Sept. 18, 1984: Postal Service Is Intercepting Isle Marijuana

Some packages being sent to the Mainland by tourists and local residents these days are not making it to their destination but the U.S. Postal Service isn’t offering any apologies.

Postal inspectors here and in California, with the help of Marijuana-sniffing dogs, are concentrating on Island postmarks in a project to intercept marijuana being mailed from Hawaii.

“The dogs pick out suspect parcels and the search warrants that we can get within 24 hours allow us to inspect the packages,” said Mike McKim, a postal inspector from San Francisco, who is spending two weeks in Hawaii on the project.

The specially trained dogs can even smell marijuana that has been vacuum-packed in cans, McKim said.

The Postal Inspection Service has increased its manpower resources in Hawaii, which is part of its San Francisco division. Postal inspectors now are working on all the Islands as part of a national program to eliminate the sending of illegal substances through the U.S. mails, according to an announcement released today by J.K. Jones, postal inspector in charge of the San Francisco division.

The release included a warning to Hawaii vacationers not to buy the illegal crop while here. Some visitors mail Hawaii marijuana — which brings from $2,200 to $4,000 a pound on the Mainland — to themselves or their friends, Jones said. …

The warnings apply to persons living in the Islands as well.

Jones said arrests are being made in Hawaii “almost on a daily basis” in connection with the law enforcement push. Some receiving parcels containing marijuana on the Mainland have also been arrested, he said.

The federal statutes provide for prison sentences of up to 15 years for mailing illegal substances, a felony, he said.

Besides the increased arrests for mailing or receiving marijuana, parcels containing other illegal substances have been detected and seized with federal search warrants and the contents destroyed.

“Buyers or shippers may not have lost their freedom in those cases, but they have lost a considerable investment in most instances,” Jones said.

Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.