There’s no doubt that the drug known as ice is presenting a problem to communities that we haven’t yet worked out how to squash.
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Regional communities, in particular, have been at the mercy of the dangerous impacts of crystal methamphetamine – which has not only proven highly addictive and destructive, but far too easy to get on the streets.
It’s a drug that’s particularly ugly in the way it rips apart the lives of those who get hooked and, often, their families.
So new data that shows there was a 36 per cent rise in ice-related charges in the Maitland area in the past year is disturbing.
The growing problem is not confined to Maitland and Cessnock, where the Central Hunter police command is based.
Newcastle recorded a rise of 25 per cent and charges in Port Stephens jumped 21 per cent.
Some may say that the increase in charges is positive in the sense that people are being caught and punished for possessing and dealing the poison.
But there are many experts who would tell you that legal action will do little to help those who are hooked on ice to overcome their addiction.
And an increase in charges – particularly such a sharp one – means it’s likely that the drug problem is growing.
Central Hunter crime manager Detective Inspector George Radmore (pictured) said police had been targeting drug dealers.
But he also said the increase in charges outweighed the increase in the number of searches that police conducted.
Inspector Radmore said this showed that the rate of possession had indeed risen in the Central Hunter command.
According to the senior detective, ice is an insidious drug that affected health and relationships and contributed to violence – including domestic violence – in communities.
Meanwhile, one Hunter member of state parliament labelled the ice epidemic “an absolute scourge” in Fairfax Media’s report today, and he’s absolutely right.
Some are now calling for a drug summit like that which the NSW Labor government held in the late 1990s.
But with sharp rises in ice-related charges across the Hunter in such a short period, it’s becoming clear that talk about the crisis has to begin to produce solutions that send this spiraling trend back the other direction.
