Cowboy Mac
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Rich kids turn to new drug
Patrick O'Neil
January 12, 2004
AUTHORITIES are moving to ban pipes used to smoke a drug corrupting affluent teenagers across Victoria.
The spread of ice, a powerful amphetamine that is smoked, and which can turn users into violent psychopaths, has sparked moves to ban the sale of the pipes.
A Herald Sun investigation found more than 10,000 of the purpose-built "crack" pipes, costing up to $50 each, are legally sold in Victoria every month.
Major shopping centres have the pipes on display in full view of window shoppers and children.
A crack pipe supplier told the at the peak of the ice craze he was selling 10,000 pipes a month through shops across the state.
"We can produce them for 50 cents and they are moving way faster than bongs," the supplier said.
The Herald Sun found individual smoking paraphernalia shops were selling up to 50 pipes a week.
Consumer Affairs Minister John Lenders confirmed the State Government was investigating ways to remove the pipes from sale.
"Consumer Affairs, police and the Department of Human Services are looking at possible ways to ban ice pipes," Mr Lenders said.
Mr Lenders said CAV had responded to police concerns about the availability of the pipes.
Selling for $40 a hit, ice can lead to paranoid delusions, psychotic episodes and violence.
Users often stay awake for days. More than 500,000 Australians have used ice, a Turning Point drug clinic doctor said.
Raymond Hader drug clinic director Richard Smith said smoking ice was causing some rich kids to turn violent.
"When things fall apart they are protected (financially) but they still end up becoming psychotic and coming to me," he said.
"It is the rich kids, the Toorak kids. It is becoming very big in the clubbing scene. There has been an increase in violence and violent crime because they are getting into ice."
Mr Smith said in 18 years counselling drug addicts he had never been attacked until ice hit Melbourne.
"In the last two years I have had four extremely violent incidents where I have had my life threatened. It is all due to people on ice," he said.
Drug experts claim more than one in five people in their 20s have smoked the drug.
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre spokesman Paul Dillon said ice use was experiencing a rapid rise.
"We hadn't really seen it before a couple of years ago," Mr Dillon said.
"Now it is the second most popular drug behind cannabis," he said.
Ice is a powerful form of the amphetamine speed converted into crystal for smoking. Speed usually has a purity from 5-15 per cent but ice is more than 75 per cent pure.
Law enforcement, health and forensic communities as well as drug counsellors told the Herald Sun they were feeling the impact of the surge in ice users.
Department of Human Services figures show the number of people seeking treatment for amphetamine addiction has more than doubled in three years.
An Australian Federal Police report found the largest amounts of ice seized on Australia's borders came in the first half of last year.
Customs seized more than 233kg of ice in the 2002-03 financial year.
South-East Asia was the source of 98.5 per cent of seizures and the average weight of a seizure was increasing.
I find this rather pointless because it will only force users to move to potentially more dangerous implements to smoke with such as broken light globes. I can understand why they feel they need a zero tolerance approach to the issue, however it will do little to curb use. Bongs are still being sold, and a home made crack pipe is no more difficult to make than a home made bong. The government should put its time into some better strategies.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
