Use is sky-rocketing,  users can be extremely aggressive and paranoid and there's no accepted treatment. In what's starting to look like an epidemic, the use of crystal methamphetamines, known as ice, has become a scourge across the state.

By SOPHIE BOUSTEAD

Travis, who’s 24, tells youth services  he wants to commit a “massive crime” to escape his current life. He has been using crystal methamphetamine for four years and has been in and out of residential care since the age of 14.

He has worn the same clothes for several days, and his legs and face are scabbed from picking. His lips are raw with cold sores, and a fungal infection on his feet has caused the skin between his toes to erode, making it painful to walk.

Paranoia made him  leave his previous refuge when he started to believe and others living at the refuge were police informers. This is a typical side effect of methamphetamine use.

Travis’s is just one of many stories about the consequences of crystal methamphetamine addiction to be found in Melbourne City Mission’s submission into the State Government-led methamphetamine inquiry. His story is not unusual.

Crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”, is a stimulant drug that can be smoked, injected, swallowed or snorted. Users of the drug say it invokes a sense of euphoria and well-being, but its side effects are abundant. They include low mood, aggression, reduced appetite, nausea and sleeping problems.

As a team leader at Uniting Care’s drug and alcohol service ReGen, registered nurse Malcolm Doreian believes prolonged ice use, “almost inevitably leads to psychiatric problems”.

Anxiety, depression and drug-induced psychosis are typical effects of prolonged ice use, as are a range of physical health issues including malnutrition, memory loss and cardiovascular issues.

Melbourne City Mission senior homelessness and accommodation manager Sonia Chudiak has seen the worst effects of the drug in her young clients.

“We’ve had a lot of kids that have used it once and were so frightened to hear what they’d done whilst they were on the drug that they never touched it again,” Ms Chudiak said.

Claims of a methamphetamine crisis by journalists and health professionals last year sparked a state government inquiry into “the supply and use of methamphetamine, particularly ‘ice’ in Victoria”.

The results of the inquiry have been startling.

In April, the Australian Crime Commission issued a report stating that the country was experiencing a crystal methamphetamine “pandemic akin to the issue of ‘crack’ cocaine in the United States”.

Chief executive officer of the Australian Crime Commission Chris Dawson discussed the report on radio station 3AW.

“Pandemic is not a term that we should use lightly, but when you look at the extraordinary prevalence now, weight detected at the borders of amphetamines and methlyamphetamines is up 516 per cent," he told Neil Mitchell.

Perhaps most concerning is the rise of the use of ice in youth. Melbourne City Mission identified some of their clients as young as 12 years old.

Rural areas are also a particular concern because of under-equipped health services and rising crime figures that are placing strain on community ties. The southwestern city of Geelong has especially suffered.

Streets paved with ice

At 9pm on a Saturday night, Geelong’s Little Malop St in the city’s CBD is eerily deserted. Walking alone, one cannot help but remember the terrible violence that has occurred on this street, just a few hundred metres from some of the city’s most popular nightclubs.

At 11pm the area is buzzing, but the atmosphere has changed over the past 12 months.

Nightclub bouncers check handbags for signs of illicit substances, and Geelong police will soon bring in sniffer dogs on Saturday nights to target people carrying drugs. The city has recognised it has a problem, and is taking steps to combat it.

Unlike other illicit drugs, public health organisation ANEX found that ice is no harder to source in the country than it is in the city. According to Barwon Health consultant psychiatrist Renee Bauer, ice is becoming more accessible.

“There is extensive information on the Internet as to how to manufacture it and it has wide acceptance as a party drug,” Dr Bauer said.

“Generally when it is offered to young people, their first experience with it is positive, leading to an increase in popularity and repeat use.”

Ms Chudiak noted that a low street price also made ice a popular choice among drug-users. “It’s cheaper than marijuana, it’s cheaper than speed,” she said.

Mr Doreian says ice is rarely taken on its own.

“About 90 per cent of people who use methamphetamine use other psychoactive substances, either simultaneously or sequentially,” Mr Doreian said.

“So they enhance the effect with other drugs or they use other drugs … to cope with the come down.”

Few options for treatment

But unlike other drugs, there is no standard treatment for methamphetamine dependency. And while users can undergo psychological therapies, specific medication appears to be a long way off.

“There have been lots … of trials, more than 40 that I’m aware of, of drugs for either withdrawal, blocking, maintenance replacement, craving reduction and all aspects of treatment that you can think of,” Mr Doreian said.

“But nothing has been found to be useful so, you could say we’re running out of options and we’ve still not come out with anything that really works.”

Despite the lack of alternatives, concern from community groups and drug and alcohol services has prompted an outpouring of submissions into the state inquiry. Recommendations have focused on harm reduction for users, expansion of drug and homelessness services, and early education.

Ms Chudiak said people of all types of social status used the drug.

“I think there needs to be national programs rolled out in every school no matter what socio-economic status area the school is in, because it [methamphetamine use] happens with kids that are in the best schools as well as those that are in the worst,” she said.

 Strong links to violence

The use of ice is devastating for individuals, families and communities alike. According to family violence services, violence associated with ice use in rural areas ranges from “prolific to unprecedented”.

In a report by the ABC, a Geelong women’s group identified ice as the cause of rising domestic violence levels in Geelong. Manager of the Salvation Army’s alcohol and drug service in Geelong, Neil Loxston, agreed.

“Drug and alcohol related violence continues to remain one of the most serious social issues facing the wider community in the region,” he said.

Over the last few years, Geelong police have reported a sharp increase in violent crime, including armed robberies of milk bars and service stations, and domestic abuse.

“Responding to so many family violence incidents involving methamphetamine has caused problems with regard to the sourcing of adequate resources to respond to calls for assistance,” Mr Loxston said.

According to Mr Loxston, most drug and alcohol services in the region have not had an increase in resources to address the growing problem. In April, the State Government announced extra funding for services in some regional areas, but Geelong was overlooked.

“We urge the government to invest ... in the areas of family violence and drug and alcohol to better support the service system,” he said.

Drug rips family apart

Jane*, a health professional and mother of three from Geelong, wants parents to start being more diligent in educating their children about the dangers of drugs like ice.

Her youngest son, Matt*, was chubby in school. To compensate for his lack of self-confidence, he made jokes to get people to notice him and make friends.

“He was quiet, placid, easy to get along with … if anything happened to me the world would be over. We were always really close,” Jane said.

When he turned 17, Matt started getting invited to poker nights with his friends. This is where, eager to fit in, he started to smoke marijuana for the first time.

But it wasn’t until five years ago, when Matt was 20, that Jane became aware Matt had started using ice. No longer able to hold down a job and having undergone several psychotic episodes related to drug-use, Matt was unstable and at times dangerous. His personality no longer matched that of the little boy that Jane remembers fondly.

“He’s nasty, he’s aggressive … he doesn’t care about anything. He doesn’t care what happens tomorrow,” Jane said.

But the family realised the full power of the drug when Jane’s daughter Genevieve* went to visit her brother after her marriage ended. Unhappy and desperate, Genevieve and Matt began using ice together. Jane and her husband Chris* thought they had failed.

“We’re a very good family, lovely people, good health professionals, we’ve brought our kids up in private schools and they have had the absolute best of everything and I’ve had two out of three who went bad,” Jane said.

“Is that because I’m a bad mother? I don’t believe that’s true.”

Genevieve no longer uses drugs, and is back on the path to a normal life, but Matt has a long way to go. While he no longer uses ice on a regular basis, Jane never forgets how quickly their lives could descend back into the days when Matt was acutely unwell. She speaks in detail about his psychosis.

“I spent two nights … with my bedroom door barricaded, because I felt that he would come in during the night and actually mistake me for somebody who was trying to kill him.”

Jane is thankful her family had private health insurance during these times, allowing Matt to get a room in the Geelong Clinic psychiatric facility. She is sceptical that he could have received the care he needed through the public system.

“The very first time that Matt came home and he wanted to see counsellors, we … rang up and they said unless he was at risk of injuring or killing himself, then it was a six-week wait,” she said.

Apart from a lack of accessibility to support services, Jane believes the community is suffering from a lack of knowledge about drug addiction.

“Years ago when they introduced sex education to schools everybody was totally mortified … thinking you don’t want to tell them about it because they might want to do it. Well, that’s a stupid perception. People need to know,” she said.

Jane and Chris regret that they didn’t realise their son was taking ice earlier. Chris works as a paramedic in country Victoria, and had dealt first-hand with the consequences of ice addiction before his son started using.

“He picks these people up every weekend, and when he takes them to the hospital he’s frustrated and annoyed with them and he’ll come home and say to me, ‘They’re such deadbeats, such losers’, and I’ll say, ‘Your son’s one as well,’” Jane said.

Mr Loxston stressed the importance of not demonising drug-addicts. Jane agrees.

“Everyone just casts them off as deadbeats and addicts, but they probably have a mother and father who love them,” she said.

*Names changed to protect identities