POLICE: 'NEW' POT A CHRONIC PROBLEM

KALAHEO - It's not just meth addicts who break into homes and vacation
rentals seeking money to fund their habits, a Kaua'i Police Department
officer said.

Those hooked on the "new," more-potent, quick-growing strains of
Kaua'i marijuana are similarly stealing to pay for the drugs, said
KPD's Mark Ozaki, a school resource officer assigned to Kaua'i High
School.

What used to take a year now takes less than a month as these new pot
plants can go from seed to harvest in 28 days, Ozaki said recently at
Holy Cross Church, addressing members and friends of the church youth
group.

Nearly 60 people turned out for the talk, which included displays of
drugs and paraphernalia mostly found at the island's public schools,
plus information boards on the dangers of chewing tobacco, marijuana,
alcohol, methamphetamine, prescription drugs and other drugs.

The days of marijuana being considered a harmless crop - "natural,
Mother Nature, from da earth" - are long gone, Ozaki said. Today's
strains are comprised of 60 to 70 percent tetrahyrdocannabinol,
compared to less than 20 percent just a few years ago, he said.

THC is the main psychoactive substance found in the cannabis plant.
Marijuana contains over 400 chemicals, including many of the harmful
substances found in tobacco, states the U.S. Department of Justice
Drug Enforcement Administration Office of Diversion Control website (
www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov ).

Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the U.S., and may
cause lung cancer, according to a video shown Sunday night.

One to three joints contain roughly the same amount of tar in 10 to 15
cigarettes, states the video and DEA website.

And 98 percent of drug-overdose deaths involve people who started down
the drug road by smoking marijuana, states the video.

'My medicine was stolen'

In a related matter, a Kapa'a man who has a medical-marijuana
prescription and permit said KPD officers during the most recent green
harvest operation pulled plants he has permits for, even though by law
he is required to provide authorities with the address where the
plants are growing.

"My medicine was stolen from my yard. I'm just kind of blown away that
they can come onto private property and take my medicine," said the
man who has had a permit for eight years. He spoke on condition of
anonymity.

The plants were taken by air while he was away from his home, he said.
Police have no way of knowing it's medical marijuana when they detect
it, but they are supposed to know where it is growing because those
with permits must inform police of where the medicinal marijuana is
growing, he said.

The marijuana helps him with his medical problems, he
said.

Drug legalizers use "medical marijuana" as a red herring to advocate
broader legalization of drug use, states the DEA website.

'Cocaine comeback'

Ozaki also talked about other drugs.

Alcohol is the most abused drug. "It's a legal poison and can kill,"
states the DVD. Binge drinking, defined as four or more drinks for
females and five or more drinks for males, can result in death.

Some 10,000 people ages 16 to 24 die in the U.S. each year in
alcohol-related crashes, making such carnage the No. 1 cause of death
among those in that age group, states the video.

"Alcohol is a real threat," Ozaki said.

Tobacco causes 400,000 deaths a year, and contains 4,000 chemicals
including 200 that are known poisons. Some 3,000 people a day under
the age of 18 start smoking each day, and 50,000 deaths each year in
the U.S. are attributable to secondhand smoke, states the video.

Tobacco companies target teens and pre-teens, said Ozaki. "They want
long-term customers to buy their drug."

Users of chewing tobacco, also known as spit tobacco, are four times
more likely to develop oral cancers than those who do not use this
type of tobacco, the video states.

"One sniff can kill you," the video states regarding inhalants, with
"sudden sniffing death syndrome" the name for the quick mortality.

"Cocaine is making a comeback," though nationally overall drug use is
actually down except where prescription drugs are involved, said Ozaki.

"Prescription drugs has skyrocketed. You don't know what you're taking
sometimes," Ozaki said of young people's practice of taking
prescription drugs from family medicine cabinets without knowledge of
the drugs.

He used himself as an example of a trusting parent who has had some
injuries and saved in a medicine cabinet in a bathroom in his home
leftover pain pills prescribed by his doctor.

Throw away old pills, and talk to others about the dangers, he advised
parents.

"There's predators out there," Ozaki said about the use of date-rape
drugs, advising people never to drink something if they don't know who
made the drink for them.

In the display case is a bottle of Visine that people could easily
mistake for eye drops that drug users employ to mask the red eyes that
are a symptom of use of several different types of drugs.

But this bottle has a liquid form of a date-rape drug, and the
perpetrator would walk along an area where people had open drinks and
spray the drug into the glass, sit back and wait for symptoms
(grogginess, appearing to be drunk, staggering, etc.) before moving
in, said Ozaki.

"I'm not trying to scare you guys but I guess it's good if I do," said
Ozaki, adding a simple but powerful message: "Don't be an easy victim."