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UN drugs report highlights Australian ice problem
AM - Monday, 18 June , 2007 08:21:00
Reporter: Rafael Epstein
TONY EASTLEY: Another international drug report is expected to warn Australia about the growing dangers of the methamphetamine or ice market. The United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime will release its report into illicit drug use in Australia this week.
The Office's Under-Secretary-General, Antonio Maria Costa, will visit Sydney and Melbourne delivering his verdict on the impact of Australia's drug policies on drug consumption. He spoke to our Europe Correspondent Rafael Epstein.
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA: Drug use levels are pretty high still in Australia, and we know that by international standards, but the situation is less alarming than a decade ago, and this is because very forceful initiatives have been undertaken by the Government.
My recommendation to the Government is to continue along this path and indeed show further results in the years to come.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Australia, like many countries, has a problem with methamphetamine, ice, however you like to call it. And in particular, Western Australia believes it has a problem with a higher than the national average use of that drug, and they're going to have a summit on it soon.
I wonder if the same methods used for other illicit drugs - speed, cocaine, heroin - the same law enforcement and education programs, is it a similar thing for ice? Should the same sorts of programs be pursued?
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA: As I've seen, you are putting the finger on the real difficult question we are facing. To a large extent, methamphetamines escape the pattern of the other drugs. First, because they are manufactured not in a faraway location, very often in the same country, and it even happens in the same city, or perhaps even in the same neighbourhood where they are consumed.
As a consequence, even the law enforcement approach tends to be very different, and I would say impaired, as against what happens to opium and heroin, you know, coming from ten of thousands of miles away, Afghanistan, Myanmar and so on and so forth.
So, we have a law enforcement problem, I would say even a gap or a difficulty. Second, is produced with readily-available, in most cases, precursors and therefore even the measures and the mechanisms and the intelligence and the control delivery and everything else which has been established for more difficult to find precursors, it does not apply to this.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: You mean where it's difficult to find the contents for something like speed, the ingredients, you don't have that problem with ice?
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA: And it is also more difficult to find the contents. So, all of this creates a very different paradigm. In addition to, on the consumption side, the question of people feeling that, you know, mothers saying "Well, you know, as long as my son does not inject it, it's okay, it's just a pill, you know, he takes sleeping pills, or I take …" sort of a benign neglect which is very detrimental.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Are you saying that smoking a drug like ice or taking it in another non-intravenous way is the same as injecting some other drugs?
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA: Well, in terms of consequences on the brain, you know, amphetamines and methamphetamines have one dramatic consequence and impact on the health of individuals, they basically drill holes, if you allow me this metaphor, in the brain of the consuming individuals.
But the damage is irreversible in terms of consequences on the functioning of the brain. So all of this calls for significant attentions on the severity of the problem.
TONY EASTLEY: The UN Drugs on Crime Office's Antonio Maria Costa speaking there with out Europe Correspondent Rafael Epstein.
ABC