Australia: Transcript: ice

This is the transcript of the 60 Minutes television program.

Here are the facts. It's more potent, more addictive, more dangerous than heroin. And it's easier to get.

It's called ice, speed, crystal meth. But whatever name they give it, this is quite possibly the most destructive drug yet. All the more frightening because it's considered fun, a party drug, aimed squarely at the young.

In fact, now more Australians are hooked on ice than heroin. And this means real trouble. Not only does ice give a fast and powerful high, it can transform quiet, ordinary kids into psychos.

You can see the results in just about any hospital, any night of the week.

STORY

PARAMEDIC: Anthony, breathe for us, mate.

LIZ HAYES: This 16-year-old boy is a regular methamphetamine user. He's collapsed from a possible cardiac arrest, but quickly he displays other symptoms of this drug — paranoia and aggression.

PARAMEDIC: It's all right. Hang on. Hang on, mate.

ADDICT: Help me, man, help me.

LIZ HAYES: How often would you have it?

MELISSA: Every day.

LIZ HAYES: Every day?

MELISSA: Yeah. Every day.

ADDICT: F---, I'll get you.

LIZ HAYES: Would you describe yourself as an addict?

MELISSA: Yeah. But back then I didn't realise.

LIZ HAYES: What did you think of yourself back then?

MELISSA: I just thought I was having fun.

LIZ HAYES: Today, Melissa looks like the girl next door — attending college, learning how to surf. Not so long ago, it was a very different story. Her speed addiction was so bad she was prostituting herself for her daily fix.

MELISSA: I would sleep with a lot of different guys to get drugs, yeah.

LIZ HAYES: Is that part of what the drug was doing to you or was it because you were an addict?

MELISSA: Part of the addict. Like it went against everything that I believed and my morals, but I'd do anything to get drugs and it didn't worry me what I had to do to get them. And if I had to sleep with different men to get them, then I'd do that.

DARREN MARTON: It was nothing I had ever experienced in my life. It was such a high that, you know, I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep for a couple of days when I had my first taste of ice, yeah.

LIZ HAYES: You had all these other drugs, but methamphetamine was the most potent drug?

DARREN MARTON: Without a doubt. Crystal meth's a highly potent stimulant and a really powerful and addictive drug.

LIZ HAYES: Thirty-six-year-old Darren Marton is the coach of the under-16 Gymea Gorillas.

At their age, Darren was one of the best players in Australia, a member of the NSW under-16 rugby league team. Then drugs and eventually methamphetamines took hold. I don't imagine you held down a job at all?

DARREN MARTON: Of course not. Well, when you're addicted to drugs as heavily as what I was, it can be a full-time job, in a sense.

LIZ HAYES: Taking drugs was your job?

DARREN MARTON: Well, that's virtually it, you know. You don't get Christmas Day off and you don't get your Sundays off either. It's full-time, seven-day-a-week, once you've developed a strong habit for drugs.

LIZ HAYES: After cannabis, methamphetamine, or speed, is now the illegal drug of choice. Twice as many Australians are addicted to speed than heroin. You can buy it in the form of pills, paste or the most potent form of the drug, known as ice. Ironically, this stuff is known as a party drug because it can give users a high that lasts for hours, if not days. But it's also known as the devil's drug because it can turn seemingly normal people into psychopaths.

The driver of this tank was out of his mind on speed when he caused this carnage in San Diego. He was eventually shot dead by police.

BY-STYANDER: He just looked at us. He knew that it was trying to kill us.

LIZ HAYES: The speed plague is international. In Thailand, a young boy is held captive by a man delirious on the stuff. In Australia, Bradley Murdoch, who murdered Peter Falconio by shooting him in the head, was also a heavy speed user.

DR DAVID GREEN: We've had punching, injuries, assault, fractures, a range of issues across the board.

LIZ HAYES: So it's dangerous for everybody?

DR DAVID GREEN: Absolutely.

LIZ HAYES: Dr David Green runs the accident and emergency department of the Gold Coast Hospital. It's right at the epicentre of Australia's methamphetamine problem. In this hospital, security guards stand shoulder to shoulder with the doctors and nurses.

NURSE: Just a little bit more.

ADDICT: No, no, no, no. What is that? What is that big thing you have there?

LIZ HAYES: The problem is getting so bad every major hospital around the country now has its own secured isolation room.

DR DAVID GREEN: This window over here, the original form got pushed, the entire frame, out of the wall. We've had people go through the ceiling.

LIZ HAYES: What do you mean go through the ceiling?

DR DAVID GREEN: Leap up, pull the panels up. That whole door frame has been replaced where someone has lifted the door, the frame and everything else out of the wall.

ADDICT: Oh, my f---ing god. Look at the size of it. Oh, you f---ing stick that in me.

LIZ HAYES: Methamphetamines have a stronger link to psychosis than any other drug and it's caught Australia's health system off-guard, according to psychiatrist Dr Bill Kingswell.

DR BILL KINGSWELL: You see enormous numbers of people admitted to mental health units with the complications of these drugs. That is a small number compared to the number that present to emergency departments with the complications of these drugs. That is a picture of a very swollen brain that has just extended out — clearly there isn't enough room in her skull for that.

LIZ HAYES: These brain scans show the permanent damage methamphetamine can cause. The blood vessels in this young man have constricted, cutting off blood supply.

DR BILL KINGSWELL: He has killed part of his brain, cells in his brain have died. That is something he will not recover from.

LIZ HAYES: Another young user paid the ultimate price. The drug caused a fatal brain haemorrhage.

DR BILL KINGSWELL: The idea that these are safe drugs couldn't be further from the truth.

LIZ HAYES: There's the physical proof.

DR BILL KINGSWELL: That's right.

MELISSA: When I look back now, like, at the time when I was smashing things and yelling at people, I couldn't see it back then. But when I look back now, I am quite surprised that I was that violent.

DARREN MARTON: I'm not a violent man by nature and I never have been, and when I developed a heavy psychosis there, I quite easily could have injured people.

LIZ HAYES: How would you have done that?

DARREN MARTON: Well, because I thought everybody was following me and I was under surveillance and people were out to get me. It led me to carry a knife in my pocket for protection.

LIZ HAYES: Did you ever pull that knife?

DARREN MARTON: I will be honest, I never pulled it out on any — to injure anyone, but I did, on a couple of occasions, use it as a … if you like to say, a scare tactic.

LIZ HAYES: To threaten people?

DARREN MARTON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR PAUL WILLINGHAM: The search warrant we've applied for allows us to be on site all night. Detective Inspector Paul Willingham runs the chemical operations unit for the NSW drug squad. It's their job to bust the speed labs that have sprung up across the state. From backyard chemists to large-scale organised crime.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR PAUL WILLINGHAM: Each drug lab is different. It may be using a method known to us. Every cook has a different style. They use different techniques. Unfortunately they cut corners.

LIZ HAYES: Trying to police the speed plague is a nightmare. The labs can be set up and dismantled in hours and police have to get their timing just right if they are to catch them in the act.

POLICE OFFICER: You're under arrest for the manufacture of a prohibited drug.

LIZ HAYES: And it's not just the raid that is risky. It's also the dirty toxic minefield of the lab.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR PAUL WILLINGHAM: Some of the chemicals on their own, that are the ingredients, burn through your skin. They damage your eyes, they destroy your lung tissue; it causes contamination on properties. It causes explosions. It causes fires.

LIZ HAYES: As extreme and dangerous as these raids look, they're not rare. Last year across Australia, police busted 398 drug labs. That's more than one a day. But it's the health impact of the drug that is just as devastating. These mug shots from an American county jail show what methamphetamines can do over time. It's an addiction that scars both physically and mentally.

DARREN MARTON: There is one occasion where I wrote a suicide letter and left it and I was going to jump off the Harbour Bridge. When I got to the Harbour Bridge, there was a wire fence that went about six feet in the eye and curled all the way back. So, you know, luckily, because I probably would have done it. Because I thought everyone was following, was out to get me.

MELISSA: I guess it's a miracle that I'm not dead. Like, but at the time I probably wouldn't have cared if I did die. There was just something in me that just wanted to self-destruct and just — I don't know, I just hated myself and I hated the world. That's the space that I was in when I was using drugs.

LIZ HAYES: In her psychotic state, Melissa thought she was a champion surfer but was so paranoid she would only paddle out at night. She lost her mind completely in the heart of Gold Coast suburbia, pitching a tent by the Burleigh canal. How long were you here for?

MELISSA: I was here for two weeks, but I thought I was only here for half an hour.

LIZ HAYES: Two weeks?

MELISSA: Yeah.

LIZ HAYES: That's a long time.

MELISSA: Yeah, it is.

LIZ HAYES: Were you eating?

MELISSA: No, I wasn't eating.

LIZ HAYES: How were you living?

MELISSA: I don't know. I was just using drugs, and that was about it. That's all I was doing and playing the one-string guitar that was blue tacked on.

LIZ HAYES: If you had the opportunity to speak with young people, have you got anything that you would say that could be quite persuasive?

DR DAVID GREEN: Just don't go there. It's just not worth it. You only get one brain, and it doesn't repair itself.

DARREN MARTON: I believe that teaching them about the real dangers and consequences of what can happen. I believe that's the only way. There's no other way but to say no.

LIZ HAYES: Speed does indeed kill. It's maiming young Australians every day. And it's a drug the country is struggling to come to terms with. Just like the people who use it, it's a problem sliding out of control.

MELISSA: It ruins your life. Like, it makes you into someone that you're not. You get addicted to it. You want it every day. You do things that are against what you believe. You lose your family. People around you are devastated. And it leads only to three places, which is death, institutions and jails.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Sun, 9 July 2006
Source: 60 Minutes (Australia)
Reporter: Liz Hayes
Website: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au