Call for action on ice scourge,October 19, 2006NSW Premier Morris Iemma has asked Prime Minister John Howard to help draw up an urgent national action plan to tackle the growing scourge of the drug ice.
Mr Iemma today said he had written to Mr Howard and all state and territory leaders to hold a national forum on "this ice plague" before the end of the year.
He said the leaders could use the forum to draw up an action plan to work out ways to rehabilitate ice addicts and reduce crime and family breakdowns associated with the drug.
"While there are no easy answers, we are determined that law enforcement and health officials will work together as will state, territory and federal jurisdictions," Mr Iemma told parliament.
"It is appropriate that we take strong action to minimise the damage caused by the use of this drug and its supply.
"It is a dirty, filthy, pervasive chemical cocktail and Australia needs more prevention, more enforcement and more treatment options.
"We want to know our kids are protected from this drug, that young people who fall prey to its evil effects can be rescued in time and that the vermin who pedal this menace on our streets are crushed with the full and overwhelming force of the law."
The NSW government has announced that five new psychiatric emergency care centres are being built to safely handle people badly affected by ice.
"The responses that we get from people who use these drugs can be quite impulsive, quite unpredictable, and sometimes quite violent,'' Health Minister John Hatzistergos told reporters.
"We've had to modify some of our emergency departments to ensure we can maintain an environment of safety for the individuals who are affected, and for our staff.
"We've got psychiatric emergency care measures now in a number of emergency departments and we are planning to construct more.''
Psychiatric emergency care centres are already operating alongside emergency departments at Sydney's St Vincent's, Liverpool, Nepean, and St George hospitals.
Centres at hospitals in the Sydney areas of Campbelltown, Hornsby and Blacktown, and at Wyong and Wollongong on the coasts north and south of the capital, should be operational by the end of next year.
Mr Hatzistergos said an advertising campaign using text messages to mobile phones, promotions in pubs and warnings about the dangers of ice had begun in the lead-up to this year's party season.
National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre information officer Paul Dillon said ice had created a range of problems for frontline workers, including police and emergency department staff.
"Instead of having a group of people attend a treatment centre who are sedated, we are now seeing them come in a state of agitation and quite manic,'' Mr Dillon said.
The 2005 Illicit Drug Reporting System figures on ice use illustrated the upwards trend. Of injecting drug users surveyed, 14 per cent reported using ice in 2000. This jumped to 45 per cent in 2004 then fell slightly to 38 per cent last year. New figures are due out next month.
Mr Dillon welcomed steps to improve psychiatric emergency care, but warned against losing sight of problems caused by heroin and alcohol.
"We still need to remember that the biggest cause of illicit drug death continues to be heroin and the number one problem that hospitals are seeing around the country continues to be alcohol,'' he said.
AAP and Elicia Murray
2.not just drugs problems. Sure corruptions involved.
if u stay in Aussie,pl share more here.
3.
added 27.10.2006This drug lives up to our worst nightmare,OPINION Matt Price,October 28, 2006"It's big, it's big," he exclaims. "It rots your brain and we really don't know how to deal with it. The hype is completely justified. People - parents - should be very scared."....
They saw for themselves the extra security guards deployed to cater for the ultra-aggressive ice victims and the lock-up cells used to placate patients lurching out of control.....
"It's as if after all these years experimenting they've finally come up with the perfect drug, particularly suited to the Australian lifestyle. It's cheap, it's small, it's easy to hide. It works instantly and is insanely powerful. You can smoke it or swallow it or inject it. You don't rely on the Mujaheddin or sunlight or rain for supply, people can cook it up in their back yard. The dealers are making huge profits and, unlike heroin, you're not going to die straight away."
Where we're sitting is a short walk from the notorious Kings Cross strip. Fulde waves his arms and grunts: "And don't think this is confined to Darlinghurst and the so-called degenerative underclass. Ice users are across every level of society. That's what's really frightening; there are so many people using who we don't see here, or haven't yet. They're in trouble and just barely coping." .....
If u are sending kids to Aussie,just do some home works and Good Luck.
