IMPOSSIBLE TO STICK USERS INTO PIGEON HOLES

PAULA is 32, a real estate agent and a regular user of ice. She and
her friends snort or smoke it on weekends -- usually Friday night,
which can bleed into Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"It's like ecstasy because I get a sore jaw from grinding (my teeth),
but it makes me feel like I have so much energy. It makes things
easy. I'm confident, I can talk to anyone, it makes things fun for
me," she says.

Paula was a regular user of ecstasy and speed when a friend
introduced her to ice a year ago. Since then, the other drugs have
fallen by the wayside with the exception of marijuana, which she
smokes to come down from ice's long-lasting, frenetic high.

"The thing that sucks is going back to work on a Monday morning.
Sometimes I've only had a few hours' sleep since Thursday night and
the first few days at work I'm a complete wreck," she says,
maintaining that she is not addicted and would never inject it. Paula
is typical of ice users in that she defies attempts to pigeonhole
users of the drug into convenient stereotypes, says Turning Point
Alcohol and Drug Centre director Nick Crofts.

"Methamphetamine is used by different groups in society in different
social situations. Its use is much patchier than heroin. It's used by
stockbrokers, gay party-goers and street polydrug junkies," he says.

Anecdotal evidence abounds of ice users becoming violent. An employee
at a Chapel Street nightclub said he could often tell when a patron
was on ice. "They're twitchy, they're mouthy, they pick fights for no
reason and make the bouncers' lives hell, basically," he said.