Amphetamine and ADHD

(Unpublished)


Sent to; NT News, Territory Times, SMH, The Age,
The Advertiser, The Australian, The Courier Mail,
The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Mercury,
The Sunday Mail, The West Australian and
Substance Abuse committee (NT Legislative assembly)
16/02/2006


Very few 'ordinary Australians' have any really reliable knowledge about the effects of amphetamines (speed/go-ey) on people other than the Government approved propaganda. Most people believe that too much amphetamine makes you go "off your head". Wrong! Your average "speed junkie" needs only a small dose of amphetamine to get speeding. They know there's no point having too much because you just bomb out. The "going off your head" is an adverse reaction (like an allergic reaction) to the substance that a very few users suffer. This condition should be properly diagnosed and treated accordingly. Your average speed user, uses about one half of the amount of amphetamine for a weekend's entertainment that an ADHD child is prescribed by medical/psychiatric experts on a daily basis. This does nothing to address the root cause of ADHD (psychiatric mumbo jumbo for high energy), it just bombs the child out, to make them more manageable, and this is supposed to be acceptable. Now apparently "new research" has determined (at great expense no doubt) that the best way to deal with very energetic children is to provide them with the opportunity to exercise. Well der. Anybody without a medical or psychiatric degree could have told them that, for free.

I call on this Government to end this insane "war on drugs" approach to the issue of drug use in our society and accept that it will always be. It would be far less expensive and ultimately much more beneficial to the Australian people to provide health care to the few people that have a problem with substance abuse. Provide opportunities for employment in a legitimate industry. Rather than relentlessly pursuing people through the police and the court system to overcrowd our jails with non-violent drug offenders. With the ever louder calls to build more prisons (quite a growth industry that. Who profits?). You can't lock up one third of the population for enjoying their time off from providing income for the Government (via our taxes).

Perhaps this Government could become the "Progressive" and "Forward Thinking" Government that Clare Martin claimed it to be in her last election campain.