TEEN DRUG USERS MAY GET THEIR OWN HUMANE SOCIETY

Mayor Bryan Baptiste is eyeing the Kaua'i Humane Society's old Hanapepe site
as a potential drug treatment facility for adolescents.

Nearby Salt Pond Beach Park is known to be a popular hangout, campsite,
drinking area and meeting place, but the fenced-in property is one that the
county already owns and could renovate.

"The question is: 'Can we come together as a community against these people
who believe it's OK to profit off our children,'" Baptiste said at a drug
summit meeting held Saturday at Waimea Plantation Cottages.

Baptiste said that he has the support of federal, state and local
government, as well as partnerships with the private sector.

"The missing part over all these years is a community that will come
together and say 'Pau already… enough is enough,'" he said.

At each drug summit meeting, participants were divided into discussion
groups of about 10 each. Nearly all the groups named "drug treatment center"
as one of its top three needs and priorities during the 30-minute workshop
session.

It wasn't known how far along this project has gotten, but the abandoned
structure and surrounding land have fallen into disrepair since the animal
rescue organization moved into its $3 million Kipu headquarters in 2001.

Baptiste said that finding locations for adult residential treatment centers
and transitional living environments may prove more difficult due to a "not
in my backyard" attitude.

Many residents at the West Kaua'i meeting piped up to say they didn't care
where the county put it - if the county wants to take the initiative, the
community has to be prepared, one man said.

Recently-released inmates could learn and practice entrepreneurial skills by
growing and selling their own produce under Punana," which would place
"clean-and-sober" houses on 10 - 15-acre parcels of land, Baptiste said. The
idea is modeled after the farming project at the Kaua'i Community
Correctional Center.

Baptiste said that members of the "faith-based community" might be
interested to help fund Punana.

"We have to get it somewhere," he said, "Not on top of Mount Wai'ale'ale,
even though that's where we might want it."