Regional Security
Breaking The Ice
New Drug Habits Dying Hard
The threat posed to the health and social good of Pacific Islanders by alcohol is well documented—and awareness and treatment programs are long established, if still challenged for results. In recent decades, the problems caused by marijuana cultivation and use have also risen in prominence. However, the Pacific Islands are still struggling to address the threat posed by crystal methamphetamine or “ice.”
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| A candle, cut in half, shows a hollowed out section containing crystal methamphetamine, in this photo provided by Australian Customs. The drugs caught in this shipment, worth US$73.6 million, were in a 2004 shipment of candles from China. [photo: AP Worldwide Photos] |
The board says it continues to be concerned that the rate of accession to international drug control treaties is lower in Oceania than in all other regions of the world. Of the 15 nations, only Australia, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, New Zealand and Tonga are parties to all three treaties. Samoa, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau and Papua New Guinea are party to one or two of the conventions, while Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are not party to any drug control treaties.
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Sanctuary Inc, a Guam-based emergency shelter for adolescents since 1971, began a residential drug treatment program two years ago. “I would say that ice is the number three drug of choice behind alcohol and pot,” says Sarah Thomas Nededog, Sanctuary executive director. In addition to addiction, Sanctuary assists those affected by family instability and other problems resulting from drug use by others.
Most of the program’s clients are referred to it from Guam courts; the youngest user Nededog has seen was 12 years old. The program has completed three six-month cycles and is in the process of renovating a donated house which will give Sanctuary a capacity of 14 residents. The program is building regional awareness offers its services to residents of the Northern Marianas and Micronesia.
Two religious-affiliated residential programs are also available on Guam. The Salvation Army’s Lighthouse Recovery Center has treated about 280 men since it opened in the mid-1990s. About 40 percent of its clients are addicted to ice, said Greg Borja, Lighthouse recovery counselor. He compares the problem to that of diabetes, another island scourge. “If they don’t keep their relapse prevention plan in place...then they’re going to put themselves into a high probability of relapse.” The center often finds it necessary to refer clients to outpatient or day treatment until a vacancy comes up in the 20-patient residential program.
The Oasis Empowerment Center, a residential treatment program for single women began in January 2004. Director Pastor Rob Zimmerman says the center has treated 48 clients, about 40 percent of whom have problems with ice. Zimmerman credits the program’s survival to the willingness of its clients to contribute to the program after they have passed through it, more so than with other drug treatment programs.
Meanwhile in Fiji, a Computer Based Training Centre (CBT) opened at the Fiji Police Academy earlier this year in a regional effort to counter transnational crime, including drug trafficking. Six CBT Centers are operating in the Pacific, including Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.
An Australian police report earlier this year claimed that much of the ice entering Australia comes through New Zealand, after being produced in Asia. It is a claim New Zealand customs authorities downplayed, but Fiji was also mentioned as a source of the newly manufactured drug.
In June 2004 police seized five kilograms of ice and enough chemicals to make a ton of it in a nondescript factory in Suva. Officers arrested and charged six people, two who held Fiji passports. Arrests were also made in Hong Kong and Malaysia in connection to the Fiji ring.
In American Samoa between January-April 2006, there were 13 drug arrest cases. Of those 13, seven involved marijuana, four involved ice, and two involved both ice and marijuana. The American Samoa Government’s Office of Territorial and International Criminal Intelligence and Drug Enforcement (OTICIDE) says while the territory’s drug problem has not yet reached epidemic proportions, “evidence indicates that the problem may be nearing that stage.”
As the only U.S. territory south of the equator, American Samoa has an international harbor and airport, direct links that connect it to the United States, the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. American Samoa is also host to a large commercial fleet of American, Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese fishing vessels, and is an attractive port-of-call and hurricane shelter for most yachts sailing through the region. According to OTICIDE, these factors, when combined, make American Samoa a uniquely vulnerable location for drug trafficking and related criminal activities.
Crystal methamphetamine or ice first appeared on the local radar sometime in the late 1980s. Its use in American Samoa spread and intensified during the 1990s. Ice use is now prevalent enough in the territory to rival marijuana as the most popular drug of choice. According to OTICIDE, “ice” is easily—more so than marijuana because it is not a bulky item—smuggled into American Samoa by hiding it in clever places with deodorized pads or coffee to mask its telltale smell.
OTICIDE concedes, “the territory could have an effective drug enforcement
program, but it is not very well organized and properly coordinated, very ill equipped, and lacks the essential support from higher authorities within the
government who seem oblivious to the problem or refuse to proactively pursue a solution to the problem. Perhaps the higher authorities prefer to look the other way in the hopes that it will eventually wither away (on its own power).”
