Big Island's ice war gets more federal backing

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

WAIKOLOA, Hawai'i — The federal government plans to provide more money and people, but community involvement is the critical factor in the Big Island's war on ice, according to speakers at the second annual Big Island ice conference yesterday.

"We intend to pluck these kolohe individuals who dare to spread this ice among our neighborhoods," U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said. Advertiser library photo • March 13, 2003

"You have demonstrated by your actions that you are not giving in, you are not giving up and you are not going away," Inouye told a crowd of about 300 at the conference. "This will be the first community in the United States that will wipe out ice."

U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo announced plans to open a branch office on the Big Island to help with federal prosecutions of dealers and smugglers, and said he expects other federal law enforcement agencies to expand their presence on the Big Island as well.

The East Hawai'i town of Pahoa will soon be the site of a federal "Weed & Seed" initiative that has been used to help clean up Chinatown and other troubled neighborhoods on O'ahu. Kubo said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms has opened an office on the Big Island with one agent.

Kubo said he hopes an additional agent will be added to the Big Island ATF office by the end of this year, and credited Inouye, D-Hawai'i, with arranging to have a second Drug Enforcement Administration agent assigned to the Big Island.

Kubo also said he hopes the Big Island DEA contingent later will be doubled to four, and that there will be additions to the two FBI agents working in the Kona area.

Federal authorities have increased the number of joint operations they conduct with county police in the past two years, and Kubo said he expects to see more of those kinds of prosecutions involving drugs and firearms.

"We intend to pluck these kolohe individuals who dare to spread this ice among our neighborhoods, and we are going to be sending them to penitentiaries on the Mainland," he said.

Big Island Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna told about summit participants that police opened 353 ice cases in the past year and seized 12.6 pounds of methamphetamine with a street value of more than $1 million.

He called the ice epidemic a form of "social terrorism," and said parents have actually approached him and thanked him for arresting their children because they didn't know what to do about their children's addiction.

Inouye said the final touches are being put on the U.S. Department of Justice's $4 million grant for the Big Island effort.

Of that $4 million grant, $1 million has been earmarked for law enforcement, $2 million for prevention and education programs, and $1 million for drug-treatment programs, said Billy Kenoi, executive assistant to Big Island Mayor Harry Kim.

The senator also said he believes he will be able to land more federal money in the coming year to improve bus service on the island. Transportation is seen as a critical part of the effort to combat drug use in rural areas because youngsters often have no way to get to recreation or treatment programs.

The summit was the second held on the Big Island to devise ways to cope with methamphetamine use. Social-service providers and law-enforcement authorities report use of the drug has reached epidemic proportions in some rural communities.

Kim declared war on ice shortly after his election in late 2000 after residents told him that the ice problem had become so severe that almost every family had been touched by it in some way.

Since then, ice use has taken off as a statewide political issue, with lawmakers creating a joint House-Senate committee to study the problem.

Gov. Linda Lingle's administration is planning a statewide summit on drug abuse next month.

A number of speakers emphasized the need for treatment programs to solve the drug problem, and Kenoi said $1.9 million in federal money and $300,000 in state money is available for an adolescent drug-treatment facility on the Big Island. He said he hopes to break ground on a 16-bed facility for boys and girls in West Hawai'i by January.

Medical inventor and philanthropist Dr. Earl Bakken announced in a videotaped message at the conference that he intends to contribute $900,000 of his own money over three years to help cope with the ice problem.

Kenoi said he is uncertain how that money will be used.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.