‘Ice’ epidemic grips Geelong youth: Doctor

By Noel Murphy
GEELONG’S ice epidemic is fast proving itself the worst drug crisis the region has seen, according to local doctors.
The highly-addictive speed drug is already posing a greater health risk than the heroin crises of the past as it rapidly moves into the mainstream.
Police have described the drug scourge as “out of control’’.
Young adults appear the chief victims, with many presenting to their GPs anxious they can’t quit the drug and fearful of succumbing to the psychosis and serious physical effects closely linked to ice.
“There’s a lot of it around, it’s much more dangerous than everything else and there’s not much treatment,’’ Lara GP Mark Davie told the Independent.
“Talking to lots of GPs, most have regular patients saying they’ve got problems with ice addiction.
“Psychiatric services are also seeing an awful lot of people whose brains are scrambled by it. It does terrible things.’’
Geelong police detectives, speaking on condition of anonymity, backed Dr Davie’s comments, telling the Independent ice use across the region is dramatically widespread.
“It’s rife, out of control,’’ one detective said.
Dr Davie, who has worked with heroin addicts for more than a decade through Barwon Health’s Drug and Alcohol Service, said ice use across Geelong was “as big a problem as we’ve had with anything, including heroin’’.
“There’s much more of it and many more people using it,’’ he said.
“The number of ordinary people presenting in general practice, that’s what’s so scary.
“It tends to be younger people, mostly people in their 20s, saying ‘I’m having trouble with ice, I can’t stop it, I can’t sleep’. They need help getting off it.’’
Dr Davie said ice addiction was not restricted to obviously troubled users. Often addicts were holding down jobs, used the drug for an energy kick but then found themselves addicted and spending all their money on the drug.
“Not all users have scrambled brains,’’ he said. “But that is the very real risk.’’
Geelong’s ice epidemic has been highlighted by multiple raids in recent months on illegal drug laboratories across the region from Lara and North Shore through Grovedale to Leopold and St Leonards.
Police have uncovered millions of dollars of drugs, numerous charges have been laid in relation to the raids, a huge cache of firearms has been seized with a special unit set up by police in a bid to to fight the drug scourge.