KALAHEO - It's not just meth addicts who break into homes and vacation rentals seeking money to fund their habits, a Kaua'i Police Department officer said. Those hooked on the "new," more-potent, quick-growing strains of Kaua'i marijuana are similarly stealing to pay for the drugs, said KPD's Mark Ozaki, a school resource officer assigned to Kaua'i High School. What used to take a year now takes less than a month as these new pot plants can go from seed to harvest in 28 days, Ozaki said recently at Holy Cross Church, addressing members and friends of the church youth group. [continues 843 words]
LIHU'E - This is a story about a crime, a bust, a prosecution and a conviction. But it is also a story of determination, undying love, perseverance, five years of prayer, some powerful players going to bat for a convicted felon, and more. Of the 11 people who received pardons from Gov. Linda Lingle for various crimes, Joseph Francisco Medina is the only one originally from Kaua'i to receive a pardon that removes the 1996 conviction from his record. "It wipes the slate clean," said Clara Medina, 58, Joseph Medina's wife, who said she started the pardon paperwork process in 2005. [continues 713 words]
Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series of articles on methamphetamine use in Hawai'i. LIHU'E - What do Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi, Kamehameha Schools Trustee Micah Kane and Grove Farm President and Chief Executive Officer Warren Haruki have in common? Besides being leaders in Hawai'i, they are all members of the advisory council of the Hawai'i Meth Project. For Haruki, the decision to get involved was an easy one, he said. "The Hawai'i Meth Project is so important to Kaua'i, especially when our youth feel that meth is easy to acquire and there is little to no risk to trying it once or twice," said Haruki. [continues 250 words]
Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of articles on methamphetamine use in Hawai'i. LIHU'E - Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. said he still intends to site a residential, adolescent, drug-treatment facility on the island before year's end. It will take three years to become operational, and it won't be at the old Hanapepe Kaua'i Humane Society site, he said via e-mail through Mary Daubert, county public information officer. Funding and community opposition halted the Hanapepe plan, Daubert said. [continues 397 words]
LIHU'E - Lots of people have seen the TV images of how a healthy, vibrant person can transform into a scab-covered, scary-looking criminal once in the clutches of methamphetamine addiction. But recent research indicates the meth addict may be your co-worker, possibly someone in the next cubicle. Diagnostic Laboratories, which conducts workplace blood and urine tests for alcohol and drugs, found workforce meth use in Hawai'i increased 33 percent last year compared to 2008, and was up 22 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, according to statistics compiled by the Hawai'i Meth Project. [continues 330 words]
Editor's note: This is the first article in a series about methamphetamine use in Hawai'i. The next piece, on treatment, will be published in Monday's edition. LIHU'E - Cindy Adams of the Hawai'i Meth Project is heartened that teen and young-adult attitudes about methamphetamine use are moving against such usage. But it won't be until those negative attitudes about the highly addictive drug translate into similar behaviors that her very-personal war on drugs will seem winnable. [continues 702 words]
Editor's Note: This Is The Second Article In A Series About Methamphetamine Use In Hawai'i. The Next Piece, On The Faces Of Meth, Will Be Published In Tuesday's Edition. LIHU'E - As if drug addictions alone don't already rip families apart, the stark reality is that drug-addicted people, especially young ones, largely have to leave the island for treatment. With no residential adolescent drug-treatment facility on island, Kaua'i's youngest addicts often face the harrowing aspect of being torn from friends and loved ones to travel off-island for treatment. [continues 298 words]
LIHU'E - Residents paying to attend a meditation retreat in serene, peaceful, tranquil, quiet, rural Kaua'i were rudely interrupted by the chuka-chuka-chuka of low-flying helicopters Wednesday. "Yesterday was a bummer," said Dan Briggs on Thursday. His one-acre property was buzzed repeatedly by a number of different aircraft, even a Coast Guard helicopter, during another Green Harvest operation. "They just flew too low," shaking his house at one point, he said. "I just don't understand it. It was invasive." [continues 270 words]
LIHU'E - Kaua'i Police Department Chief Darryl Perry joined the police chiefs from the three other counties in a Thursday lobbying effort to help kill a bill at the state Legislature that would have allowed counties to establish medical-marijuana dispensaries, he said. The four chiefs met with House Speaker Calvin Say and other lawmakers to urge defeat of the proposed legislation, Perry said in a telephone interview. "All of the chiefs are together on this," against establishment of the dispensaries, he said. [continues 217 words]
LIHU'E - Reynaldo Jacinto Abrigo may have been meeting Zahn Bandmann off Nawiliwili Road in late 2008 to buy drugs. But when Kaua'i Police Department officers arrested Abrigo for third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug and unlawful use of or possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia, they overstepped their authority, 5th Circuit Judge Randal Valenciano ruled recently. Valenciano granted Abrigo's attorney Edmund Acoba's motion to suppress items of evidence the judge ruled were obtained without establishment of probable cause for a search of Abrigo, 39, of Puhi, and his vehicle. [continues 227 words]
LIHU'E - Should elected and appointed county officials be subject to drug testing? Officials addressed the question after it arose during the county Police Commission meeting Friday at the Historic County Building. "The public needs to know that we are drug-free when we hit the road," Kaua'i Police Chief Darryl Perry said. (KPD officers are tested on annual, random and for-cause bases.) Commissioner Tom Iannucci said all police commissioners should be required to submit to drug testing and background checks as KPD employees do. [continues 252 words]
Perry Presents 2008-09 Report LIHU'E - In law-enforcement parlance, they're known as "DTOs." And in the two years since Darryl Perry became chief of the Kaua'i Police Department, five known Kaua'i drug-trafficking organizations have been dismantled or diminished by arrests or other disruptions, according to Perry's report on accomplishments for 2008-09. The departmental goal as determined by the county Police Commission in June 2008 was to dismantle two DTOs. The five DTOs dismantled meant arrests of 22 of 33 suspects (the cases are all ongoing), and some of those arrested have "flipped," or offered information on other suspects in the organizations, Perry said Friday. [continues 845 words]
LIHU'E - It is both good news and bad news that the 13th Kaua'i Drug Court graduation class is the largest in the program's six-year history. The good news is that 15 young and not so young Kauaians have received new starts on sober and drug-free lives when they earlier had been staring at months or years in prison for various crimes. The bad news is that the sheer number of Drug Court clients graphically shows the depth of the island's drug and alcohol problems. [continues 1476 words]
LIHU'E - What could possibly make a state judge and two attorneys go to bat for a young woman accused of several crimes including trafficking methamphetamine? Maxine Constantino, 22, who has been at Kaua'i Community Correctional Center in Wailua for several months and was facing lots of potential prison time for crimes including drug-trafficking, theft, driving without a license, promoting dangerous and detrimental drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia, could easily have been looking down the barrel of a long prison sentence. [continues 940 words]
LIHU'E - A multi-year, multi-agency, multi-state, multi-nation, methamphetamine-trafficking investigation begun by Kaua'i Police Department officers garnered a significant award, Chief Darryl Perry said last week. As a result of a county-state-federal investigation that started on the Garden Isle with KPD officers and led to the arrest of eight residents and confiscation of 11 pounds of meth worth nearly $500,000, KPD was named 2008 Agency of the Year by the Western States Information Network, Perry said. [continues 599 words]
LIHU'E - The words of the afternoon were "support," "choices," "change" and "second chances." The trio of Kaua'i Drug Court graduates said Friday in the Lihu'e courtroom of Drug Court Judge Calvin Murashige that they are thankful for all of the above. Craig Miyazaki had to change everything, he said. After being "surrounded by drugs," with all of his friends using and selling drugs, his first arrest left him in a holding cell thinking: "I felt my life was pretty much over." [continues 711 words]
HANALEI - Some residents claim the Kaua'i Police Department may have violated a county law when officers decided to land helicopters in early May at Waioli Park in Hanalei so they could have lunch and unload marijuana plants confiscated during Operation Green Harvest. Two members of the North Shore community say the county's North Shore Development Plan requires a permit from the Planning Commission for any helicopter landings from Moloa'a to Ha'ena. Kaua'i Police Sgt. Richard Rosa, acting lieutenant in the KPD Investigative Services Bureau Vice Narcotic Section, said the department secured a permit from the county Parks and Recreation Department, standard operating procedure for Green Harvest landings in county parks. [continues 635 words]
LIHU'E - Prescribed medications are killing more people than illegal drugs, according to a Hawai'i-based drug educator. Whether it's elderly people mistakenly taking more than the prescribed dosages or addicts intentionally taking too many pain-killers, the numbers of prescription-drug deaths are staggering, said Gary Shimabukuro. Shimabukuro, who has been lecturing about the dangers of drugs for 30 years, most of them as head of his company, Laulima Hawai'i, is back on Kaua'i again this week speaking to school and community groups across the island. [continues 478 words]
LIHU'E - Not just drug use, but drug dealing, is happening at virtually every state and county park on the island, a Kaua'i Police Department narcotics officer said. Richard Rosa, acting lieutenant in the KPD Investigative Services Bureau Vice Narcotic Section, said KPD receives complaints and tips about such illegal activities on public property, and investigates as necessary. "Basically, it's happening at every county and state park," he said of dealing and use of drugs. "We have been trying to clean it up for the people. ... It's an ongoing battle." [continues 74 words]
LIHU'E - Just 75 marijuana plants, ranging in size from seedlings to four-footers, were taken by law enforcement officers during last week's Green Harvest operations across the island, according to Kaua'i Police Department officials. Most of the plants were taken from the Kilauea and Hanalei areas, said KPD Chief Darryl Perry. For security reasons, the number of helicopters was not divulged by Perry, but reporters saw two yellow craft involved in the operations parked near KPD headquarters in Lihu'e last Tuesday, and other observers reported four dark-colored, military-style helicopters flying low over various parts of the island last week. [continues 411 words]
