By Luke Williams
Researching ice addiction, the writer moved in to a meth house. Over three months, he became seduced by the drug and descended into psychosis.
Rob’s bedroom is neat. It is in a neat new house, tightly packed alongside other neat new houses, on the fringe of one of Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Sitting in this neat room, on the corner of his bed, Rob holds a syringe full of crystal meth. Rob is, like thousands of Australians,
a methamphetamine addict.
For Rob, the loaded syringe is a ticket to a 12-hour all-encompassing sexual fantasy world, which he will spend the following week trying to realise. Gently, he eases the needle into his arm and dabs the blood off the entry point as he takes it back out.
His eyes sparkle, he gives a naughty grin, and the chitchat begins. He tells me about his latest sexual fantasy, pretending to be kidnapped by both a man and a woman so he can then be used at their leisure. “So,” he says, “tell me what you’ve been beating off about lately.” If you don’t answer Rob, he gets aggressive. Very aggressive. He is on meth, after all.
Australia has one of the highest rates of illicit methamphetamine use in the world, and the highest use among developed nations. And usage is increasing. In Victoria, abuse of crystal meth – also known as ice – is by all reports rampant. The number of deaths caused by the drug is increasing; the coroner’s office for the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association found that in 2010, one in every 25 drug-related deaths involved methamphetamines. Two years later, the figure had jumped to one in every 10 deaths. The Medical Journal of Australia last September published a study by Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre showing a 318 per cent increase in hospitalisations in Melbourne for ice problems from 2010-11 to 2011-12. It is unclear whether the increases were from a larger number of users or the result of greater purity of the available drug.
Nationally, some studies have shown meth use has risen by as much as 10 per cent over the past two years. A two-month research project into police detainees in key areas around the nation conducted this year by the Australian Institute of Criminology found 61 per cent of those held at Kings Cross police station in Sydney tested positive to amphetamine, as did 40 per cent of those who ended up in the Brisbane City watchhouse and 43 per cent of those in East Perth.
Statistics such as these have led to news reporting on meth use that borders on hysterical. So is the meth problem as bad as it seems?
http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/society/2014/08/02/life-crystal-meth-addict/1406901600#
Researching ice addiction, the writer moved in to a meth house. Over three months, he became seduced by the drug and descended into psychosis.
Rob’s bedroom is neat. It is in a neat new house, tightly packed alongside other neat new houses, on the fringe of one of Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Sitting in this neat room, on the corner of his bed, Rob holds a syringe full of crystal meth. Rob is, like thousands of Australians,
a methamphetamine addict.
For Rob, the loaded syringe is a ticket to a 12-hour all-encompassing sexual fantasy world, which he will spend the following week trying to realise. Gently, he eases the needle into his arm and dabs the blood off the entry point as he takes it back out.
His eyes sparkle, he gives a naughty grin, and the chitchat begins. He tells me about his latest sexual fantasy, pretending to be kidnapped by both a man and a woman so he can then be used at their leisure. “So,” he says, “tell me what you’ve been beating off about lately.” If you don’t answer Rob, he gets aggressive. Very aggressive. He is on meth, after all.
Australia has one of the highest rates of illicit methamphetamine use in the world, and the highest use among developed nations. And usage is increasing. In Victoria, abuse of crystal meth – also known as ice – is by all reports rampant. The number of deaths caused by the drug is increasing; the coroner’s office for the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association found that in 2010, one in every 25 drug-related deaths involved methamphetamines. Two years later, the figure had jumped to one in every 10 deaths. The Medical Journal of Australia last September published a study by Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre showing a 318 per cent increase in hospitalisations in Melbourne for ice problems from 2010-11 to 2011-12. It is unclear whether the increases were from a larger number of users or the result of greater purity of the available drug.
Nationally, some studies have shown meth use has risen by as much as 10 per cent over the past two years. A two-month research project into police detainees in key areas around the nation conducted this year by the Australian Institute of Criminology found 61 per cent of those held at Kings Cross police station in Sydney tested positive to amphetamine, as did 40 per cent of those who ended up in the Brisbane City watchhouse and 43 per cent of those in East Perth.
Statistics such as these have led to news reporting on meth use that borders on hysterical. So is the meth problem as bad as it seems?
http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/society/2014/08/02/life-crystal-meth-addict/1406901600#
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