MAYOR, GOVERNOR FIGHTING KAUA'I DRUG ABUSE

Gov. Linda Lingle has told Mayor Bryan Baptiste that she will help fund a
residential drug treatment facility on Kaua'i.

A substance abuse recovery facility named Serenity House, located in Kapa'a,
served this purpose years ago. Though Serenity House is history the place it
served in our community is still well remembered. It is a facility that is
still often referred to in terms of "Kaua'i once had..."

The new drug and alcohol abuser treatment facility may end up in a location
near the old Serenity House. The county is reportedly in talks with the
state's Hawaii Health Systems Corp. to put the facility on a site along
Kawaihau Road in Kapa'a.

Federal funds may also become available to fight drug use on Kaua'i, and to
help the users who want help, or are mandated by courts to receive it. The
Big Island was recently awarded some $5 million in federal funds to fight
its growing "ice" drug abuse problem. Even halving that figure to $2.5 due
to Kaua'i's population being about half that of the Big Island would still
be welcome.

Kaua'i and Ni'ihau's first-term state Sen. Gary Hooser (D, Kaua'i, Ni'ihau)
is attempting in the 2003 session of the Legislature to get state funds for
a coordinator for the fight on drugs on Kaua'i. There may also be corporate
funding on the way to help in the battle.

It's heartening to see our elected officials working together to put
together an army of sorts to fight illicit drug use on Kaua'i. The programs
they are planning should help in treating some addicts and returning them
back to society.

However, a look is also needed at the root cause of drug use on Kaua'i. Is
it a hopelessness among local residents due to various reasons including the
end of generations of a work tradition among local families lost by the
closing of sugar plantations? Is it the high cost of living vs. the number
of good paying jobs here? Is it the lack of youth activities? Is it that
whipping up a batch of ice is much easier to do than the months it takes to
grow marijuana, making it a much easier drug to distribute and create than
the drugs that needed to be cultivated in the open, or smuggled into the
island? Is it a basic problems of a lack of traditional morals among the
younger generations of the Island in this post-modern world?

The answers to the above questions are complicated ones, and ones that
apparently years of anti-drug programs in schools and the community haven't
solved in a community-wide way in certain sectors of our island society.

The threat to our future by ice use is manifold. Dozens, if not hundreds, of
brain-damaged ice addicts may one day need long-term mental care and become
major drains on our society, rather than productive members of it. We may
see crime on a level that's never occurred on our island of aloha before,
crime that will hit the visitor and the local resident. A great increase in
crime by ice addicts could diminish Kaua'i's reputation as one of the most
friendly visitor destinations in the world, and become a swift kick into the
stomach of the golden goose that feeds many of us.

Mayor Bryan Baptiste is to be solidly backed in his efforts to wage a war
against this problem. It will be a battle that's not an easy one to win.