Public Safety Commissioner Edward Camacho is pushing for a “stronger” law to address the butane abuse problem which according to him has become an epidemic in the CNMI.
Camacho told reporters on Friday that DPS has been working with Sen. Ricardo S. Atalig, R-Rota, for amending Public Law 9-65 which deals with butane canister inhalants.
Camacho said that upon reviewing P.L. 9-65, they determined that it is not “strong” enough.
“We just need to recommend some amendments to that law to include possibly a total prohibition to sell these canisters to minors,” Camacho said.
The current law states that if the seller or distributor thinks or has knowledge that a buyer would use it for inhalant to get high, that seller is prohibited from selling that gas. Violators will have to pay a $500 fine.
“But right now, we don’t know how sellers would know that. We don’t have any evidence that the sellers would know that. So we cannot charge them,” Camacho said.
“We need to make it like the cigarette law—that you cannot just be sold to a minor, period. Maybe the law should also work toward totally stopping butane canisters, which have been abused by not just kids but adults,” he said.
“In the past, we never had that kind of problem but then as we found out that other forms of drugs were being eliminated from the street, people are getting the cheaper ones like the 55 cents butane can and that is easily accessible for anybody,” he said.
It was Camacho who had expressed concern a few months ago about the alarming butane abuse incidents involving mostly minors.
Over the past two months, many juveniles had been caught sniffing butane on Saipan.
In other news, Camacho disclosed that a suspect in the recent armed robbery at Winchells in Susupe was brought in on Thursday for questioning.
Camacho said the suspect was very cooperative and that investigators did not want to release his identity to protect him as he may lead the police in solving other crimes.
Last June 9, an unidentified man armed with a gun robbed Winchells of an estimated $180 cash.
With respect to the murder of a poker attendant in Tanapag, Camacho said investigators were waiting for the results of the tests on physical evidence sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory in Washington, D.C.
