Honolulu tops
‘ice’ studyA report finds that more
of the city's arrested males
test positive for the drugAiona plans 'ice' panel
For the third consecutive year, Honolulu has the highest percentage of arrested males testing positive for crystal methamphetamine, or "ice," among 36 major metropolitan areas, according to preliminary findings of a federal study.
Between January and September 2002, 44.8 percent of arrested males in Honolulu tested positive for ice in voluntary urine tests, up from 37.4 percent in all of 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring project report released yesterday.
Based on only nine months of data for 2002, Honolulu still outdid Sacramento, Calif., the second-highest ranked city, in which 33.5 percent of males arrested during the whole year tested positive for ice. San Diego, in third place, reported 31.7 percent tested positive for the drug during the year.
"It's alarming. We are leading the nation for a third year. Ice is an epidemic here," said city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, who has been speaking for years against the destruction caused by ice.
"For those of us in law enforcement, a day doesn't go by that we don't think about ice or see the devastation it leaves in its wake."
Statistical questions about Honolulu's sampling for the fourth quarter have delayed the release of a full year's worth of data. That final report is expected in a few weeks.
In 2000, the first year in which Honolulu was included in the project, the city ranked first with 35.9 percent, ahead of Sacramento with 29.3 percent and San Diego with 26.3 percent.
These findings come from quarterly data collected in 36 major metropolitan cities during voluntary interviews and urine tests of males within 48 hours of their arrest. Funded by the National Institute of Justice, the ADAM project seeks to measure the extent of drug use among those who are arrested.
Women who are arrested are also interviewed and tested. However, the pool of women arrested and interviewed is far smaller and not considered statistically sound. In 2001 and 2000, women arrested in Honolulu have tested positive for ice at a generally higher rate than men.
Andrew Ovenden, the project's coordinator in Honolulu at the Department of Sociology at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, said the project "provides the most systematic and timely estimates of substance abuse available."
William Wood, also of the UH Sociology Department and the site director of the ADAM project, said, "The cooperation we have received from the Honolulu Police Department has been exceptional."
Wood said the data collected is already being used "for state alcohol and drug planning efforts, the efforts of HPD, as well as for various prevention and treatment groups in making their case that without a doubt this drug is the most devastating to come to the state."
Capt. Kevin Lima, with HPD's Narcotic/Vice Division, said ice is by far the most popular drug and that the police have partnered with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency to fight the problem from street dealers to high-level traffickers bringing the drug in from the West Coast, South America and Asia to be converted here into a crystallized form that is usually smoked.
Lima noted that while ice is a huge problem here, other drugs such as crack cocaine are not. The study shows that powder and rock cocaine use here is among the lowest in the nation. Honolulu also ranks low compared with other cities for the use of heroin.
Carlisle added that the newest numbers "show how addictive ice is and show how many people are using it."
Carlisle said the ice epidemic should be treated like the SARS epidemic.
"We need to do testing," said Carlisle, who has been a big advocate of a controversial proposal to do drug testing in schools. The idea is to test students, without fear of any legal penalties, in an effort to find the problem and intervene early.
"It's like SARS in that we need first to diagnose it and determine its nature and extent," said Carlisle.
"We need to find out who is using it beyond the people who get arrested."
BACK TO TOP |
Aiona is gathering forces
to form isle ‘ice’ battle plan
The state administration will not sit idly by waiting for state lawmakers to come up with ideas to attack the state's epidemic of "ice" use, Gov. Linda Lingle said Tuesday.
Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, a former judge who set up the state's drug court program, will head a major conference this summer, bringing together all the interested groups to address the soaring use of crystal methamphetamine, Lingle said.
Word of plans for Aiona's conference came a day after legislative leaders agreed to form a House-Senate committee to address the problem, starting with a series of community hearings to gain information.
Aiona's effort is to formulate a comprehensive and coordinated approach to dealing with a problem where programs now tend to be disjointed, Lingle said.
The highly addictive illegal stimulant known on the streets as "ice" is being blamed for ruining lives, breaking up homes and increasing property and violent crimes, officials say.
Just a few hours before Lingle discussed plans for Aiona's statewide conference, Honolulu police raided two apartments in Kalihi, arresting four people on drug charges and seizing more than two pounds of crystal methamphetamine. A 4-year-old girl was in one of the apartments at the time.
U.S. Attorney Edward Kubo says crystal methamphetamine is the most serious health issue facing Hawaii.
Hawaii has the worst ice problem in the nation, and the drug has a role in many homicides and most high-profile cases of violence, he said.
Kubo told a conference last fall that nearly 40 percent of the people arrested in Honolulu during 2001 tested positive for methamphetamine use, that 30,000 Honolulu residents are hard-core users and that it is associated with 90 percent of confirmed child-abuse cases.
"This drug is directly linked to the destruction of families and a deterioration of the social fabric in Hawaii," he said.
House and Senate leaders met on Monday and agreed to create a rare joint select committee to study the problem and see what the Legislature can do next year.
"Legislators tend to think that problems can be solved with legislation, but that is only a part of it, and so the lieutenant governor will be taking a much broader view of it," Lingle said.
Lingle said Aiona's effort will involve the federal government with a commitment already from the regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to participate in the Hawaii conference.
Representatives from the state Departments of Health, Human Services, Education and Public Safety will take part, she said.
Lawmakers and the county mayors also will be invited to participate in the effort, which will include meetings on the neighbor islands, she said, adding that the mayors met with her a couple of weeks ago and asked that the state administration lead the effort.
"We expect to convene separate groups on each of the major islands because we don't think the solutions that work here in Honolulu will necessarily work on the neighbor islands, although the problem is certainly as severe on the neighbor islands," Lingle said. "The community is as concerned as we are here in Honolulu, but we think their approaches will be somewhat different and their solutions will be different."
A schedule for Aiona's conference has not yet been set.
Lingle said the various departments currently have funding for drug enforcement and treatment programs.
"But what the lieutenant governor believes, and I think he's right on target in this, is that it's been a very disjointed effort," she said. "There are a lot of people working on different pieces of it, and he wants to be the focal point to bring it together.
"We simply can't afford to go along as we have. A lot of money has been spent, but we haven't gotten the result that we want," she said.
For example, people who might want to break their habit cannot get immediate treatment because there is a waiting list, Lingle said. "You can't talk seriously about dealing with the ice epidemic if you don't allow people to get treatment when they want it."
The governor reiterated her support for drug testing in the public schools.