VIGILANCE NEEDED IN BATTLE AGAINST DRUGS

TODAY Sunday Age reporter Reid Sexton and photographers Meredith
O'Shea and Justin McManus have produced an in-depth look at
Melbourne's underworld drug scene. They were sent out to document the
truth behind Melbourne's so-called "ice storm".

What they found was tragic, heart-wrenching, grubby and
dangerous.

It is rare that police, experts and junkies agree, but they agree on
this one thing: there is little or no ice on Melbourne's streets.
Maybe what the "top end of town" is consuming as ice is the real thing
- -- 80 per cent pure methamphetamine in crystalline form -- but everyone
else, police say, is getting low-grade meth, often lower than 15 per
cent pure.

But while the apparent absence of ice is good news -- meaning Victorian
police and health workers don't have to face down as many heavily
aggressive addicts as do their counterparts in the United States and
other countries -- the news is not all that good. Methamphetamines are
still killing Victorians. Drug dealers, to up their profits, are
cutting their drugs with other substances.

There is nothing glamorous or sexy or attractive about drug
use.

Even when meth doesn't kill, it still steals lives. It hollows people
out -- taking what is most precious to them. All too often addicts are
estranged from family and friends, they can lose their minds, lose
jobs and lose any hope.

Even professional people, people who manage to hold down jobs, suffer
badly as a result of their addiction.

One of the addicts The Sunday Age spoke to, a health worker, says she
has no regrets about her addiction to the drug she calls ice. But she
no longer has any contact with her siblings or parents. She uses the
drug twice each day and without it says she would be listless and
depressed. Without a hit, a simple news item in the newspaper or on
the radio would set her off weeping uncontrollably.

Still, even after telling her heart-wrenching story, she says there
are no regrets. Even though all the veins in her arms have collapsed,
even though she has burst a blood vessel in her eye, even though she
has been infected with hepatitis C, and even though she nearly died
from a drug overdose. Any one incident alone would indicate serious
trouble and the need to seek help.

But drug addiction -- like alcoholism -- defies logic. People need help
but often don't seek it; they push away or abuse those they love the
most.

When Premier Steve Bracks recently declared war on ice, shifting $14
million from the fight against heroin addiction to battling "ice" he
was making the right decision, even if the terminology was not right.

Methamphetamines have taken over from heroin as the drug in demand on
the streets. It is, police say, a cyclical process. Heroin will be
back, amphetamine use will fall away again some time in the future.

Police, health workers and the Government must remain vigilant, funds
to combat drug use must remain targeted, help must be immediately
available for addicts who want it and need it.