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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Aid to Big Island drug lab helps police battle dealers

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

Big Island police have obtained money for new drug lab equipment they hope will allow them to identify illegal substances and lock up dealers more quickly.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye secured $350,000 in federal rural development assistance for the new lab equipment, and the county obtained additional money through a Byrne Memorial Grant.

Crystal methamphetamine has evolved into the "drug of choice" on the Big Island and police sometimes run into a frustrating scenario: They catch people with "ice" and arrest them, but then have to let them go.

From the time police make arrests, they have 48 hours to either charge the suspects or release them. But to charge someone with drug possession, police say they need to test the powder, crystals or other substances they seized to confirm they have actually seized illegal drugs.

Big Island police have a lab for drug testing, but the workload for the drug lab skyrocketed from 821 tests in 1999 to more than 10,000 in 2001, and a backlog has built up, according to a police spokesman.

That has led to delays in some tests, which means some suspects have to be released without charges until the drugs can be tested and charges can be filed.

In some cases, those people go right back to dealing, police said.

"The public sees someone getting arrested and released, arrested and released, and people wonder, 'Why do we even call the cops?' " said Billy Kenoi, executive assistant to Mayor Harry Kim.

Kenoi was appointed by Kim to coordinate county efforts to combat crystal methamphetamine use on the Big Island.

State and federal law enforcement authorities are expressing growing concern with methamphetamine use, which is considered to be a particularly acute problem on the Big Island.

Federal officials report crystal methamphetamine had a role in 44 percent of the state's homicides, and 90 percent of the 2,300 confirmed cases of child abuse each year. About 40 percent of the people arrested by Honolulu police test positive for ice use.

Police said the problem with methamphetamine has increased the work load on the Big Island lab, but other drugs are also to blame. Heroin, cocaine and marijuana seizures also contribute to the workload.

Not everyone agrees it's a good idea for individual police departments to run their own drug-testing labs.

"There should be a regional lab for the state rather than having individual departments set up their own labs," Kaua'i Police Chief George Freitas said. "It's the kind of service that needs to be consolidated. These things are very expensive to set up and operate."

Kaua'i police conduct in-house testing for blood-alcohol analysis only. Drugs such as cocaine, crystal meth and LSD are sent to the Honolulu Police Department lab for testing, and the turnaround time in recent months has been only one or two weeks, Freitas said.

The Maui Police Department has a chemist on staff to run its own drug-testing lab, which also was established with grant money. Police Chief Tom Phillips said the caseload is high, but that field tests conducted by police officers usually are enough to proceed with charging suspects.

More sophisticated analysis is done as the drug cases near trial, he said.

The Honolulu Police Department's lab deals with testing of nearly all controlled substances, including crystal meth, heroin and LSD, said Joanne Furuya, director of Honolulu police's scientific investigation section.

Her staff of five drug analysts is also on-call during the weekends and can provide findings within a 24-hour period for cases that need quick results.

"The remaining ongoing investigations are worked on as time permits, but the rush cases take first priority," Furuya said.

Combating "ice" use on the Big Island has been a priority for the Kim administration. Officials say the county leads the state in trafficking and use of crystal methamphetamine, with police reporting a tenfold increase in arrests for methamphetamine from 1998 to 2000.

Inouye and Asa Hutchinson, head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, attended an "Ice Summit" in August in Kona that brought together high-level federal, state and county officials and other community members to discuss what could be done about the drug problem. The event was one of only four such summits held in the country.

Other developments since the summit include the start of Drug Court operations on the Big Island that offer a strict treatment and monitoring program as an alternative to jail for nonviolent drug offenders. Plans are under way to implement a similar program for juvenile offenders.

Additional federal money is being used for anti-drug youth programs, and the Big Island Substance Abuse Council has been able to put new substance abuse counselors at Hilo, Honoka'a, Laupahoehoe and Kealakehe high schools.

Advertiser staff writers Jan TenBruggencate, Christie Wilson and Scott Ishikawa contributed to this report. Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.