Drug abuse council to focus on rehabilitation and enforcement

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Ale has suggested compiling a registry that identifies illegal drugs users, drugs dealers and the areas of the territory where drugs are sold in the territory, as one of the efforts by the community at large to combat this continued problem in American Samoa.

Talauega made the suggestion during Tuesday’s official launch and first meeting at the Gov. H. Rex Lee Auditorium, of the American Samoa Comprehensive Substance Abuse Council, charged with among other things, coordinating local efforts to fight drug use through “education, enforcement, and treatment.”

Talauega, who is also chair of the Council, gave a summary of highlights of some of the issues that the panel should discuss and shared the information with members as well as those in attendance, that included Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga, who gave brief remarks at the outset of the opening ceremony.

“One of the main things that the Governor wants us to do is focus on rehabilitation of people who have been infected with drugs,” he told the members, a majority of which represent the government sector. “So we will look at establishing a Rehabilitation Center, to centralize all of the work that needs to help those who are taking drugs, and those who want to be cured.”

He said this task will include community centers, and “this is where we rely on our churches and our villages to help coordinate our work” and also the reason for extending the invitation to church leaders to attend the opening.

In the area of law enforcement, the former attorney general, said that American Samoa has not done a drug assessment report since the early 2000s and it’s time to revisit it, collect data, find out how many drug users live in American Samoa and where the drugs are coming from.”

“Are they made here in American Samoa or are they brought in? We need to look at the airport, seaport and we need to talk to all the cargo services that operate businesses in American Samoa,” he said. “We need to talk to all the fishing boats that come in and make sure that they are not the source of drugs coming in.”

Additionally, look at Customs and the U.S mail coming in as well as cargo brought in by the weekly cargo flights and Hawaiian Airlines. He said there is a “big gap” between the time the planes — cargo flights or Hawaiian Airlines —  land at Pago Pago International Airport and the mail is delivered to the U.S Post Office in Fagatogo.

“So we’ve got to discuss as part of this committee, what can we do as soon as the plane lands. We should be able to go inside that plane, right there before anything comes off. We should have cameras, video taping the inspection to make sure that there’s no effort to sneak in any illegal things,” he suggested.

He also suggested the need to look at the inspection of incoming containers at the Port of Pago and containers should not be opened and released to the private owner until there’s at least two customs officers, maybe three, inspecting it with video camera recording the whole inspection.

“Those are the kinds of difficult things we have to do. We need to close those loopholes,” he said and then suggested a registry of drug users.

“ We need to prepare a registry of drug users. We all know who they are. We need to talk about these things. Identify the drug users, identify the drug dealers, identify the drug areas,” Talauega pointed out.

“We need to figure out a way to identify and publicize it. We need to shine the light on these things so that people know, where the drugs are, and then we can focus on trying to fix it,” he said.

Talauega recalled the governor speaking earlier in the opening about forfeiture laws. “Again those are very difficult things to talk about but we need to talk about it. And I hope this committee will. The forfeiture of vehicles, forfeiture of lands. That’s a big thing,” he said.

According to the Lt. Governor, “some of our matai know that their lands are being used to peddle drugs. I’m not saying that you should do it, but we should talk about it.”

“Is that a solution for American Samoa, to introduce legislation that requires the loss of communal land [if] the matai knows that the land is used to facilitate drug deals?” he asked. “Is it time for us to say ‘enough is enough’ and then we take the land?”

While “all of these things are not easy,” Talauega points out that, “we have to walk a fine line and make sure that we do everything with ‘alofa’ (love). Alofa for the family and the children of these people who are doing these things.”

He also said that the Council needs to look at the Judiciary. “We need to monitor how the Judiciary is handling the drug cases. Not only their decisions but what support they need from us to make their work better,” he noted.

Talauega said that these are “just a highlight of the things that I am hoping that this committee will do in order to allow us to get somewhere. The last thing that the governor wants from this committee is just a bunch of meetings and people talking without any results. We want results and the governor is asking us for results.”

“The community is crying out for results on the drug problem in American Samoa,” he declared and implored Council members for their help and “to take this appointment seriously to give it your all and help us find real solutions.”

He noted that the Council’s work would depend heavily on the expertise of its staff, “in areas of rehabilitation and enforcement, to make sure that we do our work effectively.”

In conclusion, he said that to combat the serious problem, the Council also needs the support of the community and that is the reason for the special invitation to church leaders, whose help will be sought going forward.

No other information was available at press time regarding the Council’s future meetings.