Pubdate: Sun, 29 Mar 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: William Cole

Hawaii National Guard

BIG CUTS IN WAR ON DRUGS

For Years, Huge Budgets and Plenty of Manpower Were the Norm - but 
Those Days Are Long Gone

The Hawaii National Guard was a pioneer in the war on drugs, flying 
Huey helicopters in support of a big law enforcement roundup of 
marijuana plants in a 1977 Hawaii island operation called Green Harvest.

Former Gov. George Ariyoshi related in a 1982 New York Times story 
how 49 National Guardsmen flew into Kauai's mountains by helicopter 
in 1981 to ferret out a dozen marijuana growers because police were 
afraid to go.

"The Guardsmen carried M-16 automatic rifles and were told to use 
them if necessary," the Times story said. "Only one shot was fired, 
however, and that was at a helicopter that had unloaded the troops 
and was airborne. The crew did not fire back."

The rest of the nation caught on to a good thing - as far as law 
enforcement was concerned - with all 50 states becoming involved in 
National Guard counterdrug operations by 1989.

In fiscal 2010, the Hawaii National Guard Counterdrug Support Office 
had a $4.6 million budget, 45 personnel from the Army and Air Guard, 
substance abuse and prevention programs, and a RAID (Reconnaissance 
Air Intrastate Detachment) of OH-58 Kiowa helicopters specifically 
configured for counterdrug surveillance and night operations.

But in the arc of the war on drugs, the Hawaii National Guard is 
coming down hard from a former funding high.

A reordering of national priorities amid tighter defense budgets 
resulted in the elimination of RAID counterdrug helicopter support in 
2013, and a steady drop in funding to an anticipated $796,744 this 
year, officials said.

Support for the legalization of marijuana in California is growing, 
and Colorado; Washington state; Washington, D.C.; and Alaska have 
legalized recreational use, with Oregon legalization coming in July, 
the Associated Press reported.

The Hawaii counterdrug effort now consists of seven people: a 
coordinator, a budget person, a person who supports community-based 
organizations, and four intelligence analysts who assist law 
enforcement, said Air National Guard Lt. Col. Tamah-Lani Noh, who 
runs the program.

"Right now, we're just trying to stay alive," said Noh, who was 
detailed to the Hawaii program in 1993. "We're trying to make sure we 
put our resources where they are going to be most beneficial for the state."

The four intelligence analysts work on Oahu. The program used to have 
analysts on all the neighbor islands.

FORMER MAUI Police Chief Gary Yabuta, now director of the Hawaii High 
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, said the National Guard 
intelligence analysts assigned around the state "were able to do work 
that the narcotics officers didn't have the capabilities to do," 
mostly in computer-based "forensics" investigations, including 
financial transactions.

"The tentacles of the narcotics dealer - it's not just the drugs and 
hard cash; it's hiding the assets," Yabuta said.

The federal HIDTA program funds intelligence sharing and drug 
enforcement through multiagency investigative, interdiction and 
prosecution activities.

U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, a Republican from West Virginia, recently 
raised concern about continuing attempts to cut HIDTA funding, but 
Yabuta said, "Fortunately, we've been stable."

The Guard members who worked with law enforcement around the state 
"were the best and the brightest, and they performed extremely, 
extremely well," Yabuta said.

"It was a huge benefit, because the state and local enforcement 
couldn't supply an intelligence analyst out of their own budgets," he said.

Asked if the four analysts remaining in the program are beneficial, 
Yabuta said, "We'll take one if we have to."

Guard personnel working for the state on what's known as Title 32 
status can provide assistance to law enforcement in ways that 
active-duty military legally can't. But the National Guard Bureau's 
state counterdrug effort has been on a downward funding spiral 
nationally for several years.

In 2013, the National Guard Association of the United States said the 
Guard had responded to more than 60,000 requests from law enforcement 
the year before for counterdrug assistance.

"But the Defense Department now wants to focus on global narcotics 
efforts and training international partners, a decision that could 
mean a slow death to the program in the United States," the association said.

Last June, the association said that "for the third year in a row, 
the (presidential) budget request underfunds the National Guard 
counterdrug program."

In 2005, a statewide "Green Harvest" 10-day operation involving more 
than 125 agents - including Hawaii National Guard personnel - seized 
more than 29,000 marijuana plants on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and the Big Island.

The following year, the Guard's two RAID Kiowas were in the air some 
740 hours in support of marijuana eradication. Guard personnel also 
provided surveillance on the ground.

In 2009, the counterdrug program sent two of the Kiowas and some of 
its personnel to Guam on marijuana interdiction missions there.

BUT IN A SIGN of changing times, federal cutbacks in 2012 led the 
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to close its office and hangar 
at Hilo Airport, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.

"So what we've come down to - our baseline budget is $500,000, and 
it's been like that since FY13," Noh said. Funding above that each 
year has come from pleas to Congress. But gone are the days when the 
Hawaii counterdrug program would get a $3 million annual boost from 
U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.

About 13 states, Hawaii included, are now minimally funded under a 
"threat-based" allocation used by the National Guard Bureau to dole 
out payments, Noh said. Border states such as California, Texas and 
Florida are getting more than $20 million, but Hawaii doesn't have 
the population, among other factors, to now be more than minimally 
funded, she said.

The Hawaii National Guard counterdrug program now mainly offers 
intelligence analysis, Noh said. The funding that does come in is 
used for salaries and mainland training and travel.

She wants Hawaii counterdrug to be a $1 million program.

"If we're a million-dollar program, we could again bring back the 
statewide intel analysts in every place, every island," Noh said. 
"Every police department would be ecstatic about that."

If funding goes the other way, she does not want the program to end.

"We don't want to lose the program," Noh said. "If they cut our 
program to $200,000, our leadership understands the benefit of 
supporting what the governor's initiative is to have something in 
place to support drug interdiction (and) drug information.

"We're able to say, 'If you give us $200,000, we're going to take the 
$200,000 and we're going to do the best job that we can,'" she said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom