POLICE, health workers, former addicts and parents of addicts all got the chance to have their say about the infiltration of methamphatamine at a long-awaited parliamentary inquiry in Wodonga yesterday.
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Police spoke of the clear increase in a number of offences being driven by ice addiction. The hearing was told one North East support agency had made 1500 referrals in 12 months for people having trouble with meth addiction.
And a mother told of her hope her daughter might be arrested so she could go to prison and get help for her addiction.
There was nowhere else for her daughter to go, Kerryn Johnston told the inquiry.
Gateway Community Health counsellor Bill Wilson said there was an urgent need for a treatment facility in the North East, describing the availability of the drug in the area as “quite incredible”.
In an ideal world, that is a facility we would have. The problem of course is there is never enough money to fund all the facilities we want and need.
In the meantime, the flow-on effects of the use of this particular drug mean that we are all paying a price.
