Pubdate: Fri, 23 Feb 2007
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2007 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

THE ICE AGE

VICTORIA is seeing the long-term mental health effects of an "ice" 
epidemic that started several years ago.

Aggression, anxiety, psychotic episodes and brain injury are 
increasingly evident among longer-term users of crystallised 
methamphetamine, or ice, according to clinicians.

As the Bracks Government this week announced a crackdown on the drug 
- -- diverting $14 million from the fight against heroin to counter the 
ice plague -- a former Victoria Police drug investigator told The Age 
that warnings about ice had been sounded for years

"We were seeing it come in from Indonesia in 2001 and back then it 
was flagged as a major concern," he said. A visiting expert from the 
US had highlighted increased homicide and assaults linked to ice use 
soon after.

Police say they cannot comment on the precise number of users, 
although methamphetamines are now the second-most commonly used 
illicit drugs in Australia next to cannabis.

Chief executive of the Australian Drug Foundation Bill Stronach said 
amphetamine use blew out amid a heroin drought about seven years ago.

Victoria Police last year busted 64 amphetamine laboratories, 
compared with 30 busts in 2004.

Most labs produce methamphetamine in powder form, but all have the 
capacity to make ice. Labs are often based in rental properties and 
it is unclear whether increased detection reflects greater community 
awareness or a burgeoning industry.

Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre director Nick Crofts, a member 
of the Government's Amphetamines Taskforce, said long-term use of all 
methamphetamines, including ice, could cause mental illness, although 
accounts of psychosis were exaggerated.

"My impression is we are not so much seeing a new expansion of 
methamphetamine use as we are seeing the maturation of a pattern of 
use that has been going on for some years," Professor Crofts said.

Richard Smith, a clinician at the Raymond Hader Clinic, said 70 per 
cent of clients were addicted to ice where previously 90 per cent had 
been heroin-addicted. He said symptoms ranged from delusions and rage 
episodes to anger and paranoia.

Mr Smith said that ice was more socially acceptable in the club scene 
because it was smoked rather than injected.

"Go to any nightclub and a quarter of that nightclub will be using 
ice, and another quarter will be using ecstasy," he said.

The warnings about the drug have come too late for "Tommy", a 
26-year-old patient at the Hader Clinic.

A friend offered him a crack pipe loaded with ice. He liked it 
instantly, but he was smoking the stuff for two weeks before he knew 
what it was.

"I got into it through the rave scene. Usually I'd have a decent 
amount in a night and it would keep me up that night and the next 
day," he said.

After five months "I was paranoid of things that weren't there ... 
people following me. It was the ice that really f----d me up," he said.

Five months after he began using the drug regularly, along with 
ketamine, ecstasy and alcohol, his parents enrolled him at the clinic.

A health worker who asked not to be identified said users 
experiencing psychotic episodes were extremely violent.

"They don't care who they hit, whether it's police, doctors, nurses. 
Some will tell you later they have been using ice, often it is 
marijuana and ice. They are out of control for three or four days."

Physician in addiction medicine Dr Mike McDonough of the Western 
Hospital said methamphetamine was faster acting and slightly more 
toxic than amphetamines and ecstasy.

He said users who had a predilection or vulnerability to mental 
disorders, and were already prone to anxiety, slight paranoia, 
depression and frank psychosis were "more likely to experience 
aggressive and abnormal mental effects more quickly with this drug".

Faster acting drugs like methamphetamine, which also wear off 
quickly, appeared to have a more addictive track record, Dr McDonough said.

Mr Stronach said that while amphetamines supplanted heroin at the 
turn of the decade, ice had emerged strongly in the past three years.

He welcomed the Bracks Government directing $14 million into 
education and prevention programs, but lamented that shifting the 
money from heroin prevention was "not all that smart".

Ice What Is It?

- -- Amphetamines used illicitly include speed (amphetamine), ice 
(methamphetamine) and ecstasy (MDMA).

- -- Methamphetamine is commonly sold as ice, which is the drug in 
crystalline form.

- -- It appears as an opaque, rock-like crystal similar to crushed ice. 
It is faster acting and more potent than conventional speed.

- -- Most commonly smoked in a glass pipe, it also can be inhaled or injected.

- -- Effects vary widely, including increased wakefulness, heightened 
alertness, a sense of wellbeing and improved self-esteem.

- -- Prolonged use can result in paranoid psychosis, delusions, 
hallucinations and violent rages.

- -- Costs about $300 a gram, sufficient for four hits.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman