Destructive drug ice now cheaper than slab of beer
ICE use is predicted to reach a “significant” new high over Australia Day and the summer Sydney festival weeks, as experts warn the narcotic is now a lifestyle drug.
NSW
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ICE use is predicted to reach a “significant” new high over Australia Day and the summer Sydney festival weeks, as experts warn the lifestyle drug is now cheaper than a slab of beer.
Hospitals and medical centres are bracing themselves to treat more patients with paranoid psychosis and cardiovascular problems over the January 26 long weekend.
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine founder Gordian Fulde said ice now costs between $30-$50 per hit — the same as a slab of beer.
“Crystal meth is still a massive problem, it’s cheap,” he said. “With the unbelievable highs you’re quickly you’re hooked and you need more each time to get the same effect — ice has become a lifestyle, it’s not just a party drug anymore.
“Right now Australia is ripe for it; it’s party time, it’s the summer, there are the Sydney festivals and Australia Day — that’s when we get more people through the doors of hospital emergency departments.”
At the same time, Australia’s largest drug tester Safework Laboratories has revealed an increase of methamphetamine among in truck drivers, transport workers, pilots, miners and tradies since 2016.
Testing 100,000 urine samples over two years, Safework Laboratories found a more than six per cent rise in positive samples.
Safework Laboratories’ forensic toxicologist Andrew Leibie said this rise was significant because the company only tested safety-sensitive industries and companies where employers found ice pipes and drugs paraphernalia in the lunch rooms — not office workers, the unemployed or students.
“The figures are rising and are the tip of the iceberg — results would be much higher in the general workforce,” he said.
Mr Leibie said the drug was dangerous because it made people feel bulletproof.
“It induces euphoria,” he said. “It’s also used as a sex drug. People report it enhances sexual performance and experience for 24 hours.”
Australia’s ice scourge was declared a national emergency in 2015, ripping apart families, towns and whole communities.
Since then, overall methamphetamine use has fallen, with the National Drug Strategy Household Survey Program 2016 reporting a decline from 2.1 per cent to 1.4 per cent between 2015 and 2016.
However in the past six months, the Ted Noffs Foundation has seen a five per cent rise on last year’s numbers of 13- to 17-year-old ice users admitted to its rehabilitation centres.
Sixty-two per cent of 125 addicts checked into its Sydney and Canberra centres for ice addiction, compared with 57 per cent of 250 clients in financial year 2016.
“Christmas is quiet, it’s family time, but now is our busiest time; methamphetamine is definitely not lessening, in fact it’s increasing — it’s the vogue, primary, drug of concern at our rehab centres followed by cannabis,” said chief operating officer Mark Ferry.
“It’s an upper, everyone’s on holiday, usage spikes around now. Young people love it because it’s marketable, cheap and available but it’s horribly destructive.”