To hear Harrison, who came across the drink in his studies of Pacific Island traditions, and other adherents tell it, a bowl of kava sounds like just the thing. But to prosecutors in San Mateo, California, the effects sound suspiciously like those of other intoxicants that they say have no place in the heads--or bloodstreams--of area drivers.
In October, San Mateo district attorneys successfully prosecuted a Fiji-born California man on a misdemeanor charge for driving under the influence of kava. Another man recently pled out rather than contest similar charges.
Earlier efforts to prosecute kava cases in the county were dismissed. "We failed miserably a few times," says Assistant District Attorney Morley B. Pitt. "We decided we needed a different approach."
So prosecutors combined the drivers' admission of drinking kava with expert testimony about its effects, including loss of motor skills. Pitt says the first conviction wasn't easy, but "Now that we've done it once, it's not so much work."
M.F. Chester Palesoo, who heads the Pacific Islander Community Center, says officials are "putting the cart before the horse." He argues that educating the community should be the priority, not obtaining convictions, and prosecutors should tread sensitively on tradition.
Meanwhile, the San Mateo forensic lab is working to come up with a quantitative kava test to identify impaired drivers who pass the regular complement of drug tests.
Kava is classified as a dietary supplement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
