Overcoming the horror and misery of the drug ice.

Broadcast: 23/03/2007

Reporter: Elvira Nuic

REBECCA CARMODY (PRESENTER): The misery that drugs can inflict on people's lives has been well documented this week. Around the world one of the biggest problem drugs is methamphetamine or ice. It's no different here in Western Australia. Locally, police and the Health Department are planning a summit to investigate ways of tackling what some are calling the ice epidemic. As those on the front line struggle to cope with the problem, Perth researchers say the impact of the highly addictive drug may be worse than first thought. Elvira Nuic reports:

DR FRANK DALY (ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL): There are the young people with the acute delirium who are tearing the place apart. We've seen people from the ages of 14 to the age of 60, we've seen people from all levels of education, all different professional groups.

SUPERINTENDENT JIM MIGRO (WA POLICE): What we're talking about is toxic cocktails that people are actually putting into their bodies, they're manufactured in clandestine drug laboratories and people have no control of what these substances are.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): It's the most potent amphetamine ever to hit our streets. It's highly addictive, cheaper than a night out drinking and a habit that's leading a growing number of addicts to places like this.

YARISSA HERMAN (EAST PERTH NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLINIC): You've been referred here by your case manager for an evaluation of your thinking skills. So today we're going to do a number of tests...

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): East Perth's neuropsychology clinic can be the end of the line for unsuspecting ice users.

MARJORIE COLLINS (EAST PERTH NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLINIC): Really what they're revealing is how a person's thinking skills are and we've found that with everyone who's come through the clinic for our assessment, all of the methamphetamine clients are compromised.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Two out of every three methamphetamine addicts will suffer a mental health disability. Staff here help tailor treatment programs for patients and have witnessed the impact first hand. Dr Marjorie Collins says their research shows the impact on brain function is more severe than first thought

MARJORIE COLLINS (EAST PERTH NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLINIC): This brain damage is significant enough in some people to really compromise their every day living. Even the ice users themselves, I think initially they didn't realise the impact that it would have on themselves, on their lives. I've had a number of them say to me, I don't feel really quite right any more in the head, I don't feel as if i'm thinking in the same way as I use to think before.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The so-called ice age began in Australia earlier this decade around the same time as the heroin drought. It appealed to Asian drug syndicates because it can be produced cheaply. But these day it's being increasingly manufactured in suburban backyards by organised crime gangs. And in WA, almost one is uncovered every day.

SUPERINTENDENT JIM MIGRO (WA POLICE): What we're noticing in Western Australia is the level of organising of these people and the manufacturing that they're doing is more sophisticated.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Police will hold an Ice summit later this year to thrash out ways of combating the problem. They're already in talks with the Director of Public Prosecution about how to take the profit out of ice manufacturing. One idea is to declare someone a trafficker, not based on how much of the drug they're caught with, but how much their lab is capable of producing.

SUPERINTENDENT JIM MIGRO (WA POLICE): When we have people declared drug traffickers we can actually seize all of their property and all of their money. So they go to jail, when they come out of jail they haven't got any money. Whereas in the past, they'd go to jail for a few years, if they came out and still had a big bank role, some people thought it was worth while.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The government Drug and Alcohol Office is helping co-ordinate the summit but has a different opinion on the scale of the problem.

TERRY MURPHY (DRUG AND ALCOHOL OFFICE): People get very concerned about, what is the main problem of the day? And whereas in the 90s it was heroin and people were rightly concerned about that, today it's amphetamines and people are rightly concerned, but it's not that everybody's doing it. In fact the numbers who are doing it are going down.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Statewide there has been a slight drop in the number of ice users. And new figures also show the number of WA school students who've tried amphetamines has dropped from 10.3 per cent in 2002 to 6.5 per cent in 2005.

TERRY MURPHY (DRUG AND ALCOHOL OFFICE): One very pleasing result is that our treatment services are engaging people and holding people who have amphetamine problems. Between a fifth and a quarter of people who go to drug and alcohol treatment are there for amphetamines and that's much higher than the national average. So our services are adapting.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): But less than a third of users seek treatment and on the front line the drop in user numbers isn't being felt. Western Australia has the highest rate of amphetamine use in the country. The number of dependent users is almost double that of heroin, one in ten have tried it and in 2004 there were 11 amphetamine related deaths. Health services concede the chaos ice has unleashed was unexpected.

DR FRANK DALY (ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL): We've now had a few years to come to terms with the problem but it did I think catch many of us by surprise.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Frank Daly is the head of emergency medicine at Royal Perth Hospital. He says the number of ice users presenting to the ED has soared.

DR FRANK DALY (ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL): We did a study last year and essentially we were seeing one-and-a-half to two patients each day. So that translates to six or 700 patients a year who are coming in with problems that are directly related to amphetamine use.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Dr Daly worked here during the heroin crisis of the 90s. He says that doesn't compare with what they're seeing now.

DR FRANK DALY (ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL): We have to divert resources towards looking after them and because they're disruptive, they effect all the people around them as well. And as everyone is aware our emergency departments are increasingly overcrowded at the moment so when these people come in it effects all the grandfathers and grandmothers who've got other unrelated medical problems.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The East Perth Neuropsychology clinic says mental health services are also struggling. And Dr Marjorie Collins says their research shows current treatment options may be a waste of time.

MARJORIE COLLINS (EAST PERTH NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLINIC): For example cognitive behaviour therapy is often used but that assumes you have intact memory, you can remember what's happened in the session. But we're actually saying, we're not actually finding intact memory in people who've been using ice for a period of time.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): As the Ice summit approaches, while there's argument over the size of the problem, there's no dispute that education will be the key to halting the wave of ice victims.

DR FRANK DALY (ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL): The other sad case that sticks in my mind is a young man who's a professional, he's got his whole life ahead of him, he's in his 20s and he's had a stroke and he's completely paralysed on one side and that's a tragedy.