Methamphetamine Addiction Problem in Australia

Australia is besieged and under pressure by an epidemic described by ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbot as something that’s beyond anything Australia has ever seen before. They’re barely able to cope with it at all. The ferociousness by which the meth addiction plague spreads is unimaginable, to say the least.

A Look Inside Australian Meth Usage

In Australia, methamphetamine is an illegal substance. However, instead of deterring Australians from getting the illicit drug, they instead viewed the banning of meth as a challenge. This has resulted in meth being highly sought after in the Land Down Under even with its current legal status in the nation continent. Aussies seek the illegal substance because of the high or rush it gives their bodies.

Meth has many names not only in Australia but all around the world. These include cristy, tweak, getgo, crypto, and chalk. However, in Australia in particular, the two most common names are ice and speed.  When the smuggling of meth to Australian shores was first reported to Australian authorities, it was known as the drug named ice.

History of Meth and Meth Usage in Australia

Here’s the timeline of events when it comes to Australian meth usage.

• Origins: During 1893, methamphetamine was first created in Japan from another drug known as ephedrine. Since then, it has transformed into many other forms. A chemist named Nagai synthesized the drug that would later take the world by storm, including the Land Down Under.
• A Century Later: However, meth didn’t come to prominence to the Australian public until a century later, in the 1990s, when the Australian Federal Police or AFP was issued a warning about a drug called ice coming from overseas.
• Drug Bust: In 1991, the resources of Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong were pooled together in order to seize 80 kilos of the meth drug being distributed into their countries, which was actually made in China.
• Availability Increase: Afterwards, meth has become readily available in many forms.  Australians themselves became quite enamored with the drug due to the continent’s active drug scene, which has grown by leaps and bounds.
• A Growing Problem: Meth seizures from 1996 to 1997 only amounted to 156 kilograms. Afterwards, there was a spike of demand for meth from 2001 to 2003, when the Australian Customs detected increasing quantities crossing the border. Now seizures numbered to 1.8 tons from 2001 to 2002.
• Second Largest Drug Bust: The AFP got its second largest drug bust back in November of 2014. The succeeded in intercepting and seizing 2.8 tons of drugs, which included 849 kilos of methamphetamine and 1.917 tons of MDMA. This is the largest drug bust of the AFP since the first 1997 seizures.
• Largest Drug Bust: April 2017 actually saw Australia’s largest haul to date, with some 903 kilos of ice found within 70 boxes of wooden floorboards. It’s believed to be worth $758 million or a billion Australian dollars. This makes it the largest haul ever as well as the most profitable haul.
• The Present Reality: The continent has increased demand for the drug since the beginning of the New Millennium or the 21^st Century, which is the start of the Year 2000. As of April of 2017, Australia gained the highest meth addiction rate in the entire world.  Authorities have been seizing large quantities of the illicit substance on a regular basis.

Stats in Regards to Meth Usage in Australia

In regards to meth use statistics in Australia, there’s a lot to unpack.

• Increasing Number of Illicit Drug Offenses: Australia ended up with a whopping 41,087 reported illicit drug offenses from 2009 to 2010. Then, the number increased to 50,854 illicit drug offenses or by over 25 percent from 2013 to 2014.
• Drug Use and Growing Trends: From 2013 to 2014 as well, instances of Australian drug use increased from 22,842 to 28,409. This showcases a growing trend in drug usage amounts in the Land Down Under and their direct correlation to the growing drug offenses. According to the National Drug and Alcohol Research Center, the total number of Australian meth users has tripled in the last 5 years, from 2012 to 2017.
• More Availability in the Drug Scene: Even though Australian authorities doubled and tripled their efforts against the rising trend of meth addiction and usage, the Australian drug scene nonetheless helped develop stronger meth forms such as crystal meth or ice, which in turn increased usages over the past decade or so.
• Studies Concerning Meth in Australia: from 1998 to 2010, the Australian Government conducted a study. It showed that meth drug use in Australia actually had a slight decrease during that period. Additionally, from 2007 to 2010, male meth use decreased from 9.8 to 6.8 percent.
• Decreasing Trends and a Renewed Increase of the Epidemic: Around 2007, the upward trend of meth usage has decreased. However, after 2010, the trend started rising again according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. To be more specific, there are increased in drug offenses and drug usage happening in Australia just 3 years later after the downward trend.
• A Large Percentage of the Population Uses Meth: According to the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, 1.3 million or 7 percent of the Australian population have used meth. 400,000 or just 2 percent of the population have done so in the last 12 months when the survey was conducted. Furthermore, meth users in Australia are also getting much younger.
• In Contrast with America: According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, only 0.4 percent or approximately 1.25 million Americans (back in 2012, the U.S. population was 314 million) say they’ve ever used meth. In terms of raw numbers Australia and the United States are similar but percentage-wise Australia beats the U.S. by a mile.

Risk Groups for Meth in Australia

Meth use is becoming an increasing problem in the Land Down Under as it becomes more readily available. To wit:

• First Injectable Illicit Drug: According to studies regarding injecting drug users, 53 percent of the group of 914 candidates said that meth was their first injectable illicit drug. The study also continued to prove the point that meth is a young adult kind of drug.
• Drugs for Young Adults: 87 percent of injecting drug users who were 24 years old and below or under 25 years old have said to have used meth in the last 6 months. Meanwhile, 25-year-old to 35-year-old adults had 80 percent of the injecting drug users use meth in the last 6 months. For 35-year-old adults and above, the rate is at 74 percent.
• Males versus Females and Young versus Old: According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, males were likelier than females to use meth. For Australian males, 8.2 percent were likely to use meth versus the 5.9 percent of females. 20-29 year olds were most likely to use meth recently as well.
• Homosexuals and Bisexuals: According to the same report by the Institute of Health and Welfare, those who’ve stated they were homosexual or bisexual have the highest level of recent marijuana usage for people aged 14 years old and older.
• Unemployed, Unmarried, and No Children: The Institute’s report continues that meth use was high among single people without children at 3.4 percent, those who’ve never been married at 3.8 percent, and those who are unemployed at 4.8 percent.

Geography Contributed to the Proliferation of Ice

Australia’s geography as a large nation continent with mostly coastal mega-cities and scattered rural villages as you go deeper into the outback makes it uniquely vulnerable to the proliferation of meth. A fresh new spotlight must be shined on these developments in order to better understand then fix this growing drug addiction epidemic that’s sweeping the country.

Its spread started from inner cities then worked their way all over the different parts and aspects of Australian society. No Australian citizen is immune. According to a 2017 TIME Magazine article “We Are Ticking Time Bombs: Inside Australia’s Meth Crisis”, the Australian victims of ice include the following:

• There are indigenous children prostituting themselves for meth.
• There are also addicts found from the vast goldfields of Western Australia.
• It’s also common to see meth distributed among the wealthy finance professionals in Melbourne and Sydney.
• Private schools have private “pharm parties” wherein schoolboys get to try out the drug for the first time.
• There are also long-distance truck drivers who use the drug instead of coffee to stake away and relieve the boredom of traversing Australia’s endless highways.
• Sailors and military personnel also use ice. The Royal Australian Navy had six recent suicides on HMAS Stirling that are related to meth.

The Magnitude of the Meth Crisis

According to Andrew Scipione, the former Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force in Australia, methamphetamine is the greatest problem of Australia in terms of an illegal drug that gives them “the most grief”. This is impressive and saddening in light of many other contenders to the infamous throne like cocaine and heroin. He claims that the continent is at risk of “losing an entire generation of Australians (to meth).”

The magnitude of the Australian methamphetamine crisis is seen as unique by global observers and worldwide law enforcers, says Scipione. He also claims that the demand for crystal meth is incredibly high. He has talked to allies and colleagues all over the globe, including Bill Bratton, the ex-Police Commissioner of New York. Every one of them agrees that the problems that Scipione face in Australia are unique to the continent and Bratton admits they don’t have the same meth ubiquitousness in NYC.

The Number One Threat to the Future of Australia

Jacqui Lambie, an Australian federal senator, agrees with Scipione. She gave an address to the parliament back in 2015 where she recounted her son’s harrowing battle with meth. Her son’s name is Dylan and he’s currently in recovery, but the senator feels strongly about doing her part in spreading awareness of the meth epidemic in Australia.

Motorcycle gang members or bikies are taking over the streets of small towns all over Lambie’s native Tasmania, which is known for the wholesome name of “Apple Isle” but is now fraught with peril. The senator claims that the bikies have infiltrated her home isle from Mainland Australia in order to find new ground to ply their meth trade. The future of Australia is on the line.

Meth Has Also Attacked Australia’s Sporting Culture

These meth dealers prey on vulnerable people, resulting in the infestation of meth all over the rural heart of Australia. The nation’s tenets of independence, stoic individuality, and survival have been tainted with this growing stain in Australian culture. It has even affected the country’s sporting culture as well. The most famous meth addicts from Australia are world champion surfer Tom Carroll and Olympic gold medalist diver Matthew Mitcham.

According to Carroll’s interview with TIME, his addiction was so severe that he couldn’t even go to the water. Meth is incompatible with surfing because his senses were too sped up to allow him to synchronize his movements with the waves. Normally, surfing for him allows him to last an hour to an hour and a half. Under meth, he struggled to stay in the water for 15-20 minutes. He also adds that crystal meth almost robbed him of his live and livelihood as well as time with his kids. It threatened to topple everything he worked hard to achieve.

The Price of Meth Is Expensive in Australia

Australia fetches a high price for methamphetamine that reflects demand for it. More to the point, drug dealers and cartels from all over the world are congregating towards Australian shores because local users consider crystal meth a bargain compared to expensive cocaine.

However, its bargain price is actually higher than how much meth costs in other countries, which encourages international drug gangs to sell methamphetamine to the island continent. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that the average street price of meth is $80 per gram in China. In contrast, Australia buys meth at $500 per gram.  Wholesale prices have gone as high as $245,000 per kilogram, in fact.

Tighter Regulations

According to the New South Wales Police Drug Squad Commander Tony Cooke, the Australian police have been working hard and the best they could in order to get tighter controls when it comes to the distribution of meth. This includes a national system for end-user declaration to track precursor chemical sales. These measures will unfortunately take a period of time before they can come to full effect. During that time, meth or ice will continue going into the country.

There’s an increase in imports of the finished meth product straight from China, but China isn’t the only country involved. Even though the proportion of methamphetamine users as a percentage of the Australian population has remained at stable and steady 2.1 percent, the total number of Aussie meth users is growing rapidly as outlined in the statistics above. What’s worrying for the country is that the growth outpaces the drug treatment facilities, especially in rural areas.

A Hotspot for Drug Addiction

Usually, when people envision a drug addiction hotspot, they imagine a rural community that’s meth-ridden like Appalachia or Montana. They’re also grimly reminded of the high body count in the cities of Mexico thanks to their cocaine trade and influential drug cartel or the pale-faced victims of Iran’s epidemic with heroin. They don’t usually envision respectable Australian businessmen dealing with ice in country towns or athletes self-destructing after a day of training.

However, morbid visions aside, Australia has the highest meth usage in the English-speaking world. People who use the drug often feel arousal and exhilaration because it floods the brain with monoamines that kills receptors and makes them want more since the substance is the only way they can feel sensations, which then results in the death of the remaining receptors soon afterwards. They also make use of homemade bongs specifically made to create highs with meth a la what usually happens with marijuana.

Rehab Solutions from Elsewhere

Rehab tourism might serve as a potential solution for this ongoing dilemma. Rehab tourism involves availing of travel packages like those in Thailand (as in the case of Lanna Rehab) in order for Australians to get their meth addiction treated at a secluded rehabilitation facility that’s far away from the places and enablers that help trigger their meth addiction and over-consumption in the first place.

You might be wondering what the point of traveling elsewhere is when Australian rehab centers exist. The thing is that inpatient or residential rehab that’s practically required to treat meth and its severe withdrawal symptoms are expensive since they deliver both food and board to patients on top of expensive medications and treatments.

You can cut your prices in half or quarters by going the rehab tourism route even when you consider the cost of travel into the equation. What’s more, it serves as your chance to go to the most beautiful places in the world after rehab, as though you’re in vacation. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone.

Meth Addiction Rehab at Lanna Rehab

Contact the Lanna staff and crew in Thailand to acquire help when it comes to addiction to methamphetamine in Australia. Thailand is an affordable single flight away from Australia. Therefore, it’s quite possible to get dependable in centers like Lanna Rehab Center and its internationally accredited doctors, counselors, and therapists. Call Lanna Rehab’s toll-free number for more info. They’re available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.