REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Monday, November 27, 2006

THE Queensland Government declared war on the “brainfrying” drug ice.

Premier Peter Beattie announced the Government’s ICE-Breaker Strategy which pushed education, rehabilitation and drug law enforcement programs in an attempt to beat the highly addictive amphetamine.

“Parents have lost their children to this drug, lives have been lost and thousands of users have inflicted serious damage to their mental and physical health as well as resorted to violent crime to feed their habit,” he said.

“We’ve got to say to young Queenslanders, ‘if you use ice it will fry your brain’.”

Ice has been described as “instantly addictive” and once hooked, users will do anything to get a fix.

The drug is known to cause aggression and psychosis in users, pushing them to commit heinous acts. It is considered so dangerous that even some outlaw motorcycle gangs have banned members from using it.

This year alone there has been a series of tragic incidents involving ice users on the Gold Coast. On October 25 that year a man charged with ram-raiding a Bunnings Hardware store told the court he was desperate for a fix of ice.

A week earlier another man was charged with stabbing his pet dog 15 times with a kitchen knife after taking ice for the first time. And in another terrifying example of the tragic effects of ice, a Labrador man cut off his own testicles with a craft knife while high on the drug.

Gold Coast Drug Council president Sean Cousins said the Government’s initiative was “very welcome news”.