‘An estimated 350’000 Australians have snorted, smoked or injected crystal methamphetamine in the past year.’ - ICE Rush, 2015 ICE known as the ‘pleasure drug’ has become a growing problem throughout Australia in the last 10 years. Because of what is known as the ‘ICE Epidemic’ there has been a rise in drug related injuries within the younger community especially in small country towns. With 25.3% of people using ice every day or regular use in 2013, its quite alarming as only in 2010 there was a 12.4% rise in ICE users, the statistics are showing the popularity of this dangerous drug and each year the percentages are getting higher and higher with no show of people slowing down any time soon. I have personally seen ICE destroy people that I know, close to the family and by this happening I realised how big an issue it is. I chose to do this topic as I wanted to find out the facts and wanted to get a deeper understanding of ICE and how it affects people and why it’s destroying the young and older people in our country. My focus questions for this assignment are: • How has ICE affected the mental wellbeing of young adults and adults? • How does ICE affect the physical aspects of a person when used continuously? • Why has there been a sudden spike in ICE users and sellers in Australia? The method of inquiry that I have taken for this assignment is both primary and secondary research. I conducted a survey that I distributed among some of the school population on survey
A great deal of harm is caused by illicit drugs, particularly to dependant users. Drug use damages the user and diminishes an individual’s social cohesion. An individual’s dependency on illicit drugs places a heavy burden on the Australian legal system, welfare(Centrelink), the justice system(lawyers) and the medical system. The many burdens caused by the manufacture, supply and use of illicit drugs effect the efficiency of Australia. The Drugs misuse and trafficking Act 1985 (NSW) applies to over 240 drugs, including
Methadone is a program designed to help opioid dependents since 1969. With the rise in crimes and deaths related to opioid use, the Australian government maintained a methadone program which was endorsed in 1985 as an effective treatment (Health.gov.au, 2014). Despite the efforts made by the government to contain the unsanctioned use of opioids, there remains a significant gap in the system which was intended predominantly to respond to the risks posed to opioid addicts. The crack in the methadone program was only brought to light after an incident whereby an ‘intellectually disabled 16-year-old girl died after using methadone in combination with other drugs’ (Spooner, 2013). It was then called for an urgent review after further suspicions of other people dying of overdose on drugs that were only supplied by programs. In light of the incident, the Health Department has taken on recommendations to improve the implementation of health care, which in this case is the methadone program. There are a
Imagine a world with no trees, no healthy grass, no glaciers, or no living creatures at all. The cause of this tragedy could be the increase in heat in the Earth’s atmosphere due to global warming. If global warming continues to increase, the world will be left empty. The Earth has been around for a long time, and many feet have walked on it, but no one has walked on this Earth without trees, grass, or creatures. With global warming, the Earth’s meteorology gets too warm, and all of the glaciers will start to melt. Global warming occurs when an increase in the carbon dioxide levels causes the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere to rise. The Earth’s meteorology is often a subject explored in literature. For example, “Chronicles of Ice” talks
This year, a drug court will be created at the Melbourne Magistrates Court, Farrah Tomazin writes. This implementation is in conjunction with the Australian Government’s Ice Action Plan, in hopes to halt Australia’s growing methamphetamine issue. The proceedings of a drug court begin with identification of offenders in need of drug treatment, following with community
Sixty-seven percent of people who were surveyed believe that treatment should be emphasized for those who use illegal drugs rather than punishment. Only 26 percent believe jail sentencing should be emphasized. And the percentage of people who believe that the governments should do away with minimum mandatory sentences for drug crimes increased from 47 percent in 2001 to 2014. This addresses the wider question of how to deal with drug offenders in a way that will best help them rather than being sentenced to jail. Receiving treatment rather than jail sentencing is one that has come up an amount of times in the last few months, as Queensland struggles with the best way to help drug addicts. The law from the 1970s allows judges to send addict law-breakers
Crystal meth, or ice, is the perfect destructive drug. It’s easy to make, cheap to buy, highly addictive, and it’s everywhere. And you don’t need to touch ice to be its victim. It is intersecting with every aspect of Australian’s lives, destroying families, causing carnage on our roads and murder in our homes.
It has been widely published within the Australian media that there is currently an ‘ice’ epidemic and the Australian Government has established a national Ice Taskforce in response to the drug problem the country is facing (Australian Government 2015). Ice is also known as crystal methamphetamine and comes in a translucent or white crystal or crystalline powder (Buxton & Dove, 2008). The illicit drug can be smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed and is the most potent form of methamphetamine because of its high purity (Buxton & Dove, 2008). Methamphetamine is an extremely addictive psycho-stimulant that affects the brain and central nervous system, resulting in the release of high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine into areas of the brain that regulate feelings of pleasure (Caplan, 2008). Other types of methamphetamine include speed and base which are lower in purity then crystal methamphetamine which results in ice having worse side effects and a higher likelihood of addiction (Lewis, 2008). The consequences of ice use encompass all components of life including health, social and economic. This briefing paper aims to determine the extent of crystal methamphetamine usage in Australia and particularly Queensland. The paper will also discuss and develop recommendations on drug policy intervention that will best combat ‘ice’ usage and ultimately prevent future illicit drug use as well as minimise the harm caused to drug users and the community.
The drug ice can leads to change people’s behaviour and increase violence and crime. It is commonly believed that “methamphetamine users had committed a violent crime in the preceding year” (Darke, Kaye, McKetin & Duflou, 2008, p. 258). There a strong relationship between HIV risk and using methamphetamine which leads to increase ability to crime (Mcketin, Dunlop, Holand, Sutherland, Baker, Salmon & Hudson, 2013, p. 82). According to Taylor et al. (2011, p. 318) meth users tend to make several crimes and violence activities which is common between meth users in drug market. Those users cannot control their aggressive expressions ( Darke et al., 2008). The rate of dependence and suicidal behaviour has been increased among methamphetamine users (Darke et al., 2008, p. 259). According to Mcketin et al., (2013, p. 80) “ It has been estimated that there are 97000 Australians dependent on stimulant drugs”. In fact, Taylor et al. (2011, p. 324) assert that personal relationships can be affected among addicted people with
Many argue that Australia is a free country and we are entitled to freedom of choice, but freedom of choice is not a valid dispute when consequences are as lethal as they are. Research conducted by The Australian Bureau of Statistics in June 2014 uncovered that over one third of Australia’s prisoners were in custody for drug-related offences. In correlation, Say No to Drugs Australia reported that over 43% of domestic violence and general abuse crimes reported in 2014 in Western Australia and Victoria were linked with cannabis
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 8.1% of Australians aged 14 years and over have used cocaine one or more times in their life. Cocaine abuse can lead to many harmful complications to the human body, one of the most prevalent being harm to the Cardiovascular System, as suggested by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Due to such abuse, medical complications arise, leading to experimental investigative research processes to take place that aim to discover the causes of drug abuse and the results of constant abuse to deliver a proposed treatment option. Though the research field develops, its financial sources are empowered by the government’s collection of taxes from the general public. This report
First of all meth is a super strong kind of speed that packs a punch three and half times more powerful than cocaine. As mentioned in the documentary it shows how meth is a cheap drug that can be catastrophic to one. A quarter gram can cost as much as twenty five dollars. The documentary says users can smoke it, snort it, swallow it, or shoot it straight up their veins. Out of twenty-six million that use this drug only twelve millions Americans say they have tried meth. In Australia over seventy-thousand people are addicts. Australia's population is only twenty-three million so seven hundred-thousand is a good amount of civilians to show that over 4 cities in Australia can be overly filled with meth heads. As mentioned before meth has a lot of street names such as crank. Crank came from bikers who would hide all there meth in crank boxes of their motorcycles. Another street name, ice, came from how meth looks because of its crystal like features and because of its pure white color. Although meths popularity exploded during the late 90’s and early 2000’s, it has been around since the
The thesis of the film “Chasing Ice” is to portray the extreme climate change we are facing today. The film has a clear goal of showing visually the danger we are causing our planet by denying climate change. The aim of the film is to show us visually that climate change does exist and it is happening at a rapid rate. The film does a good job at providing evidence that climate change is happening, by capturing footage of the changes occurring over short periods of time. These videos captured by James Balog’s recording devices make it almost impossible to deny climate change and that is precisely the purpose of the film.
With the increase pressure from the Australian Federal Government policy and no government regulation on the quality of the drugs the cost of the health of both the individual drug consumer and the community begins to add up. The economic cost to the Government for counselling and rehabilitation falls on either state or federal governments while the social impact falls upon social workers (3). A breakdown of the economic cost was study by the Australian Instituted of Criminology and there results are as followed: Death that is due to
C) The unit of analysis for this research is the UMW Student. We will be conducting primary research in the form of a survey. After creating the survey, we will
Questionnaires, interviews, observation are the methods used to collect information qualified as primary data and literature searches and mail surveys were been used to gather of