Old time cops and veteran front line workers must be wondering if they have seen it all before. In some ways the ice epidemic in regional cities mirrors dangerous upsurges in drug production and consumption in past eras; speed in the eighties and heroin in the nineties. But in some ways this may be where the similarity ends. The overdose death toll from heroin became its most devastating apex in that decade and the new engineered strength and devastation of methamphetamine outstrips its garden variety antecedent. But there is growing anecdotal evidence that the new scourge is no less addictive and its withdrawal so harrowing that it is taking as great a toll on lives because suicide is one of the only ways to escape its ravaging grip.
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Ice has become known to trigger psychological disturbances, violent and aggressive behaviour. The addict to get the next hit is more desperate. While on it, behaviour reeks more of delusional invulnerability. Traditional theft comes with more sinister implications; simple opportunism escalates to heedless desperation and highlights the frame of mind of a drug-inspired thief who will do almost anything in order to get some and get away. The rise in incidence of these desperate crimes hints at the increasingly deranged state of mind of the perpetrators and the sordid addictions that pervert them.
The problem is that long term use can cause brain damage and impaired attention, memory and motor skills. The result is, in some cases, we have human beings whose basic cognitive functions have gone; they are a danger to both themselves and everyone else. We would treat anybody with a comparable brain injury or impairment as a serious mental health case rather than simply a criminal one.
Little wonder that when the fog of this chemical horror trip, its euphoria and despair occasionally clears there is an equally desperate realisation of the need to get free. But services are scarce and some are not particularly well designed to respond to ice use or lack appropriate follow-up for the extended withdrawal period. There are private clinics but their treatment is expensive and likely to be beyond those with significant social disadvantage. Even for those who have the best intentions, the vice can thus take a decisive final toll. There needs to be more accessible and cost-effective counselling services available to users when they need it. The alternatives are escalating desperation and more death. Lifeline 13 11 14
