of the ice, cocaine and heroin seized by law
enforcement agencies in Hawai`i every year is seized at Honolulu
airport, and is being brought in through one of these means. A variety
of criminal organizations transport drugs to Hawai`i.

A number of people are caught every year, and the stakes for them are
high. The average arrest at the airport is for a pound of ice or a
kilo (2.2 pounds) of cocaine. All of these cases are prosecuted in
federal court and bring sentences of many years in federal prison with
no parole.

While strong punishment for traffickers is certainly appropriate,
given the grief and destruction they visit on our Islands, there is no
way we are going to arrest our way out of our problems with ice and
other drug and alcohol abuse. To really have an impact we are going to
have to approach this problem in three key areas: prevention,
treatment and enforcement.

All three are important, and all three need to be addressed.

Weed And Seed A Success

The Weed and Seed effort in Kalihi-Palama/Chinatown is an example of
approaching drug abuse as a community problem with community solutions.

To begin, swift enforcement efforts were undertaken to weed the drug
dealers out of the neighborhood.

Pua, Akepo, and Robello Lanes, next to Mayor Wright Homes, had the
highest crime rates in the city. Senior citizens were afraid to take
their early morning walks, and students at Ka`iulani Elementary School
across the street from Mayor Wright Homes, had to run a drug dealer
gantlet going to and from school every day.

Since September 1998, this open drug dealing is a thing of the
past.

Chinatown is getting cleaner and safer week by week, and Weed and Seed
is part of that effort. New stores and restaurants are opening and
local people and tourists are discovering (or rediscovering) Chinatown
as an interesting and safe place to visit. Crime is down all over the
site and down more than 40 percent in the area around Mayor Wright
Homes.

Drug dealers are going to federal prison on the Mainland, drug users
and other state criminals now are facing swift consequences in state
court, and the public is in control of the streets again.

Treatment is critically important, as well. All those sent to federal
prison get drug treatment if they need it and a slightly shorter
sentence for their efforts. The state Drug Court has been very
successful in helping addicts to stop years of drug dependency. Their
graduation ceremonies are quite moving.

Seeing these proud, happy, healthy and sober citizens now in control
of their lives after years, and in some cases decades, of drug
dependency is inspiring.

Through Weed and Seed, the state Drug Court got money to significantly
expand and is now treating dozens of people from Kalihi-Palama and
Chinatown, helping them to break their addictions and giving them a
chance to give back to the community they were tearing down with their
destructive activities.

All those arrested for simple drug possession in the Weed and Seed
site are being evaluated for the Drug Court to get a meaningful chance
to deal with their drug problems.

Prevention Must Start Early

But enforcement and treatment are post-crime strategies that are late
in the game and expensive. Prevention efforts need to be aimed at
steering kids away from drugs and into positive activities before they
start.

Prevention means having the community get involved in their children's
lives. It means the presence of police officers like those assigned to
Weed and Seed in the Mayor Wright Homes area. These Weed and Seed
officers know the teenagers and the other residents and shopkeepers by
name, and the kids at Ka` iulani Elementary School fight to sit next
to them at lunch.

It means we give youths more alternatives, something to do, so they
won't fall into drugs.

An active, engaged child, especially in the high-risk after-school
hours, is less likely to get involved in drugs.

We need to encourage heroes in our midst, such as Bernard Lewis, chief
custodian at Ka`iulani Elementary School. He runs a free after-school
program from 3 to 6 p.m. every day on his own time for those
neighborhood kids (including the more than 50 who live at the
Institute for Human Services) who can't afford the A+ Program.

Programs such as the Hawai`i National Guard's Youth Challenge Program
are also doing exciting and important work. Combining a five-month
residential program with a one-year follow-up mentoring program for
about 100 16- through 18-year-olds at a time, has prove to be very
successful.

They are giving these kids, all high school dropouts, most with a
history of drug abuse, another real chance to get their lives
together, and these young adults are making the most of the
opportunity. By working with these young adults and their parents, the
Guard has helped more than 800 Youth Challenge graduates so far.

Many of these young people would have ended up in the criminal justice
system but for this experience, and many lives have been saved.

The three approaches - prevention, treatment, and law enforcement -
need to be expanded both in the Weed and Seed site and across the state.

Enforcement Gains Support

Enforcement efforts need to continue. The Legislature, through
mandatory sentencing laws for possession of ice, has sent the clear
message to the public that ice use will not be tolerated. Federal
efforts at disrupting drug trafficking organizations will continue.

The large operations on Maui and O`ahu are recent examples. The new
designation of Hawai`i as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area was
the result of the joint efforts of all of the Hawai`i law enforcement
entities, combined with strong congressional support from the state's
delegation.

The designation will result in a more effective effort to disrupt the
flow of drugs into Hawai`i and a means to more effectively attack drug
organizations from an intelligence-based perspective.

Treatment Makes Difference

More treatment efforts are certainly needed. A good place to start
would be in our state prisons. The Department of Public Safety
estimates that while more than 80 percent of their inmates have
substance abuse problems, they only have enough money to treat fewer
than 20 percent of them.

This would be money well spent as these are people we know are
committing crimes to pay for their drug addictions. In addition to
ruining their lives and putting their families through an emotional
and often financial wringer, these addicts have cost Hawai`i millions
of dollars annually and untold grief and heartache through the
burglaries, thefts and other crimes they have committed to feed their
habits.

The biggest expense in residential drug treatment programs is room and
board. In prison, that is already provided.

The Department of Public Safety reports that it costs only about $15
per day per inmate to add a drug treatment program. Follow-up care for
state prisoners when they go on parole must also be provided. The
statistics on reduced recidivism for prisoners who have received drug
treatment while incarcerated are encouraging.

A new state prison, with 1,500 - 2,000 beds with drug treatment for
all, is an idea whose time has come. Public Safety's already
successful KASHBOX program would be a good model for this effort.

As individuals who have committed crimes, inmates will be getting the
punishment they deserve, and the public will be protected from them.
At the same time, they will get the drug treatment they need to deal
with their drug problems and hopefully become contributing members of
society.

If they screw up in that drug treatment facility, they can be sent to
Halawa for more traditional incarceration. If they are successful with
the treatment program, a portion of their sentence could be eliminated.

Residents Must Join Fight

In addition to the overall goals of prevention, treatment, and
enforcement, however, we as a state need to look in the mirror and
commit ourselves to solving our problems with drug and alcohol abuse.

We need to prevent illicit drug use before it starts to claim lives
and victimize people. We need to get everyone in Hawai`i who is not
part of the problem to become part of the solution. This starts with a
strong statement and attitude of disapproval by all of us toward ice,
cocaine and other drug and alcohol abuse.

We need to expand after-school programs such as A+ and Bernard Lewis'
program so that our children will continue to be engaged and busy.

We need to expand the Drug Court model, as well. Maui County is
starting a Drug Court, and the Big Island and Kaua`i would benefit
from one also. The Honolulu Drug Court should be expanded or
duplicated so that more drug users can benefit from its unique blend
of support and accountability.

Eventually, Hawai`i is going to have to come to grips with the ice
epidemic and the destruction it is causing our state. While our
violent crime rate remains low, we consistently have been among the
top 10 states nationally for our property crime rate, and drug use,
and the crimes committed to feed those habits, is a big factor in that
high ranking.

We need to come together, employer and employee, labor union and small
business, students and retirees, in other words, everyone, to send the
strong message to our youths and to other adults that drug (and
alcohol) abuse is wrong, and that it is destroying lives and families.

We need to help those who need treatment, and we need to keep our
children from heading down that path. We need to make drug abuse
everybody's business.