Time for broken meth rehab system to change
Like it or not, the way we treat those fighting the brutal addiction that comes with methamphetamines not only isn’t working, it’s failing to keep people safe. It’s time for tough conversations, writes David Penberthy.
It was, on the face of it, a pleasantly simple portrait of a middle-aged dad enjoying some quiet time kicking the footy with his kids in the park.
When you look at the photograph again you can see that the father in question was none other than fallen AFL star Ben Cousins, the West Coast Eagles premiership player and Brownlow medallist, who has the unfortunate honour of being Australia’s best-known victim of crystal meth.
Cousins and his ex-wife and children were photographed and featured this week on the online pages of Australia’s loosest news website, The Daily Mail, playing with a footy in a Perth park near his parents’ home. The article was billed as an interview, but was really anything but that. The only new quotes from Cuz sounded more like a polite “p***-off” to the paparazzi photographer who was stalking the former football star as he tries to piece his life back together and enjoy some normal time with his family.
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“I’m good, mate, really good,” Cousins said. “I’m just enjoying a nice day with my kids.”
The remainder of the article was rounded out in typical Daily Mail style, repurposing quotes from previous interviews conducted by more credible news sources.
I am not sure what kind of help Ben Cousins needs to turn his life around and shake the scourge of addiction for good. I am pretty sure it doesn’t come in the form of being hounded by photographers while he relaxes with his family. Privacy would seem an important part of cure for the bloke who has suffered more, and inflicted more suffering on his loved ones, than any normal person could bear.
There is a compelling but flint-hearted view that addicts have only got themselves to blame for the predicament they are in.
Without wanting to absolve people of the need to take responsibility for their own actions, when it comes to crystal meth, this is the one drug that can actually grab hold of you in an instant and send your life completely off the rails.
As a teenager I can remember the admonitions from my parents about the dangers of drugs such as cannabis. It is as if all parents get handed the same script for that speech — I will undoubtedly use it myself soon enough with my teenagers — in warning that it only takes one toke to get you hooked. With crystal meth, that clichéd old warning actually appears to be true.
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Ben Cousins is a household name, but Thomas Aldcroft is not. He is also a meth addict. Aldcroft, 39, hails from the northern Adelaide suburb of Modbury, and appeared in the Adelaide District Court this week where he pleaded guilty to two aggravated counts of theft using force, one aggravated count of assault causing harm and one count of dishonestly taking property.
To feed his drug habit, Aldcroft robbed three people. They were all in their 70s and 80s, one of them a lady with Parkinson’s disease, whom he attacked as she was parking her car in a disabled space at a local shopping centre.
The woman gave evidence in court this week through her victim impact statement about the effect of Aldcroft’s crimes.
“I felt defenceless and vulnerable, and leant on the car horn constantly to try to get attention and assistance … a security guard came to my aid,” the lady said.
“I was parked in a disabled space, and I feel fearful parking there now because I don’t want to be targeted because of my disability.”
Another of Aldcroft’s victims was an 82-year-old man. The pitiable Aldcroft was so addled by his meth use that he made a total hash of his attempt to rob the guy.
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The old bloke was sitting in his car when Aldcroft bailed him up at the driver’s door and demanded his wallet. The man told him to go away, at which point Aldcroft lunged through the door, grabbed the car keys and bizarrely ran away, succeeding in stealing neither the car, nor the wallet, but a completely useless set of keys. They were the same keys that the cops found at Aldcroft’s house, and the basis on which they made their arrest.
Be it poor old Ben Cousins running around a Fremantle street without his shirt on, or the hapless Thomas Aldcroft launching pitiable robbery attempts on the elderly, the capacity of this drug to bend people out of shape and strip them of a moral compass is beyond dispute.
More importantly, the damage they inflict on those around them is becoming more and more pronounced, be it on their own children, their partners, or people like the lady with Parkinson’s quietly negotiating her car into a disabled space.
We catch up each week on our radio show with the veteran court reporter Sean Fewster, and it increasingly feels like every other court story we discuss involves aberrant or violent behaviour fuelled by a dependence on crystal meth.
I am starting to form the view that rather than the cyclical and seemingly futile cat-and-mouse game between addicts, police, and courts, there is a public safety argument for treating all this as a health and addiction problem, and taking these addicts out of the legal setting and getting them into real treatment.
One argument against that is the cost. Why should taxpayers bear the bill for people who can’t control their own actions?
The reality is that we are already bearing it anyway, through the cost of policing, with fewer police resources to investigate other crimes, the cost of insurance, the cost of losing your wallet or your car keys to a Thomas Aldcroft, the cost of absenteeism and rehabilitation bills for the loving families who are trying to care for a Ben Cousins.
I am increasingly of the view that was put, surprisingly enough by the deeply conservative broadcaster Alan Jones last month.
“I never thought I would say this,” Jones said, “ … but everything we have done to date has failed. Everything. So something different has to be done. Sensible people have to look at changing the system.”