OFFICIALS FIND STRENGTH IN NUMBERS IN COMBATING THE 'ICE' EPIDEMIC

HONOLULU In 35 years of law enforcement, Larry Burnett has dealt with a lot of
dangerous problems, but none as chilling as Hawaii's ''ice'' epidemic.

''I haven't been around a drug, in my Mainland experience, where people will
get tanked up on that stuff and stand out on their lanai and shoot up the
neighborhood,'' said Burnett, director of the federal office charged with
coordinating law enforcement resources against illegal drugs.

He recalled an incident three years ago in which a crystal methamphetamine user
opened fire from the balcony of a Hawaii Kai apartment, unloading some 100
rounds because he was delusional and thought his ex-wife had sent ninja-like
assassins to kill him.

''It is an extremely violent drug,'' Burnett said.

That's just one aspect of the drug that makes it a top target for island law
enforcement.

While crystal meth in the smokable ice form has been in Hawaii for more than a
decade - catching on here before the Mainland - a recent boom in the use and
peddling of the highly addictive stimulant has drawn state resources and
rhetoric like no other drug.

Though the state has launched ambitious drug sweeps against marijuana in the
past, this year lawmakers took the rare step of appointing a joint House-Senate
committee to focus solely on the ice problem.

It's a drug that has everyone from lawmakers to housewives in Hawaii on alert
and has caused law enforcement to change the way it responds to crime on the
street.

''Because of the violence involved, or possible violence with this drug, you
call for backup, you wear more protective equipment,'' said Keith Kamita, chief
of the state's Narcotics Enforcement Division. ''We know that, at times, if you
spray an ice user with mace or pepper spray that he can walk through it. You've
got to take all of these things into consideration now.

Kamita said up to 45 percent of the cases handled by his office involve ice.
The number of total cases per month varies, but Kamita's office handled about
65 in June.

The threat of ice can be seen in some of the more violent crimes committed this
year.

In March, preliminary tests on a man accused in the fatal shooting of a
Honolulu police officer revealed that the suspect was under the influence of
several illegal drugs, including ice.

Also in March, the U.S. attorney's office announced the arrest of a man who
allegedly brandished a handgun at several youths outside a Zippy's restaurant
in Honolulu. After he was approached by a police officer, he threw the gun into
his luxury car, where a small amount of cocaine and 108 grams of crystal meth
with a street value of $32,400 were recovered, authorities said.

Not all ice incidents are violent. In July, an attorney for a former U.S.
postal worker who pleaded guilty to stealing mail that included credit cards
and U.S. Treasury checks did so to support an ice habit.

''For one drug, an illicit drug, to overwhelm an agency like this really shows
how much of a problem we have,'' Kamita said.

Some statistics paint a sobering picture.

Hawaii leads the nation with 37 percent of arrested men testing positive for
crystal meth use in 2001, according to the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring
program within the Department of Justice.

A profile of Hawaii's drug indicators released last September by the federal
Office of National Drug Control Policy showed that 6.5 percent of high school
students in the state had used methamphetamine in their lifetime.

Between July 2000 and June 2001, a statewide narcotics task force seized about
64 pounds of ice, compared to roughly 1,313 pounds of marijuana and about 79
pounds of cocaine, according to the profile.

Getting a handle on the actual number of ice users in Hawaii is difficult.

Edward Kubo Jr., the U.S. Attorney for Hawaii, has cited estimates that there
are as many as 120,000. A 2000 study by the University of Hawaii estimated
8,100 who were ice addicts or in need of treatment, based on a 1998 household
survey of more than 5,000 people.

''I'd love to give you a figure and say this is how many people there are and
when we have those people arrested or treated or cleaned up, then the problem's
solved,'' said Burnett, director of the Hawaii office of the High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area.

''Whether it's three or 300 or 3,000 or 30,000, it's too high,'' he said.

His agency, which is overseen by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is
among the leaders in the fight against ice, convening task forces comprising
federal, state and local authorities.

One such cooperative effort has brought cases against some 100 suspected drug
dealers, Burnett said.

''In this last group, there were about 50 individuals, yet their rap sheets
account for thousands of arrests,'' he said. ''So we're targeting the right
people.''

Still, there are calls for more law enforcement action.

As he canvasses the state seeking ideas and opinions on the ice epidemic for
this month's drug summit, Lt. Gov. James ''Duke'' Aiona says he hears one
concern again and again: that people report suspicious activity in their
neighborhood, but see little - if any - response from police.

''I'm not here to bash the police,'' he said, ''but I think what it does is it
puts the issue out there. We know the police are responding, we know this is
one of their top concerns right now.''

Burnett said cleaning up the problem will take more than quick arrests.

''You just can't accuse somebody of a crime,'' he said, ''but it requires
probable cause in order to present that to the prosecuting attorney and get it
into court.''

That shouldn't stop people from calling the police, he said.

''We're at a tipping point,'' Burnett said, noting that community involvement
such as reporting crimes and holding anti-drug rallies has helped the ice
eradication effort.

''If that continues and we continue to do our job I think that you will start
to see a trend,'' he said. ''That's our hope. There's no way that we can arrest
our way out of this situation.''