Hi Dan,

You ask: "But what aspect of drug use and abuse should the community most concern itself with, the negative health aspects to the users, or the threat to the community from anti social behaviour as a consequence of drug use, for example? ( and there are many other negative effects)."

I suppose the obvious answer to that is: 'All of the above'. Why artificially separate the 'aspects' of such a dangerous drug ?

One statistic the authors of this report should be watching is the number of Aboriginal women beaten to death in the NT each year by their beloveds (and god knows how many more around the country): it used to be that eleven out of the twelve murders annually of women in the NT were Aboriginal; has this gone up in recent years to, say, fifteen out of sixteen ? Nineteen out of twenty ? Say twenty eight out of thirty ?

And how many of those babies and young children have been murdered over the last few years by their doped-out single mother's latest doped-out boyfriend ?

I would also suggest that Aboriginal people in country towns are moving away from marijuana, certainly from leaves to heads, and from there to ice. If this is so, we can expect a rapid rise in crimes of violence in the more alienated Indigenous population. After the event, the statistics will tell us one way or the other, soon enough.

Joe

Addressing Joe here...

Why not make all drug taking respectable? After all, isn't that societies approach to alcohol use. It simply assumes no abuse!
That has worked successfully with heroin, shooting galleries are places designed to add respectability to its use!

So, soon, no doubt, ice addicts will congregate in government controlled and sponsored environments to pipe up.
I'm not sure if this designed respectability will extend to bath salt snorters. A place could be provided for them to perform naked backward somersaults before chewing the face off their partners!

I can see though, there would be limits to the acceptability approach . But this is the reality of the creeping acceptance of all odd-ball behaviour in our midst. In the end it makes it into the too hard basket, for tacit approval and acceptance. (Homosexuality quickly springs to mind, as it finds a place in the too hard basket)!

Hi Dan,

'Ice' and 'respectability' - I'm not sure how the two words can appear together in the same sentence. 'Ice', 'crazy', and 'violence' - yes. 'Ice' and ' .... brutal death of .... ' - very likely.

I have a brother who works in a psych ward, designed especially for violent patients. Most of the patients are Ice addicts. He's had broken arms, a broken cheek-bone, very many beatings. I implore him to give it away and make furniture, his passion.

Why do people think that Ice is like pot, you get all warm and fuzzy (I'm told) ? No, you go violent-crazy. My brother spoke of one bloke brought in who jerked off for ten hours straight, and others who smashed every bit of whatever they could. It's not a nice drug.

And it's cheap, easy to conceal and very tempting for idle people with money (or with a grandmother or aunt who has her fortnightly money). Frankly, it should be counted as a concealed weapon, with users shot for resisting arrest, or some other pretext.

Pipe-rooms ? How long do you think they might last ?

Or are you being ironic, Dan ? I'm a bit slow this morning :)

Joe

//Pipe-rooms ?//

Well why not? Pubs, clubs, bottle-shops and home-brewing shops are all very popular, even though we know alcohol to be a far more harmful drug than ice.

Hi Toni,

Alcohol far more harmful than ice ? Per gram ? Per person ? Or do you mean in total ?

Maybe you're onto something: perhaps in remote Aboriginal settlements, as ice takes hold, the blokes could bring their women along and have one room as the pipe-room and next-door the punching and kicking room. At least somebody will be happy.

But my weak efforts to be ironic may back-fire: that previous paragraph is not meant to be taken seriously. I repeat: that previous paragraph is not meant to be taken seriously. Please, Toni, don't take it seriously.

Not easy, working with small children.

Joe

//Maybe you're onto something: perhaps in remote Aboriginal settlements, as ice takes hold, the blokes could bring their women along and have one room as the pipe-room and next-door the punching and kicking room//

Yeah, because Aboriginal blokes have never been known to get violent from drinking grog.

Let's look at some figures from Victoria. From 2012-13, alcohol accounted for six and a half times more emergency department presentations than illicit drugs (with 7,744 instances attributed to alcohol and 1,206 to illicit drugs). In 2011 alcohol caused ten times as many deaths than illicit drugs (781 and 77 respectively). Alcohol-related hospitalisations and ambulance attendances also exceeded those for illicit drugs three-to-one in both instances.

But all we ever hear about in the media is the dreadful ice pandemic in Victoria, even though it clearly causes far less harm than alcohol.

I guess whether you think alcohol or ice is more harmful depends on whether you're persuaded more by the figures, or by sensationalist media reports, anecdote and emotive arguments short on facts.