First responders to a 911 call in Kalihi found a man lying on his wooden bedroom floor in the early morning sunlight between his twin bed and a filing cabinet.
The EMTs noticed he was clutching something in his left hand. One of them pried it open and found a glass pipe with burnt black and white residue inside — crystal methamphetamine. Ice.
Emerson Butay had admitted to doctors over the years that he smoked the drug. Given various maladies of his heart, his continued use was putting his life at risk. Yet he refused to relinquish his meth pipe, right up to the end…