Ice towns: Crystal meth addiction in regional Victoria

You always hear about people getting on the ice now and you can really notice it in some people.

My teenage children tell me that they've heard of ice in the town and quite commonly too.

We see a few patients using it and being affected by it.I know a lot of people do do ice.A lot of people that I grew up with, they smoke ice.

We definitely lock everything up now.There seems to be more robberies and burglaries.

They just come from families where you've always thought they had quite strict parenting.You'd think that they would steer clear from that.But somehow they just sucked in.

Tonight I'm going along to the ICE forum that's being held here in Horsham and I'm hoping that going along I can gain a little bit more of an insight on the drug ICE to help my son or just help me feel I can cope better with what we're going through.

Just because we're country people in Australia, we shouldn't assume that ice isn't here in our town or in our region.We're better off to front up and say, is it?Because if anything, I've seen the town being on the front foot.We're hearing about this drug in the media a lot and we're hearing how it can be a nasty thing and we want to be on the lookout.Crystal methamphetamine was largely unknown, and there were very few, if any, users.And moving on to 2014 now, what we're seeing now is, especially in young adult circles, it's becoming socially accepted.

It's a place where it's not uncommon to go to a pub on a Saturday night in bigger centres, and you can see there's a group of drunks, but there's also a different group there.

I think in town there could be a number of up to ten dealers in town at any time.There could be new people having a go.It could be anyone.It could be well respected people.Everyday workers.It could be anyone.

It could be young people just out of school.I think in a small town addiction is something that you can keep under wraps for so long.As long as everything else that's going on with your life is in order, then addiction can be hidden for a long time.

And we've got an issue.We've identified that ice has moved in through Horsham.How do we go about it?What do we do?We are remote.We're 310 kilometres from the CBD.

Having said that, we still have our public transport systems.We've still got the Western Highway, direct from Melbourne through to Adelaide, Adelaide through to Melbourne.So whether it comes in by rail, by public transports, by motor vehicle, the testing of one in two.positive is one of the higher performers right throughout the Western region.It's a year to date, so we're in about a 12 month period.

It's not something that I see, it's something that has never come into my office as a problem.I'm unaware of personally anyone that's affected by us in my community.I think we need to to understand if that is an issue, to get on the front foot and raise that awareness.

From what I find, a lot of the parents are keeping it to themselves.A lot of people here know that my son has an addiction, and I know that their son has too, or their daughter.I became aware that he had a serious problem, and it was probably in the month after he lost his job.His behaviour was erratic.He was very thin.He lost weight rapidly.

Ice is his main priority in his life, in my mind for him.stop using ice, I think he's going to have to lose his world.I'm not ashamed of being a mum of a user.I don't choose to be anonymous about it because I'm ashamed.I just don't want to do anything to hurt my son.When we were having an honest talk, I said to him, I need to try ice.

I would like to try it.I said, I need to know how you feel, how people feel when they take this drug.I need to experience it.And he said, Mum, don't ever try it.He nearly yelled at me.He said, Mum, don't.

You don't know what you're messing with.He said, it only takes one.

My heart goes out to the people around the user, especially for the dependent user, because the user, mostly unintentionally, makes life a living hell for those around them.No one's immune to ice use, and that's what we're seeing here.We're seeing older users.We're seeing working class people.We're seeing the poor.We're seeing the unemployed.

We're seeing people from all those walks of life using ice.When you look at the pub, say 10, 20 years ago, you can guarantee 100 % of people are on the grog.Now you go to the pub and they'll say, you can see that big group over there?They're not grog on grog.They're on something else.It's probably crystal meth they're on.

Going out in the autumn on the night is pretty average.

We're at the parks to drink and have fun, let loose.Royal and Wilsons are that date.And Wilsons is feral, but it's good.You can't even sit on the toilets.It's the only nightclub in Horsham that's open for five.

I don't go to Wilsons because there are lots of people on ice.

I have noticed ice in Horsham and it's bad and disgusting.and it ruins people's lives.I think they should just get rid of all the dealers.They should get out of town.

The first time I took it, yeah, it was the first breath of it was instantly just something I'd never experienced.It gives you a feeling of indestructible confidence and energy and first time, yeah, is always the best time.When I first took it, it became just a little bit of fun here and there and then gradually became something that you want more and more until it becomes something that you're doing all the time.It really started to fall apart for me when I guess it was the financial strain.It just starts to cut off relationships, it starts to isolate you, put you in positions to do things that you wouldn't normally do.You spend all your savings, you take risks to try and make extra money with selling ice or whatever you gotta do.

I did have to sell it sometimes just to make ends meet.What keeps bringing me back to use would be something that's always appealing up until the moment, even the moment you've had it.Five minutes later you'd be sort of wishing that you probably didn't.I guess you feel sort of alone.Yeah, I won't sleep tonight.I'll be up all day tomorrow.

It's been a long process to cut down and work back.Now I'd be down to once a month or a little bit over that, where it was going from every day.

I've seen families torn apart, well -structured family units, loving families, fantastic parents.I've seen families destroyed through their personal possessions, sold and pawned, all for the sake of people getting a few dollars to buy the substance.I've witnessed road trauma.I've witnessed psychotic episode.So I don't know how much more I can take it.

Coming up after the break.

So I don't think we've reached a peak in Victoria at all.I think that's still to come.

And the family's pushed to the edge.

We've had a lot of tragedy in the last few years and you try and get it out of them.You can't get them to confess.

That's still to come here on The Feed.

In Victoria, across the state, All regions, I think, are experiencing a dramatic increase in the amount of people who are coming before court for drug -related offences.There is a general feeling that the violence that we're seeing attached to methamphetamine users is greater than what we've seen in the past two decades.I think one of the most surprising things that I've noticed about the ICE epidemic is that it has visited upon very small communities.traditionally close -knit communities, are suddenly finding that there's a high level of drug activity in their community.

Well, in Shepparton, ice use has skyrocketed.You can see it on people when you go out in the, say, the nightclubs or on the streets, even during the day.

I've no friends that have siblings or cousins children that have been involved with the ice and it just ruins their families.

I think that Shepparton has become an unsafe place and the younger generation, a number of people that I know have chosen to move away because of that concern.

Our police will always tell you they're undermanned, underwomaned.It's a not very pleasant scene to go out at three or four in the morning on a Saturday night in this part of the world and be confronted with vomiting, fighting, aggressive, semi -conscious people who have triple the strength because they're full of drugs.

The growth of methylamphetamine use in Victoria has not stopped.And it's a drug, quite honestly, you can't experiment with.It has a very high uptake of immediate addiction.because it is so powerful.So I don't think we've reached a peak in Victoria at all.I think that's still to come.

I hope our magistrate is wrong.Unfortunately, she's probably on the right track, because at the moment there is no foot on the brake.We've got these scumbag criminals who are making fortunes at supplying these drugs to the second stage, if you like, the next round of dealer.They're making a fortune.They're not being picked up too often.

I've had young people as young as 11, 13.appearing before the court addicted to ice.There was one young man who appeared in court a couple of months ago and his face was completely pockmarked.He'd lost more than 10 kilos of weight and he was in a coma.in any event.And he was wild, just wild.

Unfortunately, in terms of the ice epidemic, we see people from all walks of life, all social strata.We've seen doctors and carpenters, mothers, nurses, people who had really high functioning lives appearing before the court.

I think Chris has grown up in a time when Facebook just all came and everyone wanted a piece of him.But at home, he wasn't happy.And he and I butted heads.We're probably alike in a lot of ways.I remember the day he packed his car and left.It's just not the way you want to send your son out into the world.

Yeah, Chris left that day.Yeah, you wish you could have been able to stop him, but you couldn't.

I remember He'd been home at some stage and he'd synced his phone on the computer.All of his photos were slotted in amongst our photos and there was things I didn't want to see.There was, I think, a garbage bag full of marijuana and naked girls and just horrible things that you don't want to see.

It's just like you've lost somebody right there and then.We've had a lot of tragedy in the last few years and you try and get it out of them.You can't get them to confess.

Dad tried to keep a lid on things and try and have a normal life, but yeah, when things were bad, things were bad and it was an unhappy place to live in.

I went through his belongings one day in the bedroom and I found something that was a powdery substance that is something they mix with ice.He was very angry.

Yeah, it was like losing a brother.You'd look at other friends and they've got their big brothers, their siblings, people that they can lean on and talk to and I didn't.

There was a sequence of events.He wheeled a car around the corner up here and rode it up onto somebody's nature strip.

He'd lost his licence then for drink driving.

I got photos of him at the kitchen bench asleep in his work clothes.He wasn't engaging in normal conversation.He wasn't laughing at appropriate times.I got a phone call from one of his friends and I said, call the ambulance.He must have told the ambulance officers that he'd been using ice out the river.And he said, I'm really worried.

The doctors showed me the x -ray and it was like, it was...

He wasn't supposed to walk again.

I got a hold of Darren.

I said, Chris has had an accident and broken his neck.I just couldn't believe it.You know, I couldn't believe that.

This whole time, Chris was basically in a detox situation as well.

That point in time, his whole world unfolded in front of us because we had his phone.There was messages coming through asking him for what he could get them.

And names of people that deal in the product, the big boys.

When a family member wants to have help, you've got to go to the city.for detox or rehab, that there's no facilities available here in Horsham.When he, at one stage earlier on, he did agree to go through the detox program and rehabilitation, but he was so frightened of being removed away from everything that he knows.

The most frustrating thing in terms of My day -to -day work is that we cannot access good quality detoxification facilities quickly in the country.It's just not possible.But it is frustrating when you have people coming to court and you think you have a real opportunity to force them to do some kind of rehabilitation and the facilities and the services are just not there.

There's only a handful that I know that have quit forever.It's not easily achieved.There's always, I guess, the thought.or the temptation for them as well.It's just a matter of not wanting to go back there.

We would have paid anything.We would have done anything.But we didn't have the option.There was no options.

Hey, buddy.Hey, how are you?How's the highlights going?All right?Yeah, you're all right, hey?

If I didn't have the option.neck in the river, I would be dead or in jail.I would have done something stupid in some other way.That's the sad part about it.I nearly had to kill myself to realise what an issue I had.If it wasn't for that, then I wouldn't have had that compulsory rehab period through hospital and I'd still be doing it.

My experience is probably unique.There's probably not too many stories like it.Guys that go to rehab clinics for three months, I've seen it time and time again, they go in for their three months, they come out and within a week they're back on it.Or even while they're at the rehab clinic, they never actually get off it because there's drugs that go through the doors of these places.I had like a horrible compulsory rehab.I was stuck in a hospital bed, I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything for months.

And then when I got home, I still had this halo traction on that basically stopped me from going anywhere or doing anything.Mum and dad were worried about me long before that.They knew that there was problems.They knew that I was doing stuff I shouldn't have been doing, but they had no idea.After the first time I took it, it literally took me a week until I was going, where can I get some more of that?Because that was pretty awesome.

It's the hardest thing to resist that I've ever had.I didn't realise that until I sort of fell down the rabbit hole myself, and I was like, wow, everyone's doing this.It was only costing me a couple of hundred dollars a day.I was using anything from half a gram to a gram a day.And to everyone else, that was between $500 and $800.It was cheaper for me because I was selling it, simple as that.

It basically controlled me.From the minute I got out of bed in the morning, I was on it straight away.In that first six months out of hospital, oh, I was tonguing for it all the time.But you have to tell yourself, no, you've got to get through this, you've got to get through this.If I didn't, Who knows where I'd be now.I'll always consider myself a drug addict.

That's something that I've got to deal with forever now.I thought, yeah, this is going to be a good opportunity for me to get away.That was another big part of moving on, you know, breaking ties with old friends who maybe aren't really your friend, and starting fresh somewhere.

People are desperate, and we know exactly where they're at.There's other people, really good people, around doing the same as what we've done, and they've got children with some major issues.

My life's changed dramatically.If I didn't stop doing it, I couldn't imagine what would have happened.But since then, it's been positives most of the time.It could very easily spiral out of control again.But I won't let that happen.I have a beer and a cigarette, if it's that bad.

That's my vices now.