poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
Four Corners: Australian country towns in ice epidemic
CHILDREN as young as 11 are injecting ice to escape the boredom of country life and the problem is ravaging Australian towns.
Four Corners reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna went to take a closer look at the issue visiting regional Tasmania including Devonport, Burnie and surrounding towns and regional Victoria where they visited Ballarat, Castlemaine and St Arnaud. What she found was shocking.
At only 15, Jake* was an ice dealer, a user and a crystal meth cook.
‘Jake’ is the new face of crystal meth, or ice, in Australia. It’s the drug that’s ravaged our major cities. But now it’s destroying country towns one by one.
GROWING PROBLEM: Drugs like ice have Australia hooked
SHOCKING: Video shows the disturbing actions of ice addicts while high on the drug
Meldrum-Hanna travelled through the regions of two states, riding with police and users, to tell the shocking story of towns and people in the grip of ice.
She pieced together a disturbing picture of major international drug cartels working with locally based outlaw motorcycle gangs to push ice out of the cities.
It’s a massive illicit corporate enterprise — sophisticated and highly organised.
Drug paraphernalia. Needle. Syringe. Drugs. Injecting. Generic image.
Large scale ... major international drug cartels are working with local bikie gangs to push out the drug. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied
Their targets are captive markets of bored teenagers in country towns, where there’s a desperate lack of treatment facilities and under resourced or non-existent police.
Four Corners went to one community of fewer than 4000 people where up to one in 10 are using ice.
Meldrum-Hanna met with teenagers who began using in their early teens, she sat with them as they smoked ice and with others as they injected, and discovered how bikie gangs used other children to “cook” methamphetamine, destroying their health and leaving them with ruinous addiction.
The program tells the story of a generation that is being condemned to a life of drug abuse, crime and ultimately early death.
What will shock viewers the most is how young ice users have become.
One clinical nurse at the coalface in regional Australia said: “The demographic for ice is changing all the time. We’re noticing the age actually dropping, there’s been reports of 10-year-olds presenting at the Emergency Department here.”
Seventeen-year-old Ethan* is a prime example of the power and spread of ice and the reality of what’s happening beyond city borders.
He was injected by a local drug dealer when he was just a boy. He says it took just one night for him to get hooked.
This sent his life into a downward spiral that caused him to leave school, join a crystal meth pack of fellow young addicts hopping from town to town chasing ice, stealing from people night and day to feed their addiction.
Not even his family was safe.
“Mum locked the door on me and I remember thinking ... if I get in there I will hurt her for money. I will get money out of her some, one way or another,” he said.
As each person’s story is told it becomes clear that there is almost nowhere for young addicts in regional Australia to get help. That leaves health workers in despair.
ICE RUSH, reported by Caro Meldrum-Hanna and presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes airs tonight at 8.30pm on ABC. It can also be seen on ABC iview or the Four Corners site.
*Names changed to protect the identity of children
http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...-in-ice-epidemic/story-e6frfmyi-1227095999214
CHILDREN as young as 11 are injecting ice to escape the boredom of country life and the problem is ravaging Australian towns.
Four Corners reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna went to take a closer look at the issue visiting regional Tasmania including Devonport, Burnie and surrounding towns and regional Victoria where they visited Ballarat, Castlemaine and St Arnaud. What she found was shocking.
At only 15, Jake* was an ice dealer, a user and a crystal meth cook.
‘Jake’ is the new face of crystal meth, or ice, in Australia. It’s the drug that’s ravaged our major cities. But now it’s destroying country towns one by one.
GROWING PROBLEM: Drugs like ice have Australia hooked
SHOCKING: Video shows the disturbing actions of ice addicts while high on the drug
Meldrum-Hanna travelled through the regions of two states, riding with police and users, to tell the shocking story of towns and people in the grip of ice.
She pieced together a disturbing picture of major international drug cartels working with locally based outlaw motorcycle gangs to push ice out of the cities.
It’s a massive illicit corporate enterprise — sophisticated and highly organised.
Drug paraphernalia. Needle. Syringe. Drugs. Injecting. Generic image.
Large scale ... major international drug cartels are working with local bikie gangs to push out the drug. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied
Their targets are captive markets of bored teenagers in country towns, where there’s a desperate lack of treatment facilities and under resourced or non-existent police.
Four Corners went to one community of fewer than 4000 people where up to one in 10 are using ice.
Meldrum-Hanna met with teenagers who began using in their early teens, she sat with them as they smoked ice and with others as they injected, and discovered how bikie gangs used other children to “cook” methamphetamine, destroying their health and leaving them with ruinous addiction.
The program tells the story of a generation that is being condemned to a life of drug abuse, crime and ultimately early death.
What will shock viewers the most is how young ice users have become.
One clinical nurse at the coalface in regional Australia said: “The demographic for ice is changing all the time. We’re noticing the age actually dropping, there’s been reports of 10-year-olds presenting at the Emergency Department here.”
Seventeen-year-old Ethan* is a prime example of the power and spread of ice and the reality of what’s happening beyond city borders.
He was injected by a local drug dealer when he was just a boy. He says it took just one night for him to get hooked.
This sent his life into a downward spiral that caused him to leave school, join a crystal meth pack of fellow young addicts hopping from town to town chasing ice, stealing from people night and day to feed their addiction.
Not even his family was safe.
“Mum locked the door on me and I remember thinking ... if I get in there I will hurt her for money. I will get money out of her some, one way or another,” he said.
As each person’s story is told it becomes clear that there is almost nowhere for young addicts in regional Australia to get help. That leaves health workers in despair.
ICE RUSH, reported by Caro Meldrum-Hanna and presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes airs tonight at 8.30pm on ABC. It can also be seen on ABC iview or the Four Corners site.
*Names changed to protect the identity of children
http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...-in-ice-epidemic/story-e6frfmyi-1227095999214
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")