Pubdate: Fri, 22 Mar 2013
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
Copyright: 2013 Herald and Weekly Times
Contact: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/letter
Website: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/187
Author: Andrew Rule
Page: 28

WHY WE MUST FIGHT TO STOP DRUGS WIPING OUT YOUNG LIVES

Substance Abuse Linked to Mental Illness Continues to Be a Scourge
Among Young Australians

BY THE time the brain surgeon got to the hospital, a priest had
already given the young patient the last rites. The teenager's head
was so badly swollen, doctors feared the pressure on the brain would
be fatal. But the surgeon took a chance and removed a piece of skull.
It worked.

This was the second miracle. The first was that the teenager had not
died instantly after stepping in front of a passing bus.

Later, there would be a third miracle, when the same troubled soul
jumped off a building but, against all odds, again survived.

Drugs, delusions or death wish? Most likely, perhaps, was that past
drug use triggered florid psychotic episodes that made him want to
kill himself - or made him feel indestructible, like Superman.

It's a question his family must still think about. Compared with James
Noble's family, they are lucky.

At 19, the South Gippsland surfer and gifted runner had won a national
junior title and was headed for the world surfing circuit. At 24, he
was dead. The turning point was a drug binge in mid-2002. He went 10
days without sleep after mixing marijuana and other drugs, an episode
that marked his slide into paranoia and breakdown.

In mid-2005, he went on another drug binge that gave him visions of
going to hell.

He swam in the ocean off Kilcunda then drove naked to Phillip Island.
When the police found him in San Remo he was behaving bizarrely and
would communicate only with handwritten notes.

Despite his parents' pleas to release him into their care, he was sent
to a "secure" mental health ward in a Traralgon hospital.

It wasn't secure for a super-fit athlete. James climbed a wall and
started running along the rail line towards Melbourne, driven by
delusions so powerful he ran 110 kilometres before a train hit and
killed him at Narre Warren.

Not all drug users end up mentally ill or dead and not all mental
illness and suicidal behaviour is triggered by drug abuse. But the
connection is strong and often lethal.

Even if scientists and theorists aren't sure how to measure the damage
drugs have done to two generations, the evidence is all around; in
every extended family, every street, every class reunion.

Everyone knows someone whose life has been harmed by drugs.
Some

are tragedies, some merely pathetic. It's not just the needle that's
done the damage. Heroin junkies are only part of the problem: heroin
addiction might be suicide by instalment but it doesn't craze people
the way some more fashionable drugs do.

There's a persuasive case that drug use - especially cannabis by
teenagers - doesn't just destroy alertness and ambition but can
trigger long-term mental problems. And there's anecdotal evidence that
heavy amphetamine use - notably "ice" - does damage that can't be undone.

No one wants to say it, but the odds against Ben Cousins making it to
retirement age are long and drifting. Even if he makes it to middle
age, the Brownlow medallist is shaping as his generation's version of
Stevie Wright, the 1970s rock singer who's now a sad, shambling wreck,
ruined by drugs and alcohol. And there are many others.

Fallen "stars" grab our attention but their lives don't matter more
than anyone else's. And it's not just the drug abusers themselves:
they hurt others. Six years ago last month, 19-year-old Lindsay McPhee
drove his Commodore on to the wrong side of the Geelong freeway and
headed into the oncoming traffic at speed. He killed two young men on
their way to work and five days later died of massive injuries. His
stricken parents apologised to the families of the dead.

No one had to state the obvious. He had been out of his brain on
drugs.

Last year the son of a millionaire businessman almost died when rivals
bashed him in a Victorian prison. The last time his private school
classmates had seen him he was lighting an "ice pipe" in a Richmond
hotel toilet.

YOU run into someone who used to be a bright, normal kid and are
shocked that he's now slowwitted and twitchy. The reason? He "fried
his brain" with a bad batch of drugs, say his mates. Some lose a
weekend - but some lose their mind.

No one group has a mortgage on drug abuse, stupidity and criminal
negligence. And mental illness, from depression to paranoia, can
strike anyone - one in five people, the experts say.

But the connection between the two is striking: the more drugs and
alcohol people take, the more demons they seem to have.

It would be unfair to label surfers as people predisposed to drug
abuse and the mental problems that can come with it. But some big
names have crashed harder on shore than they ever did riding waves.

When star surfer Andy Irons died two years ago it underlined the
casualty rate. His friend and fellow champion, Mark Occhilupo, didn't
die but succumbed to crippling depression some blamed on
"self-medicating". Occhilupo is one of the few who came back. Shaun
Brooks is one of many who didn't. The Torquay boy who became world
junior surfing champion in the 1990s descended into paranoid
schizophrenia in his 20s and took his own life last year at 36.

Michael Peterson won three Bells Beach titles and might have been our
greatest surfer, but mental illness ended it all. The list goes on.

There's no easy fix but people try. Shaun Brooks' brother, Troy, is
one of the big surfing names behind the Bolt Blowers retro competition
at Jan Juc tomorrow. They have raised awareness and $130,000 since
2006, and will raise more tomorrow.

And Odyssey House, the quiet achiever in the battle against drug
addiction, is 35 years old and going strong. In that time, it has
helped about 30,000 addicts beat their demons. We'll never know how
many lives it has saved, but it's plenty.
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MAP posted-by: Matt