Ice plan taking wrong approach

Mount Beauty’s Kerryn Johnston, who has been helping her 25-year-old daughter battle her addiction to the drug for the past year, criticised the government for “taking the easy way out” by focusing on law and order solutions instead of putting the right treatment and rehabilitation facilities in place.

The government’s plan to tackle the ice crisis announced this week includes $15 million for drug buses, $500,000 for community action groups, a 16-member taskforce to develop an action plan, and harsh new penalties for trafficking and making the drug.

But Ms Johnston, who shared her family’s story during the previous government’s parliamentary inquiry into ice, said it was “a joke” so much money was going into drug buses with no acknowledgment of the need for rehabilitation.

Her daughter struggled to find a bed in a treatment service before eventually securing a place in Wagga earlier this year — and found herself with an $1800 bill at the end of it.

The alternative was a private institution of $25,000-plus.

“It’s so hard to get back on your feet as it is, without then having to worry about bills,” Ms Johnston said.

“Just the process of getting in there was a bit of a farce — to get into detox she had to be detoxed, because (the staff) don’t all know how to deal with this type of addiction.

“That $15 million could go a long way in accommodated rehab, in training people to deal with addicts properly.”

Ms Johnston doubted drug buses would have much impact as addicts would just “go underground”; her own daughter, she had previously said, would disappear for months at a time.

“They lose their identity, they don’t have licences, and they slip through the cracks,” she said.

“They really need to spend the money appropriately.”

She applauded the concept of community action groups but said $500,000 was not enough.

“We need more ingenuity... it’s education and providing places for people to go to get off (ice) that aren’t going to cost the family or the addict.”