PM - Wednesday, 8 March , 2006 18:40:00
Reporter: Jean Kennedy
MARK COLVIN: There's been a dramatic rise in the popularity of the drug crystal methamphetamine in Australia, or "ice" as it's known.
It's the most pure form of the drug usually known as speed, and is highly addictive, with alarming potential side effects.
Police and frontline health workers in hospital emergency departments are increasingly having to deal with the more heavily dependent users who are in a psychotic rage and often need to be restrained.
The drug's apparently coming in from South East Asia, or being made here in backyard drug labs.
Jean Kennedy's report begins with this description of a crystal meth user.
GORDIAN FULDE: They're just totally mad, totally violent, totally aggressive. They bang their heads, they punch, they bite, they scream, they do anything. They, ah, … you've just got to see it to believe it.
JEAN KENNEDY: Associate Professor Gordian Fulde runs the Emergency Department at Sydney's St Vincent’s Hospital, and is describing the most extreme example of what happens when people take the drug crystal methamphetamine, or "ice", as it's known.
GORDIAN FULDE: It's one of the nastiest drugs I've seen. Nothing scares me as much, and I've been in the game for 25 years, the boss here, as somebody who is really one of the extreme examples, who is totally ape from crystal met.
JEAN KENNEDY: Since the late 1990s there's been a steady and notable increase in the use of crystal methamphetamine, which is the most pure form of speed and is either injected or smoked.
Heavily dependent users can suffer episodes of psychosis and describe feelings of persecution, such as believing people are "out to get them".
Doctor Rebecca McKetin is from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, and has been examining the use of the drug.
REBECCA MCKETIN: It did peak during the heroin shortage of 2001, when a lot of heroin users couldn't get heroin so they switched to using other psycho stimulant drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine or crystal meth, but certainly this increase is a much more sustained increase, and the use of crystal meth is much broader than just heroin users.
JEAN KENNEDY: Do you think that the fact that you can smoke crystal meth is a factor in its popularity?
REBECCA MCKETIN: Definitely. Smoking crystal meth has become increasingly popular over the past few years, and one of the things that concerns me about the popularity of smoking crystal meth is it's not as stigmatised as injecting the drug.
JEAN KENNEDY: Alarm bells about the drug were sounded last week when the International Narcotics Control Board said it was concerned that it was becoming a major drug pandemic.
Dr McKetin says the drug is both imported into Australia, and being produced locally.
REBECCA MCKETIN: Most of the crystal meth that we see in Australia is imported from South East Asia, although we are starting to see evidence of it being produced domestically. Traditionally we've had a lot of methamphetamine produced domestically, which is usually sold on the street as speed or base, but now we're starting to see the crystallised form of the drug produced here as well.
JEAN KENNEDY: And the use of the drug is not a problem confined to the urban centres, with a growing number of people turning up at hospital emergency departments in rural and regional centres across Australia.
At St Vincent's Hospital, on the edge of Sydney's Kings Cross district, more and more people are seeking medical help for panic attacks after taking the drug. But in the most dire cases, they're brought in by the police in a state of high aggression, and have to be restrained.
Doctor Peter McGeorge is the hospital's Director of Mental Health Services.
PETER MCGEORGE: If they're extremely aggressive then they just simply have to sedate them to protect themselves and to protect other people from them, and they're given intramuscular medication, sedation. Sometimes they do require physical restraint and, you know, it's really a medical emergency that they have to deal with immediately.
In the case of methamphetamine you really are going to a totally different level. The amount of rage, the threat that they pose is just phenomenal and you do actually need very high security facilities to take people in.
JEAN KENNEEDY: Only last week a 33-year-old man who was charged over the shooting of a Sydney police officer was alleged to have been smoking the drug.
Dr McGeorge says state and federal governments are going to have to provide additional resources to deal with the fallout from the emerging prevalence of crystal methamphetamine.
PETER MCGEORGE: A lot of the early predictions on what would be required in terms of mental health services that came out in the National Mental Health Plan, back in the early 1990s, just couldn't foresee the impact of methamphetamine on the mental health of the population, and so not only are we requiring more resources overall than was early on predicted, but we are requiring quite specific facilities and specially trained staff to be able manage the problem, even to a minor extent
MARK COLVIN: Dr Peter McGeorge from Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, ending Jean Kennedy's report. | 