Sirens scream down Kuhio Highway. Paramedics race into the house. A 14-year-old boy — convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth — greets them. “What did he take?” hollers a man in a blue T-shirt with a white cross
Sirens scream down Kuhio Highway. Paramedics race into the house. A 14-year-old boy — convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth — greets them.
“What did he take?” hollers a man in a blue T-shirt with a white cross on the back.
He looks up from the boy and scans the room. A handful of half-dazed kids return his gaze, mouths agape, blinking at the scene unfolding before them.
“Looks like he’s overdosing!” the paramedic shouts as he starts administering first aid.
A police officer roaming the room, demanding answers, comes across a big glass bowl brimming with what appears to be bright-colored candy. Closer inspection, however, reveals the contents to be something altogether different.
There are red-and-white ones and pink ones. Yellow-and-blue ones and purple ones. Round ones and saucers. Oval ones and pentagons.
Prescription pills of all shapes and sizes fill the bowl. But more importantly, they are uppers and downers, antibiotics and antidepressants. Grandma’s back pills and Grandpa’s arthritis medication.
The kids can’t answer the cop’s questions about what the boy on the ground took. They really don’t know. A handful of these, a few of those.
Their friend’s lips are turning blue, yet he’s pouring sweat. His pupils remain enlarged despite the paramedic’s penlight.
“We’re losing him,” the officer yells at no one in particular.
Kaua‘i must come to terms with the impact prescription drug abuse is having on its community. The problem is plaguing families around the island, running the gamut across social and cultural bounds.
The Garden Island invested months of time and hours of energy into trying to shed at least another sliver of light on this important issue. We don’t pretend to have all the answers but we believe more awareness can help.
The joint effort by the editorial team confirmed that a multi-pronged approach is critical. Ending this pill-popping mess will take unparalleled prevention, unwavering enforcement and uncompromising treatment. We believe improvements can be made on all three fronts.
Teaching keiki how to make responsible decisions from an early age is essential. This means investing in the government and nonprofit programs that are proven to work, like the Aloha Peace Project and Tutu and Me.
Providing the training and tools necessary for local law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office to effectively address prescription drug abuse is key. The legal system must adapt to these relatively new trends. With pill abuse now more popular than heroin and cocaine combined, we must ensure we’re vigilantly fighting the most pervasive problem at hand.
We also need to crack down on dealers to send a strong message. The police need to make key arrests, the prosecutor’s office needs to refrain from accepting and proposing watered-down plea deals and the judges need to impose stiff sentences. Our youth and the future of our residents are worth it. Let’s stop sending the message that you’re going to simply get a slap on the wrist.
Addicted youth, above all, need a place on Kaua‘i where they can get the help they need. We are beyond overdue for an adolescent drug treatment center on island. We can’t keep shipping our kids to O‘ahu or other Neighbor Islands; they need their local support network to get better.
The NIMBY epidemic must be eradicated. The choice is let our youth run through our neighborhoods as addicts or live as our neighbors while getting the needed treatment and support on their path to recovery.
With our focused attention and directed action, we really can make a difference. This is one issue that will only be successfully addressed with the full support of the community. Businesses, aunties, uncles, police officers, prosecuting attorneys, judges, social workers, counselors, churches and nonprofits need to work together to achieve this. This is a winnable war but it requires a fearless fight.
Let’s not wait until we lose another life to step up.
