EDITORIAL
We're just rolling up our sleeves on ice

This week's highly heralded showing of Edgy Lee's documentary, "Ice: Hawai'i's Crystal Meth Epidemic," spurred dozens of Islanders to call the Aloha United Way hotline number 211, either to get help with their own or a relative's substance-abuse problem, or to offer help.

That's exactly the kind of reaction that gives credence to this unprecedented campaign to confront the ice problem and weaken the drug's hold on the Islands.

We've had the community sign-waving; the newspaper articles detailing excruciating cases of neglect, abuse and violence; and a summit of law enforcement officials, Child Protective Services representatives and other stakeholders looking for answers to the ice epidemic.

And on Wednesday night, as we sat riveted to Lee's documentary, our hearts went out to the critical care nurse who burst into tears as she warned people, "Don't even try it." We sympathized with the couple who adopted three kids born to ice-addicted mothers and who worried if the children would ever get well. And we felt for the man whose ice-addicted wife abandoned him to care for their two babies alone, and was living in a homeless shelter.

By now, anyone in the Islands who doesn't believe ice will break your heart must be living under a rock.

But the documentary should by no means signal the climax of the campaign against ice.

The hard work is just starting, and we all have to get involved. Because, as Lee's documentary hammered home, we all pay the price of ice whether it's through the loss of relatives, friends and co-workers; higher insurance premiums and taxes, or crime.

Ice addicts and their families don't live in a vacuum. Their problems ripple, and they're destructive and expensive.

Meanwhile, we're experiencing a groundswell in which thousands of Islanders are inspired to fight for themselves, their families and their communities to break crystal meth's powerful sway. We cannot afford to throw up obstacles because if we lose all these people, we risk slipping back into the era of denial — ice's heyday.