Lismore at the epicentre of ice epidemic ravaging regional NSW
Father-of-six Lance Reavley is the human face of the drug epidemic ravaging regional NSW. The Lismore local openly admits to a $1200-a-week ice habit and says will do anything to get money — even running “a knife through you”. WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
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Ice addict Lance Reavley is the face of the shocking drug epidemic you don’t want to meet on the street.
“Usually I tell people I’ll f***ing hang it out and basically if you don’t give me what I want I’m just going to run a knife through you,” Reavley, 50, told The Daily Telegraph.
The jobless father-of-six — who admits to a $1200-a-week ice habit — said he is as overwhelmed by the destructive drug as is the place he lives — the seemingly peaceful Northern Rivers city of Lismore.
“They either give me want they want or I run a knife through them and take it,” he said.
Lismore is the first of the state’s worst-hit cities and towns to come under the scrutiny of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the insidious drug, which has fast become the scourge of regional NSW.
Bureau of Crime Statistics reveals why: 129.8 per 100,000 people in Lismore have offences relating to the use and possession of amphetamines. The NSW average is 90.7.
The commission will also visit Dubbo, Nowra, Maitland and Broken Hill.
“We’re very keen to understand the experiences of people in regional and remote communities,” the Inquiry’s chief operating officer David McGrath said.
“We’ll be speaking to first responders (and) drug and alcohol services so that we understand the impact of (ice).
“We’ve also been approached by individuals and families (from Lismore) who are keen to share their experiences — they are at the fore front.”
With offences relating to the possession and use of illegal substances, including LSD and pharmaceutical drugs, soaring by 111 per cent last year, Lismore’s drug crisis has gripped families across the board including young mothers with toddlers.
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A young mother in her late 20s, who first tried drugs when she was 12, showed The Daily Telegraph her bloodied needles which she had just used to inject ice.
“I was sexually assaulted for four years … so I just moved out of my home and it was drugs, drugs, drugs,” she said.
“I’m a hustler, I’m not a hoe. I just get it from people, I get my bit out of it. I get drugs off people when they want something.”
On Lismore’s streets, ice is sold in a crystal form and is known as shard, glass, meth and crack.
Dealers said residents often buy ice in “points”, which is about a 10th of a gram, for about $50 and grams for between $350-500.
And when money is not at hand, some score by committing “drug rips”, where people meet up with dealers under the proviso of purchasing drugs before robbing them.
One user telling The Daily Telegraph: “We are pretending to want to buy but we will take the lot when this f**kwit gets (here) because he did wrong by someone we care about”.
Reavley admits to using up to three grams of ice a week and struggles to find the $1200 needed to pay for it.
“It’s become a lot easier to get, there’s less heroin around, so therefore everyone addicted to opiates when they can’t get opiates go and get ice instead now,” he said.
“You wake up going ‘f**k, where am I going to get money from today? I’ve got to rob somebody to support my habit’ — so you feel lousy.
“I stand over people for pot usually, run through people’s backyards and steal their plants, break into people’s houses, knock off cars and sell bits of them — there’s heaps of ways of coming up with money overnight if you have to.”
Reavley said he was sharing his story as a warning to young people tempted to try drugs.
Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith said his council had recently finished a report into ways to best tackle drug use in the region and would hand it over to the Inquiry.
“I welcome the Inquiry coming to Lismore, as a regional city we know ice affects regional areas more than (metropolitan areas),” Mr Smith said.
“The drug issue is very real for a part of our community and needs to be addressed.
“I really do think it will actually help both Lismore and the state of NSW and I really hope the Inquiry looks at our recommendations.”
The historic Winsome Hotel dates back to 1925 and in 1980 was listed on the National Trust Register. In 2009, it was bought by the Lismore Soup kitchen, renamed The Winsome and now offers cheap accommodation and meals to the town’s needy.
It’s also where locals know to go to score with dealers often loitering outside.
On the Friday The Daily Telegraph visited, The Winsome was buzzing with people.
“The Winsome isn’t open normally like a pub,” one woman said.
“It’s more a place for them to get free meals, hang out, get drugs, use drugs,” one woman said.
A volunteer at The Winsome, who did not want to be named, admitted drug use was common in the hotel but said people were booted out if caught.
And money was often the cause of fights.
“It’s always around money, so people have lent when they have drugs or money and when they come to collect the other person hasn’t got it and the violent aggression comes around,” the volunteer said.
“(There are) lots of fights, lots of yelling. We have to call the police every now and then. We can normally handle it, we can ban (people from the hotel) for a day.”
The Winsome’s kitchen winds up around lunchtime and often users leave the hotel and walk into Lismore’s CBD to have a shower at the transit centre, where “winos” also congregate drinking at the bus stop.
Richmond District Superintendent Toby Lindsay said Lismore’s changing economy had put a strain on many in the town.
“It’s fair to say Lismore and the Northern Rivers has changed a lot in the last few decades, we’ve gone from a dairy town to a regional and tourist hub and it’s had an impact,” Supt Lindsay told The Daily Telegraph.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from the community that they don’t want ice in their community.
“From a policing perspective, we find it quite problematic when we intervene and disrupt people who are using ice for a number of reasons. It’s obviously very harmful to them, it’s also unfortunately injuring our officers and members of the community and puts other agencies like health at risk as well.”
Florist Teah Fort, 48, whose business is near the transit centre, said Lismore’s drug problem stemmed from the town’s unemployment and homelessness.
The town’s unemployment rate is 5.75 per cent.
“There’s just a lot of homeless people and you just see it, you see it happening in the street,” Ms Fort said.
“There’s yelling, busts and just a lot of sad people.”
Shearman Drive in the eastern suburb of Goonellabah is also a notorious hotspot for dealers, with toddlers seen wandering the streets while addicts walk past looking to score.
Cyril Chapman, 48, had just smoked ice when The Daily Telegraph came across him. But he says he isn’t like other users in the town — he doesn’t commit crimes to get money for drugs.
“I’ve been (doing) amphetamines now for 30 years … it’s kept me out of trouble, before I was on it I was always in trouble,” Chapman said.
“These other ones, they get on it and go just stupid, stealing everything.
“If it’s not nailed down they’re taking it. There’s all sorts of crimes going on, it’s not a good scene when that’s happening.”
Reavley has six children, aged four to 25, and said he thought about his future constantly but had lost all hope.
“It just makes me have a suicidal feeling, because I think I’m stuck on this shit forever,” he said.
“Your vision goes, you can’t see properly, I’ve got no teeth.
“My bones are brittle, I bleed every time I bump into something because my skin has got so thin. Feeling angry all the time for drugs is not a good thing.”
But he doesn’t want your sympathy.
“To feel sorry for somebody who’s on ice is stupid,” Reavley, who has been in and out of prison, said.
There are support services in town such as the Riverlands Drug and Alcohol Centre, which is a purpose-built treatment facility with 16 beds in a “detoxification unit” and a methadone clinic.
But Reavley said methadone does not always work for ice users.
“They put you on methadone programs for ice, f**king methadone and ice are completely different. Methadone is not going to help you come off ice in any way or form,” he said.
While Reavley holds little hope, others have fought their battle and come out the other end.
Shana Miller, 31, “snowballed really hard” and became hooked on ice in her mid 20s after being raped.
“At one point I didn’t eat or sleep for an entire week,” Ms Miller said.
“I was very sure I was going to die if I didn’t stop, I was very emaciated, extremely underweight and I just had no quality of life whatsoever.”
Five years ago she decided she had had enough — starting by changing her circle of friends.
“I had to realise that as long as I stayed in the same environment and around the same people I was always going to fall back into it,” she said.
But she found asking for professional help was hard.
“You feel like everyone is looking at you like you’re the scum of the earth, so the last thing you want to do is say to someone ‘hey, I’m using ice’ and to ask for help, so a lot of people don’t.
“By the time they do it’s because they’ve really hit the wall and lost everything or they’re before a court.”
Ms Miller is now studying psychology and clinical science at Lismore’s Southern Cross University and is hoping to use her life experience to help others.
“I really would like to address the way that we talk about ice use, because people really need to question why would someone end up in this state in the first place — it’s not just a moral deficit,” she said.
Originally published as Lismore at the epicentre of ice epidemic ravaging regional NSW
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