DAVID PENBERTHY

which they made their arrest.

Be it poor old Ben Cousins running around a Fremantle street without his shirt on, or the hapless Thomas Aldcroft launching pitiable robbery attempts on the elderly, the capacity of this drug to bend people out of shape and strip them of a moral compass is beyond dispute.

More importantly, the damage they inflict on those around them is becoming more and more pronounced, be it on their own children, their partners, or people like the lady with Parkinson’s quietly negotiating her car into a disabled space.

We catch up each week on our radio show with the veteran court reporter Sean Fewster, and it increasingly feels like every other court story we discuss involves aberrant or violent behaviour fuelled by a dependence on crystal meth.

I am starting to form the view that rather than the cyclical and seemingly futile catand-mouse game between addicts, police, and courts, there is a public safety argument for treating all this as a health and addiction problem, and taking these addicts out of the legal setting and getting them into real treatment.

One argument against that is the cost one. Why should taxpayers bear the bill for people who can’t control their own

The damage they inflict on those around them is becoming more and more pronounced

actions? The reality is that we are already bearing it anyway, through the cost of policing, with fewer police resources to investigate other crimes, the cost of insurance, the cost of losing your wallet or your car keys to a Thomas Aldcroft, the cost of absenteeism and rehabilitation bills for the loving families who are trying to care for a Ben Cousins.

I am increasingly of the view that was put, surprisingly enough by the deeply conservative broadcaster Alan Jones last month.

“I never thought I would say this,” Jones said, “… but everything we have done to date has failed. Everything. So something different has to be done.

“Sensible people have to look at changing the system.”