WHEN ONLY THE NEXT SHOT MAKES A LIFE WORTH LIVING

DRUG addict Vassil Papageorgiou jabs the syringe into his right thigh
as he sits in his Y-fronts on the toilet in his small East Melbourne
flat.

A globule of blood emerges where the needle breaks the skin and
Papageorgiou's eyes roll back in his head as the drug and other gunk
courses through his veins. He slumps as the pain that has been racking
his body dissipates.

The pain was really only in his head, he knows. And what gives
Papageorgiou momentary relief is also what might end up killing him.
He knows that, too.

Vassil Papageorgiou -- as these shocking pictures show -- is one of
the many Victorians convinced that they are ice addicts.

But police, drug experts and some addicts say Melbourne's "ice storm"
is a myth exploited by dealers who charge users double simply by
selling low-grade methamphetamine in crystalline form.

Inspector Steve James, the head of Victoria Police's Alcohol and Drug
Strategy Unit, said users who buy what they think is ice are being
duped.

Drugs seized by police have less than one-fifth the potency of ice,
usually defined as crystalline methamphetamine, which is about 80 per
cent pure.

"What you can do is mix basic meth with another substance that makes
it crystalline so you can smoke it," Inspector James said.

"Crystalline doesn't change the purity, it just makes it so you can
smoke it and what you think you're getting is ice, when really it's
just meth ... Most of it is around 15 per cent."

Professor Nick Crofts, the director of Fitzroy's Turning Point Alcohol
and Drug Centre, said real ice may find its way to "the top end of
town".

"Classically we have considered ice to be crystalline methamphetamine
of around 80 per cent purity, and if that's the definition, then ...
it's not on the streets of Melbourne," he said.

"You don't become dependent on the purity, you become dependent on the
drug. Then you use whatever you can get to maintain that
dependence."

And it's a dependence that can prove deadly. Methamphetamine has
killed 12 Victorians since July last year.

But recent data, Professor Crofts said, showed Australian
methamphetamine use had remained stable since the heroin flood
finished more than five years ago.

Another leading methamphetamine expert, Professor John Fitzgerald from
Melbourne University, said meth use in Victoria may be falling.

He said recent reports that Victoria was in the grip of an ice
epidemic had happened for two reasons.

"There's a general feeling among experts in the drug and alcohol arena
that we should have been on to the issue of amphetamines several years
ago," he said.

"The second (reason) though is there is a tendency to try and find the
next drug problem. This is often misplaced interest by
politicians.

"It's no surprise this is a federal election year and there's interest
. to make ice a big issue in election year."

But electioneering holds no interest for Lisa Smith. Every morning
before she goes to work the 40-year-old injects what she believes to
be ice. The habit gives her the energy to get through the day, she
says.

Lisa, who insists on using a false name, represents the flip side of
the underworld drug culture. She has a career in the health industry,
goes to work each day and makes a reasonably good living.

But most mornings she is jolted awake by a craving for the drug she
calls ice. She reaches into the bedside-cabinet to take out a syringe,
drugs and water.

Once the new needle is carefully filled with drug crystals and water
from a sterilised spoon she stands and plunges it into her groin.

She instantly relaxes and sits back as a warm feeling spreads from her
stomach, rises to her throat and hits the back of her eyeballs.

Her eyes glaze. Her energy level rises.

Lisa dresses in a smart casual sleeveless top and skirt. Before
leaving for work she prepares another syringe she will shoot up at
lunchtime.

The euphoria lasts only a minute, she says, but the effect will keep
her on an even keel for the next five or six hours and she will feel
more alert and much happier.

It is, she said, crucial she has her fix every day. "I feel very
lethargic without it. I can become very depressed. I don't function
well without it."

Though Lisa does not have the hollow eyes and skinny face that
characterise most long-term addicts, she has had serious drug-related
health problems.

The veins in both arms have collapsed, she burst a blood vessel in her
eye, she has had hepatitis C and once nearly died from an overdose.

Her 20-year addiction has cost her her family. It is 10 years since
she has spoken with her parents, longer since any contact with her
siblings.

Lisa first tried methamphetamine when she was just 17 and kept going
because she enjoyed the high.

She pays $500 each week to a dealer in Malvern for "ice" she believes
is 70 per cent pure. She says her salary of more than $50,000 a year
is proof she can function in society.

"I eat regularly, sleep regularly ... I limit myself so it doesn't get
out of control. My dependency is the same as the guy who sits in the
pub every night and has a few beers."

Lisa said that the "ice epidemic" had been exaggerated and that most
addicts were not violent criminals but responsible citizens, like her.

Still, she would like the State Government to introduce a program
using the substitute drug dexamphetamine to offer people like her a
better chance of kicking the habit.

But while Lisa Smith is convinced she is an ice addict, Steve Johnson,
who has smoked ice for eight years, agrees with the police assessment
that there is no ice in Melbourne.

There is, he says, an ice drought, which has seen supplies on
Melbourne's streets dry up.

For two months he and his friends in the northern suburbs have
injected speed instead of sharing an ice-pipe. "I know about 10
dealers and there's none around at all," the 33-year-old, who doesn't
want his real surname used, said.

"It's been like that for a month or two ... The police are cracking
down on most of the big boys, at the docks, the bikies.

"Now speed has taken over and there's no ice."

He says the only difference between ice and meth is the filler the
drugs are cut with. Users would be lucky to score drugs that are 40
per cent pure, he says.

Inspector James warns users that they put their lives on the line
every time they take a hit.

To maximise profits, dealers are cutting drugs with all kinds of stuff
ranging from caffeine to arthritis medication.

"This stuff is not party or recreational ... this stuff is extremely
dangerous," Inspector James said. Methamphetamines are not an epidemic
sweeping Melbourne, he said. They formed part of the broader trend of
drug use.

"The cycles change every 10 years," he said. "You may get your
opiates, which is your heroin, then that goes quiet again, then
amphetamines, then back to heroin again."

But the State Minister for Mental Health, Lisa Neville, defended the
Government's "war on ice".

"The Government's attack on drugs must be flexible enough to address
emerging substances and stop them from having a devastating effect on
our community," she said in a statement.

But Vassil Papageorgiou doesn't know or care about any drug debate.
What he believes is that ice, along with the heroin he was addicted to
years ago, has addled his head and destroyed his social life. He has
no job, no partner and not much of a life. He doesn't even have a
regular dealer, not any more.

Every day he prowls inner-city streets in search of a score. His
addiction costs up to $700 a week and he gets the money from the dole
and, he says, busking. He insists crime never pays for his fix. But he
does say if it has been a bad week he will settle for cheap
methamphetamine pills bought from pharmacies by people with
prescriptions.

The pills help prevent the debilitating effects of withdrawal. "Your
body shakes and your limbs jolt if you are not on it," he says. "You
don't feel physically sick like you do with heroin but because it's
psychosomatic you can feel pain anywhere."

Ice causes the pain and ice takes it away, for a while
anyway.

Papageorgiou knows this, too, and wants to get off the drug. He beat
heroin three years ago and reckons he has a good chance.

"I can only get better. I'm 43 years old and there's nothing else (no
other drug) I can do. I've done everything. I've enjoyed it. I don't
want to do the same shit."

[sidebar]

WHAT IS ICE? MANY DEFINITIONS OF AN ILLEGAL DRUG

Victoria Police: Ice, according to police, is a sexed-up term used to
describe a highly potent form of crystalline methamphetamine.

The drug is rare in Victoria because true ice is considered to be 80
per cent pure. Inspector Steve James, head of the Drug and Alcohol
Strategy Unit, said police seizures showed ice is not generally
available in Victoria. Dealers actually sold crystalline
methamphetamine under various names including ice, speed and crystal
meth, he said.

These drugs usually have a purity of about 15 per cent, far less than
real ice. The word ice was just street slang that bore no reality to
expert definitions of the drug.

The research group: The Australian National Council on Drugs (ACND),
which last month released one of the most authoritative reports on
methamphetamine use in Australia, defines ice as being between 50 to
80 per cent pure crystalline methamphetamine.

The experts: Professor Nick Crofts, the director of Turning Point
Alcohol and Drug Centre in Fitzroy, said ice, as it was traditionally
known, was not on Melbourne's streets. "There has been a tendency to
consider ice is 80 per cent pure crystal meth but, for me, I don't
make up the definition for the term - people who use it define it," he
said. Professor John Fitzgerald, of the School of Population Health at
Melbourne University, said the term was misleading. "There's been a
whole lot of hyperbole about ice when really we should just be talking
about methamphetamine," he said.

The users: Most users The Sunday Age spoke to are confident they are
being supplied with ice. One addict said she believed the crystals she
injected were usually about 70 per cent pure but said it was common to
be sold far less potent forms. Another addict said police crackdowns
had caused an "ice drought" in the past several weeks.