I know I said I wasn’t blogging at the moment, but this was a quick one, I promise.
Last night, I watched one of those forum programs on the ABC or SBS, all about the ‘ice epidemic’. It drives me insane that they beat this up so much. Sure, ice seems to be a nasty drug, but let’s put this in perspective…
Some perspective
Translation
According to OxyGen (PDF),
Smoking kills more people in Australia than all the people killed by alcohol, other drugs, murder, suicide, road crashes, rail crashes, air crashes, poisoning, drowning, fires, falls, lightning, electrocution, snakes, spiders and sharks.”
Note that I used different years because I couldn’t spend long and couldn’t seem to find data on all 4 for the same year. If you find it, please let me know. Also, the illicit drugs and meth figures are for overdoses only. I’m sure there are a few other accidental deaths here and there (e.g. car accidents) that might increase these numbers a bit. But certainly not to ‘epidemic’ levels…
Sources
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/4831.0.55.001?OpenDocument
http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/topics/statistical-trends#alcohol
https://theconversation.com/three-things-you-need-to-know-about-drug-overdoses-31099
http://www.oxygen.org.au/downloads/New_StS_FS/Facts_about_smoking.pdf
hi Glen,
Great to see you pop in and such an important ‘not really an issue, more a prime ministerial distraction’ comment.
As a no longer employed journo I can watch and observe without any employer loyalty, not that I should, or would, feel beholden to that. Probably why I choose to be Indi.
Mr Abbott tactically decided to announce the ‘epidemic’ and the rest has been a shameful study as state and local police, research institutes, and of course media outlets from the daily digitals, to the hard copies, down the the regional weeklies, have printed and re-printed versions of the press release fed them by the ministerial offices.
Down here on the South Coast community meetings are now being held between concerned residents, and a nice little industry is being supported as people and their families are (mis) guided into the extent of the issue, community and personal cost, and available help.
Meanwhile the major issues like our Health and Education budgets, The Senate reconvening to discuss Pyne’s Education Policy (ugh) for the third and final time, Asylum Seekers, Budgetry management (not parliamentary mismanagement), Twiggy’s “Healthy Welfare (sic) card and the closing of Indigenous communities continue unabated and below the radar.
Australia, pull the wool from your eyes, remove yourself from the mist of deception, and pay attention to the state of our nation.
Our environment needs you, our communities need you, our schools and health institutions need you – GONSKI, NDIS, they all need you.
Get off the Ice you’ve been supplied via the ministers and the media and focus on saving our nation, ‘cos the Federal Government has no intention of paying any attention to those things that matter, and will happily distract & opiate you with throwaway outrage while they truly poison the nation with their ideology.
Remember, you are lead to look one way while the real action is just to the side. Blinkers off, Australia.
Right on, Alida! :-\
Awesome post . . . . and as usual, the comments from like-minded souls adds such depth to the argument.
As the rest of Australia bleats & bleats.
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Thank you for getting your torch of intelligence out just one last time and shining the light into the darkness.
<3
Pia
Thanks Pia. Very nice of you. And yes, it’s great to have Alida’s expert perspective here. 🙂
Welcome back
Thanks! I’ll be hanging around, don’t worry. Like a bad smell! 😉
There is a small town one hours drive from Brisbane that is suffering robberies by a small group of people who are using the stolen goods to pay for their drugs. We are not talking about cannabis, although it is represented. This group of people committing these crimes, are organised in that they cover up, use gloves and these is no personal evidence left at the crime scene. It is the incovenience of these crimes and the loss of cherished sentimental items that is a concern. Insurance cost rise as claims mount up. Then there is the personal cost of interaction with a family member that is off their head on this stuff. Tobacco does kill more people. It does not cause personality changes, like alcohol and all the other rubbish that is consumed by people with mental problems. We need to build a better society that solves these problems for the good of all.
Hi Jan. Yeah, no question ice is causing bad nasty stuff to happen.
While I don’t doubt these stats I do think you misunderstand the “Ice Epidemic”. I will briefly tell you our families story with ice.
My sister inlaw has always had a mild bi polar condition. She drank a lot yet still managed to keep her mortgage up on her town house, food in the cupboard and maintain a car etc.
In her mid 40ies she discovered ice. Became heavily addicted. Became paranoid to the point you were not allowed into her house unless you removed the battery from your phone. lost so much weight she looks like she will break, Looks about 90 and is not far away from loosing her teeth. She stopped paying her mortgage, her body corporate fees, her electricity, her gas.
While we knew she was having trouble with body corp. we had no idea of the extent of everything else.
Her gas and electricity were finally cut off at the $2500 mark each. The body corp. had been trying hard to get their money and their costs were over $20k.
Once the services were cut off she left her house (freezer and fridge still full of food) and disappeared to Sydney. The police tell us she is still using her cards but she is soon to run out of money. The body corp recently got their way and she was declared bankrupt and they will soon be seizing her house. She only owed $70k of a $400k house. By the time the laywers finish she will be luky to get anything and if she does I know what will happen to that money.
She is now almost 50 and a hopeless basket case. The last time we saw her she was irrational and abusive if we tried to offer help. All we can do is wait until she gets stopped by the police because her car in now un registered and hopefully she will be locked up in mental hospital for a while and then dry out . Her 80yo father is beside himself and just simple does not know what to do. As for the future who knows but I am sure the government will be playing a large part in keeping her alive.
This drug is hideous. It’s easy for someone with half a brain to make at home. It is hitting rural/regional areas that have traditionally been isolated from hard drugs. It is so addictive to the point people just can’t see past the next hit. I have read many stories like my sister inlaw of people who were on top of life and after they start on Ice, loose it all.
The stats show people are not dying from it but it is causing a lot of grief to people and their families and I am sure this is putting extra pressure on our health services. The financial cost to the tax payer must be considerable.
Chris
I am heartbroken for you.
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While I am sure that Glenn meant not to diminish the other costs of Ice addiction by focusing on the Fatality statistics, the ‘costs’ that you describe as painfully as you have are truly the greatest tragedy to our culture.
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I guess the injury to us ALL, will be if the Federal Govt uses this genuinely distressing issue as a diversion to other real issues and then makes no difference to the Ice Epidemic itself.
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I hope things change direction for us all, especially for families like yours.
<3
Pia
Hi Chris. Thanks for your comment, and for sharing your sad story. I’m very sorry to hear it.
But it’s important to distinguish between the MASSIVE trauma ice has caused your family and the damage it is doing to society as a whole. Clearly ice is a very nasty drug. I’m not questioning that. But the stats speak for themselves as far as mortality rates go. I don’t have stats for the wider cost and the harm to others, but every death to cancer, for instance, causes massive family trauma too. (I lost my dad to cancer a couple of years back.) Obviously it’s a different sort of trauma, but dying people on mind/mood-altering cancer drugs and pain relief, in terrible pain can certainly upset a lot of people and do and say some very regrettable things. And they are super expensive. And we’re talking 10-20 times as many people dying from it.
And yes, I agree ice imposes a financial burden on society. But all drugs do. Perhaps the burden is greater per ice addict than it is for other drug users, but again, I’d wager the scale of the problem is dwarfed by the burden imposed by other drugs. The cost to the public health system of all those cancer patients, for instance. Not just on their death-beds, but in the years leading up to their death-beds. And the many conditions before their cancer… And the cost of women’s shelters, public health and counselling for women who are beaten by violent partners because of alcohol… The cost of fostering children left without able parents… The cost of therapy for emergency workers who have to clean up after drink-drivers and domestic violence….
And we’re not just talking trauma and financial cost here. How many women die each week due to alcohol related domestic violence? How many kids become unwell or develop cancer because of passive smoking? How many rural communities are torn apart by suicide where alcohol and other drugs are contributing factors?
And social disruption? We’ve never had to close down an entire city after a certain time of night, as they did in Sydney to discourage alcohol fueled violence. And we don’t have an entire city surrendered to marauding ice-addicts every summer, the way the Gold Coast is surrendered to binge-drinking school-leavers.
Again, I’m not trying to diminish your situation. I can’t imagine what you went through. But to call something an epidemic, we really must consider it in context. We have to maintain perspective, and we have to respond in a considered manner that’s proportionate to the problem. We must not respond to the sensationalism, which is exactly what I see happening (and by that, I don’t mean you).
Thanks again for your comment. I hope you take my reply as it is intended.
Cheers
Glenn
Hi Glenn and Pia,
Thanks for the kind words and Glenn, yes I do take your reply as intended and in the grand scheme you are correct, However…
I think for me the word “Epidemic” is valid because this problem is reasonably new and it is hitting the community so hard and fast like nothing ever has.
I do get it that there are a lot of problems in our society and ice is small comparatively. I have over the years witnessed friends struggle with alcohol or gambling problems and they can bounce back and/or struggle along with life but this drug has the ability to completely transform a person into a self destructing time bomb.
I have known my sister in law well since she was 15. She was always an attractive confident person, (albeit with a mild condition) She did well to buy a house on her own and live a humble life until she found Ice. It took just 4 years to completely self destruct and loose everything in such an ugly way.
I don’t know of any other social condition that hits people so hard.
Cheers, Chris
Thanks for your understanding, Chris. 🙂 And rest assured, as an evidence-based person, I’d be all for a big response to ice if the statistics and research justified it. If ice has, in fact, hit communities harder and faster than anything else, and it’s spreading faster than anything else, then sure, let’s give that the attention it deserves. But I’m afraid the government/media sensationalism doesn’t prove anything. (Nor do personal anecdotes, and I say that with the greatest respect.) If ice is the epidemic they claim, then they should have no trouble producing the verifiable evidence to prove it. But I’m yet to see it.
Yes, that could be more a reflection of my ignorance than the absence of evidence. I haven’t specifically researched this issue beyond mortality rates, but I pay attention and I listen, and I’m not seeing or hearing anything much besides emotive hype.
Glenn,
Here’s an article from 2013 about rural Victoria’s ice epidemic. State Gov. not current federal hype.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/10/16/3870391.htm
Regional areas, where alcohol abuse was primarily the norm have been overtaken by ice. From my understanding it is because it is reasonably simple to make. The cities not so much because they have access to a wider range of drugs.
My daughter is a journalist in a regional community and she talks of the problems there with ice. She often attends public forums that try and tackle the problems they are having. She also does the courts and has some stories to tell.
Thanks Chris, I’ll take a look ASAP. 🙂
Wait until you have lost someone to Ice and then u may understand!!! Join some of the Ice facebook pages and see what so many poor families are having to put up with and I think you will change your mind. I wish the govt. would do MORE!!
Hi Kerry. Thanks for your comment. As I said above, I’m not questioning how terrible ice is as a drug or the damage it can do. I’m saying that we need to view it in context and respond to it proportionately. Obviously ice causes a tiny fraction of the number of deaths of cigarettes and alcohol, and only a relatively small percentage of deaths caused by illicit drugs overall. So our response – at least as far as addressing its capacity for causing death – should be calculated accordingly.
If it’s causing more harm to families / communities / our economy than the other drugs, then sure, let’s allocate more resources to reducing that harm. If anyone has any figures on that which provide that perspective, I’m more than happy to discuss them here and even publish them.
But as sad as each individual case is, that individual trauma doesn’t justify a widespread societal response that outstrips, for instance, our response to cigarettes and alcohol. To determine the widespread societal response, we have to look at the relative widespread societal harm. That’s just how things work. If they didn’t, we’d be allocating the same resources to stopping bees from killing people as we do to stopping cigarettes from killing people. The families of people lost to bee stings are just as upset at the loss of their loved ones as the families of smoking-related cancer victims.
Try this one …… join and ask their opinion …… u may just realise the truth.
BROKEN SHARDS supporting the family’s of ice user’s
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1573718072909187/
Thanks for the link, Kerry. However, again, let me assure you, I’m not diminishing the terrible nature of the drug, I’m just putting it in perspective, relative to other drugs.
I’m sure I could find a Facebook support group for families of dead smokers, alcoholics or heroin addicts too, and the members would all have very tragic tales to tell.
But again, opinion and individual / micro experience doesn’t tell us anything about the *relative* harm caused at the macro level.
Glenn …. I gave you some where to go and seek evidence for yourself. If you wish to not educate yourself then so be it. I tried!
No, you gave me a link and told me to go and ask people for their opinions. Although I sympathise with these families, their opinions aren’t really relevant to this discussion.
Really!!!
Yes, really. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but this is a post about data, not opinions.
Again, my heart goes out to those families, and I’m sure their opinions have immense value to the overarching campaign to address ice, but in a discussion about data, opinion is out of place.
Finally we seeing some reality based on evidence and facts slowly seeping through the media.
The fact is ice that is not actually physically addictive. There are no physical withdrawals unlike heroin, alcohol, cocaine, nicotine etc. And the claim that any drug is instantly addictive -one hit and you’re hooked- is even sillier from a scientific point of view. The rate of new ice users is not increasing. Ice on it’s own does not make most people violent and in fact does the opposite. It gives people empathy and increases the desire to talk more, make friends and have sex. The lack of sleep for days on end, the gallons of booze consumed while on ice and those people already with mental health issues or a tendency for violence are the actually causes.
Do we forget there was another “ice epidemic” only 10 years ago which faded into some other seasonal drug “epidemic”. I think the last so called epidemic was cocaine only a few years ago? Remember that?
The real problem with ice is the media hysteria, political point scoring and outdated drug policies. People will always have problems with drugs and for over 50 years our attempts to deal with it has simply not worked. Applying more of the same strategies(harsher penalties, more police, scarier stories, tougher talk) in greater quantities will not magically fix the problem. It will, of course make it worse. And there’s 50 years of evidence which clearly proves it.
Terry
your comment is as valid as Glenn’s post
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As drug addiction (of any sort) is such an emotive issue – this makes it extremely difficult to address publicly in an objective manner.
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To me, what is the most terrifying element of this whole debate – is that our culture/society/country does not have enough objective thinkers to face and deal with this issue with intelligence, data and scientific evidence.
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The majority of our political rhetoric terrifies me.
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Despite all our access to truth and factual data via the internet and Freedom of Information act – we STILL believe what we are told by our politicians, newspapers and televisions.
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Australia needs more citizens who question and demand evidence. Like yourself, Glenn, and other commenters (above).
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But I suspect that they keep ‘shtum’ because it is so exhausting to repeatedly have to swim against such a strong and never-ending current.
<3
Pia