Emotional stories support work of Ice Meltdown

The Ice Meltdown Project’s co-ordinator Janice Ablett pleaded with Baw Baw Shire to approve an education and support centre at Athlone to give recovering drug addicts another chance at life.

Ms Ablett said TIMP had saved 80 lives in the past three years.

“If we can’t get Athlone, please provide us with somewhere to go for these people,” she said.

Ms Ablett was emotional when she spoke about some of her family members who had fallen off the rails and her niece who recently died to a drug addiction.

“It is the right place because it is isolated and people can have some peace. These people are not in jail, they are learning to come back to socialisation,” she said.

Ms Ablett said all clients accepted by TIMP had to be eight weeks clean.

Twenty people addressed last week’s Baw Baw Shire Council meeting, with submissions lasting two hours.

Emotional pleas were made to council, both from objectors who wanted to protect the Athlone community as well as supporters of TIMP.

A number of families who had been personally involved with TIMP through their children during a drug addiction praised the service for its success and support to clients, carers and families.

Ashley Clare told council she was a recovering addict and owed her life to TIMP.

“This drug is horrible, it took my life. If it wasn’t for TIMP I wouldn’t be alive today and my kids wouldn’t have a mum.

“Three days ago I got my kids back and I’m almost six months clean,” she said.

John Shields said if it wasn’t for TIMP, his family would have been destroyed.

“TIMP gets people back on track and saves lives. A lot of the objections is the fear of the unknown,” he said.

Chris Williams, who is vice president of TIMP, said he wanted to see families reunited.

Mr Williams said he was eight years clean and warned Athlone residents that drugs were probably already in their community because he used to buy from two people in Athlone.

“I understand their concerns but our clients go through a procedure and they are quite stable by the time they will go to Athlone,” he said.

TIMP secretary Megan Waddell said they had done everything in their power to make it a strict program.

“We are a small project but we are making a huge impact,” she said.

After listening to the submissions, former councillor Murray Cook spoke about his experience as a psychologist with drug and alcohol programs and the need for programs like TIMP.

“We know that ice pushers target areas and there are more dangerous drugs on their way. Addiction can strike any family, no one is immune,” he said.

Mr Cook urged council to defer a decision on the application and set up a working party to open up the communication of how council could support the program.

Many Athlone residents spoke about the stress of this proposal on surrounding residents, during what was already a difficult time for their farming community.

A number of the residents had lived in the area for more than 40 years and some were fifth generation farmers on family farms.

The objectors told council Athlone was an inappropriate location for the proposed education and support centre because of its isolation from emergency services and lack of mobile phone coverage.

Jenny Smethurst told council the TIMP centre had the potential to “reduce the social togetherness of our community.”

She said farmers were a vulnerable, at-risk group and shouldn’t be put at more risk.

Trevor Hatch said he had farmed at Athlone for 50 years said he was concerned drug dealers wanting to cover a bad debt would go to their market, and this meant drug dealers visiting Athlone.

“This is a very undesirable element in our community,” he said.

Darryl Smethurst said families had indicated they would take their children elsewhere to play junior cricket if the application was approved.

“If people think they aren’t safe they will go somewhere else,” he said.

Leanne Smethurst said she and her husband acknowledged drug addicts needed rehabilitation and support services.

“But Athlone is not the right location. We want to feel safe wen our children are at the local sporting field, getting on and off the bus or doing activities at the local hall,” she said.

Graeme Cook said he had lived in the area for 57 years and knew the old school building well.

He said he was concerned the applicants had severely under-estimated the amount of work needed to be done to bring the school up to standard.

“Athlone is a tight knit, safe farming community and we would love it to stay that way,” he said.