Children as young as six are being targeted by ice dealers who are setting up shop outside schools and offering children sample packs of the drug.
‘It’s out there and it’s out there by force,’ Andrea Simmons, a former addict and current founder of Australian Anti Ice Campaign, told Daily Mail Australia.
Children are being confused and tricked into taking strong drugs ‘like it’s no big deal’ and girls as young as six years old are being offered ‘lolly forms’ of the drug, Ms Simmons said.
Methamphetamine is being aimed at Australia’s most vulnerable as former addicts and reports say dealers are preying outside schools and offering children sample of packs of the drug
Children are being confused and tricked into taking strong drugs ‘like it’s no big deal,’ Ms Simmons said. A pipe (pictured) which was used to get a ‘hit’ of the drug
‘Kids don’t understand how it’s [ice] made, what’s in it or the consequences of taking it’.
‘A 16-year-old student I know went online and figured out how to make it [ice]. I know other kids who can order ice online.’
Anecdotal reports of increasing ice usage among Australian children is starting to match up with the research.
Australia’s National Ice Taskforce indicated the number of children between 14 and 19 years of age who are dependent on ice has tripled over the space of five years.
The number of regular or dependent users aged 15 to 24 years old more than doubled from 21,000 users to 59,000 over the past five years.
That’s an average of 27 new young ice users every single day over that time, a figure the task-force says is likely to be understated.
‘It’s out there and it’s out there by force,’ Andrea Simmons (pictured), a former addict and current founder of Australian Anti Ice Campaign , told Daily Mail Australia
‘We continue to be reactive to the problem but we need a proactive approach,’ Ms Simmons said.
She founded the Australian Anti Ice Campaign in order to educate the more vulnerable segments of the population and visits schools across the country to spread awareness of rising drug dependency in Australia’s youth.
It’s a program Ms Simmons says is modeled off The Meth Project, a U.S. program which successfully decreased the number of methamphetamine users by employing reformed addicts to educate young people.
‘We need to warn our youth that ice is like no other drug, and that they should never touch it,’ Glenn Ivers of Australian Anti-Ice Campaign told Daily Mail Australia.
‘These are our kids. The cost to society is huge’.
‘A Canadian study, Drug Free Kids Canada, found it costs the Canadian government $450,000 per drug addicted youth,’ Mr Ivers said.
Ice use in Australia is at its highest levels and is increasing, particularly among Australia’s youngest population where the damage can be felt hardest.
The Queensland high school students said they had no idea what was in the drug ice. ‘I didn’t know there even was so much stuff put into one piece of rock,’ one said
Ice use in Australia is at its highest levels and is increasing, particularly among Australia’s youngest population where the damage can be worst
University of South Australia senior lecturer in neuroscience Gabrielle Todd said scans of young ice users’ brains revealed the damage was irreparable.
‘This scan that we do has been done in tens of thousands of people all across the world and there’s been no report of that abnormality ever returning to normal in anyone,’ he told The Courier Mail.
Ms Simmons is also concerned about the long term consequences of children using ice.
‘We don’t have any research on it’s long-term breakdown in the brain,’ she said. ‘What’s it going to be like in 30 years time?’
Ms Simmons is concerned about the long term consequences of children using ice. ‘We don’t have any research on it’s long-term breakdown in the brain,’ she said
Murray Bridge, located about an hour south-east of Adelaide, has been destroyed by a scourge of methamphetamines, with children in primary school addicted to ice.
‘Murray Bridge has a significant issue with drugs, particularly methamphetamine,’ Superintendent James Blandford told Nine News.
‘People who aren’t even in their teenage years, 11, 12 years old are becoming addicted.’
Murray Bridge, located about an hour south-east of Adelaide , has been destroyed by a scourge of methamphetamines, with children in primary school addicted to ice
St George, a tiny farming area in Queensland with a population of just 3,000, is home to an ice epidemic of epic proportions, with the drug ravaging the youngest members of the community.
Children as young as 10 are addicted to the drug, teenagers are being force-fed meth and drug dens forging the deadly substance are operating out of family homes.
One 14-year-old girl was medicated with ice because she complained she was too tired at school each day as her parents’ constant drug-fuelled benders were keeping her up at night.
St George, a tiny farming area in Queensland (pictured) with a population of just 3,000, is home to an ice epidemic with the drug ravaging the youngest in the community
The spread of addiction is often hereditary, with ice infiltrating lives from birth.
‘There are young children who are experimenting with ice because they are in homes where it is readily available and they’re conditioned to the fact that using it is normal,’ Margaret Gordon from Ice Breakers in Albany told Daily Mail Australia.
‘The youngest person I know who uses it is 11 but I am aware of children starting younger,’ she said.
‘There are over 400 unborn babies addicted to methamphetamine in Queensland,’ Ms Simmons said.
That has meant the Queensland government employed more safety workers on the front line of working with children who are either born addicted to meth or have a significantly higher chance of developing a drug dependency.
Alarmingly, the purity of ice is increasing. In 2013-14, every state in Australia reported an increase in the annual median purity of methamphetamine, Australia’s National Household Drug Survey reported.
In 2013-14, every state in Australia reported an increase in the annual median purity of methamphetamine, Australia’s National Household Drug Survey reported