WAILUKU — Crystal methamphetamine and other narcotics are showing signs of a resurgence on Maui, due to the dismal economy, according to a Maui Police Department vice officer.

As people find themselves unemployed and desperate, they increasingly turn to the drug trade to try to make money, said police officer Ken Doyle. Others start using drugs like meth to stay awake while they work multiple jobs to support their children. And addicts of all ages often say they started using drugs to cope with a dysfunctional or broken family life, he said.

To get meth out of Maui, "We've got to make sure it's not profitable anymore, and we've got to help families stay together," he said.

Doyle and other experts spoke on drugs and addiction Friday at an all-day crystal methamphetamine prevention seminar organized by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Maui County and the Partnership for a Drug Free America. At the meeting at Maui Economic Opportunity's offices, staffers with Big Brothers Big Sisters said they were inspired to offer the seminar after seeing a number of the young children they serve being affected by family members addicted to "ice."

The high profit margins on meth for distributors and dealers are what make the drug so pervasive in Hawaii, Doyle said. A pound of the drug bought for $10,000 in Mexico can be sold for five times that amount on Maui, he said.

"That's why we have a problem," he said.

The current economic situation is making people more willing to participate in the drug trade, such as agreeing to transport packages of meth from the Mainland to Hawaii on their bodies, he said.

"Right now, it's all about the money," Doyle said, adding, "As people lose their jobs, times are going to be tough. People are going to do things they wouldn't normally do."

Young women and even children are increasingly being used to bring drugs onto the island, he noted.

Other trends seen in meth abuse include an increasing number of users "eating" the drug by taking it in pill form, rather than by smoking it; also, more and more meth users are elderly, old enough to be grandparents, Doyle added.

Heroin and cocaine are also making a comeback, and crimes related to drug use, such as vehicle break-ins, are increasing because of the surge, he said.

"If the economy doesn't get better, (the drug problem) is going to get worse," Doyle said.

The Maui police had "intel" that drug traffickers were using the Hawaii Superferry to transport meth from Honolulu to Maui, before the ferry service shut down, he added. That presented an especially difficult channel to block, because Maui police didn't have jurisdiction over activities on the high seas, he said.

Meth is rarely manufactured in Hawaii but is usually smuggled into the Islands from "superlabs" on the Mainland and in Mexico, said federal Drug Enforcement Agency investigator Linda Martin.

"We don't really see the labs here," she said. "It's so much easier for them to body-pack it in."

The number of meth-related deaths in Hawaii decreased from 2007 to 2008, indicating that programs to fight the drug are helping, she said.

A big part of the credit goes to a law passed several years ago requiring drugs that contain pseudoephedrine, like Sudafed, to be taken off store shelves and distributed by pharmacists, with buyers required to show identification. The chemical is a critical ingredient in meth, and drug labs had been sending runners to buy up whole shelfloads of the congestion medicine before its sale was restricted, she said.

"I know it's a pain for all of you. It's a pain for me when I get a cold," she said. "But these are actually wonderful deterrents."

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