KAVA DRINK ON TRIAL WHEN MAN BATTLES IMPAIRMENT CHARGE

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- A Federal Express driver pleaded not guilty Tuesday
to what is believed to be the state's first driving under the influence
prosecution over consumption of kava, a relaxation drink popular with
Pacific Islanders.

Taufui Piutau, 47, a Tonga native who lives in San Bruno, was suspended
without pay from his job as a delivery driver one week after he was pulled
over on Highway 101 around 3 a.m. Aug. 7. He said he had been drinking kava
with a church group for the previous six or seven hours.

California Highway Patrol officers said Piutau showed many of the signs of
impairment -- driving slowly and weaving down the highway and being unable
to perform the simple tasks of a field sobriety test.

Piutau's lawyer, Scott Ennis, said his client was not drunk even though he
had been drinking quite a bit of kava. ``It's like drinking a double
cappuccino,'' he said Tuesday.

But Deputy District Attorney Rachel Holt contends that kava suppresses the
central nervous system, and she will call experts to testify to that.

She said the state's drunken-driving law covers driving under the influence
of any substance that impairs muscles, the central nervous system or the
brain so that a person cannot operate a vehicle safely.

The drink is made by putting water through a powder made from the rhizome of
the pepper plant kavakava or Piper methysticum.

Ennis, who in court sported a tie depicting the scales of justice and the
words ``Not guilty,'' called the case ridiculous. ``There's nothing in any
law book that says that kava tea is wrong,'' he said.

A jury trial is scheduled June 26.