NSW courts are repeatedly ordering ice users treatment programs that cannot take them, as funding cuts and staff shortages leave a generation of addicts stranded without support.

Last week, a landmark report by the Australian Crime Commission found that ice use now poses the highest risk to the Australian community out of all illicit drug use. But at the same time as crystal meth use is cutting a swath through entire communities, more users are turning to crime, and showing up as repeat offenders in courts, because there is nowhere to access support.

On Wednesday, Allan Anderson, a registered psychologist based in Kempsey, on the NSW Mid North Coast, spent hours making calls on behalf of a 23-year-old ice addict who, earlier that day, was ordered into drug rehabilitation by the local court.

"I couldn't find a thing," he said. Mr Anderson explained how one service had a three-month waiting list, another didn't accept women while another advised there was "no point interviewing her" because its wait list was so long. "This is not just her story. It's a typical story. There are hundreds like her, desperate for help, with nowhere to go."

Dr Matthew Frei, president of the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, said the unfolding crisis was compounded by an additional shortage of specialist physicians.

"There are only 200 of us in Australia and New Zealand. We are thin on the ground and we are finding it hard to attract junior doctors." said Dr Frei who added that with an average workforce age of 56, many would be lost to retirement in the next few years.

"At the moment the only treatment we really offer for methamphetamine addiction is psycho-social or counselling-type therapies. That's not to say those therapies don't have good results. But in most other types of addiction such as alcohol or heroin, they are treated with a combination of medical therapy and counselling. Drugs like methamphetamine change the brain chemistry very quickly. We can't just say the brain will fix itself up with talking. We have to do the talking but we also have to provide medical therapies so the person can listen."

He added: "I don't think methamphetamine use has peaked yet."

 

Earlier this month, the Baird government unveiled a range of measures to tackle the ice epidemic, including greater law enforcement power. The policy funded three new Stimulant Treatment Programs in the Illawarra, Mid North Coast and western Sydney regions. The clinics will run in tandem with two existing facilities in Newcastle and at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital – which has a waiting list of more than 100 people.

"We want to halt the march of this insidious drug and start putting lives and families back together," he said.

But the Coalition strategy featured no rehabilitation services for the state's youth.

The Sun-Herald can reveal that one Sydney mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has set up a "parents' group" in Sydney's Eastern suburbs after being put in contact with others, like her, whose teenagers have become hooked on the drug. "My son was in and out of court," she said. "He was crying out for professional help and yet it took more than a year to secure a place on a program. It is scary how many parents are now going through the same nightmare. This drug is everywhere. The system is not coping."

My seven-year drug hell

For seven years David* was a functioning ice addict. His story shows what can happen when the right help is at  hand.

For seven years I have struggled to overcome a reliance on meth that I could not understand. I would go to doctors, a grown man, crying in their office desperate for help in getting off it. And do you know what their advice was?  Stop. That was it. That was the level of their concern and understanding of what this substance does.

I'm a university educated man. I've been in managerial positions with a high degree of public interaction most of my working life. I didn't try my first drug until I was in my late 20s and yet managed to fool everyone for seven years. For seven years I was on a roller-coaster ride through massive highs and suicidal lows that none of my colleagues or friends realised I was on. I became a master at deception. I was consumed by work and, in the limited free time I had, I was wired within an inch of my life engaging in behaviour that, when I think of it now, makes me feel physically ill. Ice became my only friend. It was the only thing that made life bearable, even though it was the thing that was killing me. It wasn't until I was placed into the stimulant treatment program at St Vincent's hospital that my life turned around.

They are doing amazing work. Through therapy I was able to identify triggers for my usage. From that I was able to face issues from my past that I had not fully dealt with. Crucially, they also taught me about the chemical reactions going on in my body, when I used, which made a massive difference in my recovery. Therapy, self awareness, practising presence, working on self esteem, and exercise are what, somehow, brought me through to the other side.

I can honestly tell you that, if not for the centre, I would not be alive now.

As these substances creep further into the fabric of our communities, I think it is of utmost importance that people learn that it cannot be fixed by merely trying to catch the people making it. The biggest lesson I have learnt is that the substance was replacing things missing in my life – primarily a sense of worth that was not attached to my status in life, my grades, or how successful I appeared to others. The people I have seen enslaved by this are doctors, lawyers, business people, PhD students – intelligent and successful people who, quite often, have built their entire self worth around their work achievements but have little esteem in themselves as a person outside of that context. They are products of our society who have not been encouraged to develop themselves fully outside of their achievements. I truly believe this is an area that needs to be looked into further in order to prevent more people from getting sucked into it.

It needs to be on the national agenda.

*Not his real name

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