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News (Media Awareness Project) - Australia: Our Youth Are Dying
Title:Australia: Our Youth Are Dying
Published On:1998-10-03
Source:Courier Mail (Australia)
Fetched On:2008-09-06 23:09:27
OUR YOUTH ARE DYING

FELIX has been using heroin, cocaine, acid (LSD) marijuana and butane
for five years. For her 11th birthday, she was given "a beer and a
trip (acid)". She started using needles at 13.

Now 16, she has relied on drugs since being introduced to them by her
brother - to block out the pain of physical abuse suffered during her
childhood years at the hands of her father.

Felix (her graffiti tag name) lives on the streets and has done so
since entering her teenage years. She has, until a fortnight ago, seen
herself as very much alone.

"The times I've cried, the times I've wept," she writes in a poem in
which she pours out some of the anguish.

But she is one of the lucky ones. She has been accepted into
Queensland's only long-term drug rehabilitation centre for young
people under the age of 17.

The Gold Coast centre gets 4000 fresh cries for help each year, of
which 1500 involve young people in desperate straits. It can answer
just 150.

"In Queensland, they have no other place than here," says Mary Alcorn,
director of the Mirikai centre at Burleigh Heads.

"We have such demand state-wide ... we take kids from Toowoomba, some
from Brisbane, the North Coast, Nambour Hospital - from Cairns to the
border."

"When the centre began focusing on youth ... years ago, kids simply
had to have a drug problem to qualify for admission."

"Now it's a drug problem, homelessness, previous suicide attempts,
probably in need of psychological intervention and being booted out of
several hostels - they're critical incidents."

The state has 32 residential and non-residential detoxification
facilities for people with drug and alcohol problems but youth workers
say most are unsuitable for teenagers or do not accept people aged
under 16.

If hospitals do put youths through detoxification programmes, they are
released as soon as they are deemed "clean", regardless of whether
they have a home to go to or will be returning to the streets.

Little counselling or practical support is provided.

Official figures on the number of young people in Queensland who are
being treated for drug addiction are not made available by any centre
or government department but youth workers say the number is rising at
an alarming rate.

What is even more frightening is that no particular drug is more
widely used than others, with children taking whatever they can get.

Lea McLauchlan, health co-ordinator at Brisbane Youth Service, says
she has not come across one young person who does not use a range of
drugs.

She says they fall prey to "poly-drugs" - or multiple substance abuse
- - which may include marijuana, alcohol, speed (amphetamines),
prescription drugs and heroin.

"A lot of 12 to 14-year-olds are mainly taking speed and then they
seem to move on to heroin from there," she says.

"There's also a lot of pills in the younger age group. Benzos like
Rohypnol are incredibly effective for blanking out emotional pain and
they're really cheap."

The youth service directs young addicts to Mirikal and other
detoxification programmes.

For many Queensland children with serious drug problems, however,
Mirikai is their only hope.

Many courts direct young offenders with addictions to the facility but
it often has to turn them away.

Alcorn says they would do more if they could but they receive about
$300,000 in funding a year and can deal with only 30 cases at any one
time.

JOHN (not his real name) is 17 and has been using heroin for two
years.

Since developing the habit, he has been convicted of drug and
car-theft crimes. Now he has been ordered by the courts to enter a
drug rehabilitation programme by October 22 or go to a detention
centre for up to a year.

He is desperate to break free of the grip of heroin but has been

unable to get onto any long-term programme.

John calls Mirikai every day and his mother, June, has even tried to
get him on a programme in Sydney.

She says if he goes into detention, "I may as well say goodbye to
him".

"It's so hard to accept that my son wants help and can't get it," she
says. "This is how we lose kids - it's rehab or death and every time
he goes out the door I don't know whether he's going to come back alive."

For most young addicts, youth services are their first port of
call.

McLauchlan says 30 to 50 new teenagers come to her service each week,
of whom at least five want rehabilitation treatment.

"The problem is there is nowhere to send that person. There's no youth
detox at this stage, no rehabilitation that will take young people in
Brisbane," she says.

"There's Logan House, who aren't keen to take under-l8s; there's a
waiting list for Mirikal; Goldbridge on the Gold Coast won't take
under-18s and Teen Challenge is a shelter with about seven beds, it's
not a medical detox."

According to Queensland Health, funding for a non-medical social
detoxification facility for young people in Brisbane has been approved
recently.

The location and size of the unit hasn't been determined.

McLauchlan says the proposed facility will have only 12-15 beds for
under-18s, which will not come near to satisfying the demand. "A
facility with 20 beds would be full all the time," she says.

RESEARCH by the youth service found 38 percent of clients who came
with drug problems first injected before they turned 16.

Brisbane Youth Service director Michael Tansky says injected drug use
has escalated in the past year "and despite recent success in
attracting recurrent funding from the Commonwealth to put in place a
specialist treatment response team at the service, young people have
enormous difficulty accessing detox and rehabilitation facilities in
Brisbane".

Erica Begeihole, a youth worker at the Gold Coast Youth Service, says
the centre has been approached by up to 1000 youths in the past 12
months but can do little to help.

"One unit like Mirikai certainly doesn't cover it - it's atrocious,"
Begelhole says.

She says many kids become addicts because they are abused severely at
home.

Kevin Sadie, of Toowoomba Youth Service, says there has been an even
more worrying trend in the past year - the average age of clients has
dropped from 14-16 to 12-13.

"There's an alcohol and drug unit as part of Toowoomba Base Hospital,"
he says.

"It's not that hard for older kids over 17 to get in but its very
difficult for young kids."

He feels Toowoomba - which has a major drug problem - is letting down
its young people. "Thirteen and 14-year-olds don't really go
anywhere," he says.

DrugArm regional co-ordinator Ron MoGilvery says his organisation is
shocked by the lack of help for young drug addicts in Toowoomba.

"We've taken up petitions about having a rehab in Toowoomba but they
continue to say there's no funding," he says.

Alcohol and Drug Foundation chief executive Bob Aldred says funding
and strategies to combat youth drug problems are appalling in
Queensland, while all indicators show an escalating use of heroin and
other illicit drugs.

"We are collecting so much money from legal drugs and putting back
peanuts into the problem," he says. "Last year, we were collecting
$196 per person and spending about $5."

The magnitude of the problem is unknown because of secrecy in
government, he says, but it is escalating at an alarming rate.

"There is no drug strategy in Queensland, no goals, no rules, no
co-ordination and minimal consultation ... We need to establish early
intervention programmes. The normal track for these people is to go
down the road of addiction, then crime and they don't get counselling
until they get into jail and its too late."

But Queensland Health spokesman Keith Evans denies insufficient action
is being taken to tackle the problem. Evans - state manager of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Services - says the real question is

where resources should be directed.

"It is true Mirikai is oversubscribed ... but there is good evidence
to suggest that keeping people away from in-patient (facilities) is
more effective than saying that as a group they should all go through
a standardised programme."

He says: "I wouldn't want people to get the impression that there
aren't large numbers of other activities going on - but they're not of
the same nature as Mirikai. Simply putting in a whole heap of
in-patient services for young people will not change the system for
the better - making early assessment of drug problems will make it
better."

He says $1.5 million allocated by the Federal Government under the
Tough on Drugs programme will focus on prevention and early
intervention.

However, youth services organisations have dismissed the $1.5 million
as an insignificant sum to tackle a mammoth problem.

Judith Hart, of DrugArm, also believes that institutions such as
Mirikai perform a real service for young people and that teenage
addicts need to be in specifically targeted programmes.

"It's very hard to put an 18-year-old in a programme with a
40-year-old because they have different attitudes and expectations,"
she says.

Many of the young addicts also have contributory problems, Alcorn
says.

She says that most of Mirikai's current clients have a history of
abuse and all but one of the girls have been sexually abused.

"The kids here are into prostitution, have psychosis from hospitals.
It's their last alternative before going to prison; they're in and out
of detox and are homeless."

"It's a tragedy that people really don't understand . . . to hear
their heartbreaking stories."

"The last thing we need to do is judge them, because they have a
pretty hard time living in their own bodies."

"Getting out of it with drugs is one way of getting away from the
pain."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady
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