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
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.
Nearly 60 people turned out for the talk, which included displays of drugs and paraphernalia mostly found at the island’s public schools, plus information boards on the dangers of chewing tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, methamphetamine, prescription drugs and other drugs.
The days of marijuana being considered a harmless crop — “natural, Mother Nature, from da earth” — are long gone, Ozaki said. Today’s strains are comprised of 60 to 70 percent tetrahyrdocannabinol, compared to less than 20 percent just a few years ago, he said.
THC is the main psychoactive substance found in the cannabis plant. Marijuana contains over 400 chemicals, including many of the harmful substances found in tobacco, states the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration Office of Diversion Control website (www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov).
Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the U.S., and may cause lung cancer, according to a video shown Sunday night.
One to three joints contain roughly the same amount of tar in 10 to 15 cigarettes, states the video and DEA website.
And 98 percent of drug-overdose deaths involve people who started down the drug road by smoking marijuana, states the video.
‘My medicine
was stolen’
In a related matter, a Kapa‘a man who has a medical-marijuana prescription and permit said KPD officers during the most recent green harvest operation pulled plants he has permits for, even though by law he is required to provide authorities with the address where the plants are growing.
“My medicine was stolen from my yard. I’m just kind of blown away that they can come onto private property and take my medicine,” said the man who has had a permit for eight years. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
The plants were taken by air while he was away from his home, he said. Police have no way of knowing it’s medical marijuana when they detect it, but they are supposed to know where it is growing because those with permits must inform police of where the medicinal marijuana is growing, he said.
The marijuana helps him with his medical problems, he said.
Drug legalizers use “medical marijuana” as a red herring to advocate broader legalization of drug use, states the DEA website.
‘Cocaine comeback’
Ozaki also talked about other drugs.
Alcohol is the most abused drug. “It’s a legal poison and can kill,” states the DVD. Binge drinking, defined as four or more drinks for females and five or more drinks for males, can result in death.
Some 10,000 people ages 16 to 24 die in the U.S. each year in alcohol-related crashes, making such carnage the No. 1 cause of death among those in that age group, states the video.
“Alcohol is a real threat,” Ozaki said.
Tobacco causes 400,000 deaths a year, and contains 4,000 chemicals including 200 that are known poisons. Some 3,000 people a day under the age of 18 start smoking each day, and 50,000 deaths each year in the U.S. are attributable to secondhand smoke, states the video.
Tobacco companies target teens and pre-teens, said Ozaki. “They want long-term customers to buy their drug.”
Users of chewing tobacco, also known as spit tobacco, are four times more likely to develop oral cancers than those who do not use this type of tobacco, the video states.
“One sniff can kill you,” the video states regarding inhalants, with “sudden sniffing death syndrome” the name for the quick mortality.
“Cocaine is making a comeback,” though nationally overall drug use is actually down except where prescription drugs are involved, said Ozaki.
“Prescription drugs has skyrocketed. You don’t know what you’re taking sometimes,” Ozaki said of young people’s practice of taking prescription drugs from family medicine cabinets without knowledge of the drugs.
He used himself as an example of a trusting parent who has had some injuries and saved in a medicine cabinet in a bathroom in his home leftover pain pills prescribed by his doctor.
Throw away old pills, and talk to others about the dangers, he advised parents.
“There’s predators out there,” Ozaki said about the use of date-rape drugs, advising people never to drink something if they don’t know who made the drink for them.
In the display case is a bottle of Visine that people could easily mistake for eye drops that drug users employ to mask the red eyes that are a symptom of use of several different types of drugs.
But this bottle has a liquid form of a date-rape drug, and the perpetrator would walk along an area where people had open drinks and spray the drug into the glass, sit back and wait for symptoms (grogginess, appearing to be drunk, staggering, etc.) before moving in, said Ozaki.
“I’m not trying to scare you guys but I guess it’s good if I do,” said Ozaki, adding a simple but powerful message: “Don’t be an easy victim.”
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
