WA to hold drug summit

[apothecary]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1927849.htm

The Western Australian Government has partly blamed the state's economic boom for an increase in amphetamine use.

Premier Alan Carpenter has announced a summit will be held with police and hospitals in July to discuss ways to tackle amphetamine use.

Mr Carpenter says young people with high incomes are increasingly turning to crystal methamphetamine, or 'ice'.

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan says amphetamine use is one of the major issues facing policing and there is mounting evidence to suggest more people are using drugs, particularly 'ice'.

Commissioner O'Callaghan says police have dismantled 189 illegal drug laboratories in the past year.

"It is a significant driver of crime in Western Australia, so we're seeing slight increases in street-level robberies and things like that, which are driven by people who want money to buy amphetamines," he said.

"One of the problems for us as a police agency is most of those people while they're committing these offences are extremely violent, they're violent towards the victim, they're violent towards police when they intercede."

Drug and Alcohol Office director Terry Murphy says more people are presenting to hospitals with psychotic and aggressive amphetamine-induced behaviour.

Mr Murphy says such patients take triple the amount of time to deal with than regular patients.

He says amphetamines like 'ice' cause long-term problems that will also become a burden on the health system.

"It's been impacting on hospitals," he said.

"We're now faced with a new type of amphetamine, 'ice', which is a lot more pure, so the effect and the length of that effect are more intense.

"That's what's showing up in our hospitals when people get into more trouble with aggression and psychotic behaviour."

The Australian Medical Association's WA president, Geoff Dobb, says the problem of amphetamine and 'ice' use in the community needs urgent attention.

He says he hopes this summit will produce some clear solutions.

"There have been previous drug summits in Western Australia that unfortunately don't seem to produce a great deal of action," he said.

"We believe the time is opportune to have a drug summit that does result in some action."

[chilli]

Good, meth fucks people's lives up in so many ways.

[John Smith]

IllegalBrain I agree with your comment. A potential problem though with this sort of thing is the "drugs are bad m'kay" mentality. I've watched (and loved!) South Park since it started but I have only come to understand the meaning of this line in the past few years.

[ThunderIdeal]

while the differences between say amphetamines and tryptamines is obvious to all of us, to many people they will always just be lumped together along with all of the other drugs, except the legal ones.

anyway you're one to talk illegalbrain, don't you watch home and away? possibly the most vile addiction to ever sweep this nation.