[ OUR OPINION ]
Bills provide proper
balance to combat iceLEGISLATORS have reached general agreement on a comprehensive plan to combat the escalating use of crystal methamphetamine. Bills that are similar in most respects have passed the House and Senate by wide margins, ensuring enactment of a battle plan with an appropriate balance between treating "ice" users and punishing traffickers. The Lingle administration can take credit for making this issue a high priority.
THE ISSUE
The state Senate and House have approved bills that would boost the effort to fight the increased use of crystal methamphetamine.
The legislation embraces recommendations by a House-Senate task force that counseling, treatment and drug education be increased and that law enforcement be directed mainly at peddlers of the dangerous drug. The report followed a three-day summit organized by Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, a former drug court judge, of more than 400 public officials, treatment providers, researchers and representatives of private organizations.
The Aiona summit also endorsed a strategy recognizing substance abuse as a disease and a public health issue and called for creation of a state drug-abuse office executive and a substance abuse commission. The legislation does not include such a drug czar or commission, instead assigning coordination of drug abatement efforts to the Office of Community Services, a Labor Department agency that now provides human service programs for Hawaii's economically disadvantaged, immigrants and refugees.
Governor Lingle criticized the legislative task force's plan, describing it as "simply throwing money at a problem," although she supports much of the plan. The state has been spending $13.5 million on drug treatment programs, and the task force's recommendations would add $21.6 million to that amount. The Senate bill would cost that much, while the House bill's price tag would be slightly less.
The bills do not include Lingle proposals endorsed by city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle to reduce restrictions on police using electronic surveillance on suspected ice traffickers, enable police to "walk and talk" with suspected drug smugglers at airports and impose mandatory drug testing on public school students. Democratic legislators rejected the proposals because of privacy concerns, although the wiretap authority is used widely by federal agencies.
Employers were irate about the original bills' requirement that those with 15 or more employees provide at least three hours of drug abuse prevention education a year or face fines of up to $1,000 per violation. The bills were changed to require one hour of such education and fines of up to $500, a reasonable compromise.
The most important provisions of the legislation would increase penalties for ice manufacturing or trafficking, especially activities that put children or pregnant women at risk. It would clarify an important law enacted in last year's session that was intended to send most first-time nonviolent ice users to drug treatment instead of prison.
