hoptis
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When only the next shot makes a life worth living
Vassil Papageorgiou does a "wash" to collect any remaining meth in his used syringe.
Photo: Meredith O'shea
Reid Sexton
March 11, 2007
DRUG addict Vassil Papageorgiou jabs the syringe into his right thigh as he sits in his Y-fronts on the toilet in his small East Melbourne flat.
A globule of blood emerges where the needle breaks the skin and Papageorgiou's eyes roll back in his head as the drug and other gunk courses through his veins. He slumps as the pain that has been racking his body dissipates.
The pain was really only in his head, he knows. And what gives Papageorgiou momentary relief is also what might end up killing him. He knows that, too.
Vassil Papageorgiou — as these shocking pictures show — is one of the many Victorians convinced that they are ice addicts.
But police, drug experts and some addicts say Melbourne's "ice storm" is a myth exploited by dealers who charge users double simply by selling low-grade methamphetamine in crystalline form.
Inspector Steve James, the head of Victoria Police's Alcohol and Drug Strategy Unit, said users who buy what they think is ice are being duped.
Drugs seized by police have less than one-fifth the potency of ice, usually defined as crystalline methamphetamine, which is about 80 per cent pure.
"What you can do is mix basic meth with another substance that makes it crystalline so you can smoke it," Inspector James said.
"Crystalline doesn't change the purity, it just makes it so you can smoke it and what you think you're getting is ice, when really it's just meth … Most of it is around 15 per cent."
Professor Nick Crofts, the director of Fitzroy's Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, said real ice may find its way to "the top end of town".
"Classically we have considered ice to be crystalline methamphetamine of around 80 per cent purity, and if that's the definition, then … it's not on the streets of Melbourne," he said.
"You don't become dependent on the purity, you become dependent on the drug. Then you use whatever you can get to maintain that dependence."
And it's a dependence that can prove deadly. Methamphetamine has killed 12 Victorians since July last year.
But recent data, Professor Crofts said, showed Australian methamphetamine use had remained stable since the heroin flood finished more than five years ago.
Another leading methamphetamine expert, Professor John Fitzgerald from Melbourne University, said meth use in Victoria may be falling.
He said recent reports that Victoria was in the grip of an ice epidemic had happened for two reasons.
"There's a general feeling among experts in the drug and alcohol arena that we should have been on to the issue of amphetamines several years ago," he said.
"The second (reason) though is there is a tendency to try and find the next drug problem. This is often misplaced interest by politicians.
"It's no surprise this is a federal election year and there's interest … to make ice a big issue in election year."
But electioneering holds no interest for Lisa Smith. Every morning before she goes to work the 40-year-old injects what she believes to be ice. The habit gives her the energy to get through the day, she says.
Lisa, who insists on using a false name, represents the flip side of the underworld drug culture. She has a career in the health industry, goes to work each day and makes a reasonably good living.
But most mornings she is jolted awake by a craving for the drug she calls ice. She reaches into the bedside-cabinet to take out a syringe, drugs and water.
Once the new needle is carefully filled with drug crystals and water from a sterilised spoon she stands and plunges it into her groin.
She instantly relaxes and sits back as a warm feeling spreads from her stomach, rises to her throat and hits the back of her eyeballs.
Her eyes glaze. Her energy level rises.
Lisa dresses in a smart casual sleeveless top and skirt. Before leaving for work she prepares another syringe she will shoot up at lunchtime.
The euphoria lasts only a minute, she says, but the effect will keep her on an even keel for the next five or six hours and she will feel more alert and much happier.
It is, she said, crucial she has her fix every day. "I feel very lethargic without it. I can become very depressed. I don't function well without it."
Though Lisa does not have the hollow eyes and skinny face that characterise most long-term addicts, she has had serious drug-related health problems.
The veins in both arms have collapsed, she burst a blood vessel in her eye, she has had hepatitis C and once nearly died from an overdose.
Her 20-year addiction has cost her her family. It is 10 years since she has spoken with her parents, longer since any contact with her siblings.
Lisa first tried methamphetamine when she was just 17 and kept going because she enjoyed the high.
She pays $500 each week to a dealer in Malvern for "ice" she believes is 70 per cent pure. She says her salary of more than $50,000 a year is proof she can function in society.
"I eat regularly, sleep regularly … I limit myself so it doesn't get out of control. My dependency is the same as the guy who sits in the pub every night and has a few beers."
Lisa said that the "ice epidemic" had been exaggerated and that most addicts were not violent criminals but responsible citizens, like her.
Still, she would like the State Government to introduce a program using the substitute drug dexamphetamine to offer people like her a better chance of kicking the habit.
But while Lisa Smith is convinced she is an ice addict, Steve Johnson, who has smoked ice for eight years, agrees with the police assessment that there is no ice in Melbourne.
There is, he says, an ice drought, which has seen supplies on Melbourne's streets dry up.
For two months he and his friends in the northern suburbs have injected speed instead of sharing an ice-pipe. "I know about 10 dealers and there's none around at all," the 33-year-old, who doesn't want his real surname used, said.
"It's been like that for a month or two … The police are cracking down on most of the big boys, at the docks, the bikies.
"Now speed has taken over and there's no ice."
He says the only difference between ice and meth is the filler the drugs are cut with. Users would be lucky to score drugs that are 40 per cent pure, he says.
Inspector James warns users that they put their lives on the line every time they take a hit.
To maximise profits, dealers are cutting drugs with all kinds of stuff ranging from caffeine to arthritis medication.
"This stuff is not party or recreational … this stuff is extremely dangerous," Inspector James said. Methamphetamines are not an epidemic sweeping Melbourne, he said. They formed part of the broader trend of drug use.
"The cycles change every 10 years," he said. "You may get your opiates, which is your heroin, then that goes quiet again, then amphetamines, then back to heroin again."
But the State Minister for Mental Health, Lisa Neville, defended the Government's "war on ice".
"The Government's attack on drugs must be flexible enough to address emerging substances and stop them from having a devastating effect on our community," she said in a statement.
But Vassil Papageorgiou doesn't know or care about any drug debate. What he believes is that ice, along with the heroin he was addicted to years ago, has addled his head and destroyed his social life. He has no job, no partner and not much of a life. He doesn't even have a regular dealer, not any more.
Every day he prowls inner-city streets in search of a score. His addiction costs up to $700 a week and he gets the money from the dole and, he says, busking. He insists crime never pays for his fix. But he does say if it has been a bad week he will settle for cheap methamphetamine pills bought from pharmacies by people with prescriptions.
The pills help prevent the debilitating effects of withdrawal. "Your body shakes and your limbs jolt if you are not on it," he says. "You don't feel physically sick like you do with heroin but because it's psychosomatic you can feel pain anywhere."
Ice causes the pain and ice takes it away, for a while anyway.
Papageorgiou knows this, too, and wants to get off the drug. He beat heroin three years ago and reckons he has a good chance.
"I can only get better. I'm 43 years old and there's nothing else (no other drug) I can do. I've done everything. I've enjoyed it. I don't want to do the same shit."
The Age
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
being about 15% purity explains it.