HAWAII CONFRONTS THE PERILS OF DRUG USERS' RUN ON 'ICE'

HONOLULU - Winter temperatures here are in the 80s. Yet the islands, it
seems, are suffering through an ''ice'' age.

Honolulu's city prosecutor, Peter Carlisle, said Hawaii, known as a
sun-and-fun destination, has also become a port of call for dealers and
users of methamphetamine, known on the street as ''crystal meth.''

Or ''ice.''

It's the worst such crisis Carlisle has seen in Hawaii, he says, since he
came here from New Jersey 25 years ago. He and others want the Legislature,
which is struggling with a $250 million budget deficit, to find funds to
help combat the problem.

Deaths attributed to crystal meth have almost doubled in two years, said
Karen Roeller, a scientist with the Honolulu Medical Examiner's Office.
They have surpassed those related to alcohol, Roeller reports; 55 deaths
were attributed to alcohol abuse last year, 62 were ascribed to crystal meth.

Elaine Wilson, chief of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the
Department of Health, said she was stunned when in 2001 crystal meth
surpassed alcohol as the primary substance used by clients in a treatment
program.

''This is very unusual, and it shows just how severe the ice problem is
here,'' she said. ''Nothing but alcohol was ever the primary substance for
as long as we all can remember.''

FBI reports have found Honolulu to be one of the safest US cities;
officials voiced fear that crystal meth may be changing that.

Among adults arrested in Honolulu, more than 40 percent test positive for
methamphetamine abuse, according to the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring
program. This is the highest percentage in the United States.

This, officials say, is also a big reason for another crime problem:
Larceny theft, also at the highest rate in the nation, results from the ice
epidemic.

Elliot Enoki, assistant US attorney in Honolulu, said US Sentencing
Commission statistics have found that federal drug traffic convictions in
Hawaii far exceeded those on the mainland.

Nationally in 2001, 14 percent of sentenced traffickers were involved with
methamphetamines. In Hawaii the rate was 51 percent.

Why is Hawaii, of all places, becoming such an ''ice'' destination?

Dr. Bill Woods, who coordinates the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program,
said ice is smoked in Hawaii. This tends to make it less taboo than in
other parts of the country, where it is more often injected.

''If you go to San Francisco or other cities on the mainland, it's
basically shot with needles,'' Woods said.

Officials also report that Hawaii was the port of entry to America for the
drug in the mid-1980s. That's when the most potent form of crystal meth,
known as ''batu,'' came in from the Philippines and Korea. ''We were in
harm's way before anyone else,'' said Carlisle.

A Honolulu police narcotics lieutenant, Mike Moses, said: ''Nowadays, most
of our crystal meth is being produced in Mexican labs, being shipped to the
Southwest states and then exported to Hawaii.''

Drug couriers arrive from San Francisco and Los Angeles at smaller Hawaii
airports like Kona, where drug interception money is lacking.

''The airport in Kona is `wide open,' in the words of the dealers,'' said
Lieutenant Bob Hickcox, vice commander for the west region of the island of
Hawaii, known as the Big Island, which is twice the combined size of the
other islands.

Hickcox heads a staff of seven, less than half of the manpower he says he
needs to patrol his part of the rural island.

Hickcox's officers also lack the time to explore the hundreds of thousands
of lava tubes - some up to a mile long - where crystal meth labs may be hidden.

Hawaii's mayor, Harry Kim, can recall the days when marijuana varities like
Kona Gold, Puna Butter, and Maui Wowee ruled the Hawaii drug trade.

''Marijuana has been surpassed,'' Kim said. ''The negative impact of ice is
far different from any other drug people know about. I'm extremely worried.''