Meth user’s mum calls for rehab centre
She has ‘‘lost’’ one son to the scourge of methamphetamine, and another is battling the mental scars from addiction. Nelson woman Winnie Luthje believes more lives will continue to be devastated by the drug unless addicts get a residential programme in th
Winnie Luthje says meth is a plague that is growing in Nelson. When she visited her son at Franklyn Village in January, its apparent hold over him left her feeling powerless.
‘‘The windows . . . smashed. There was another young couple there, a very young girl sitting in the corner and also a young man, also with black splotches on his face.’’
Oliver Luthje-Cavell’s relationship with methamphetamine has seen him in and out of prison for crimes including supplying the Class A drug.
Last year, he was jailed for six months after police found 7.2 grams of meth in his car, which he crashed in Lower Queen St, Richmond while trying to avoid arrest.
‘‘I watched my son for years and years, going deeper and deeper into his addiction, and he’s lost himself now,’’ Luthje said.
His older brother had escaped the drug’s clutches, and moved to Australia to start afresh, she said.
‘‘I’m so grateful my eldest son has managed that.
‘‘My second son . . . I’m still hoping. I’m always going to hope.’’
So far, after being released from short spells in prison with no job, Oliver had fallen into a continuous cycle of meth abuse, she alleged.
Had there been a ‘‘safe place’’ for him to stay to get help in Nelson, it might have been a different story, she maintained.
‘‘A centre . . . where they get counselling every day, you’ve got groups, you’re working together.
‘‘You’re not just left alone, you have a recipe for how to actually come back.’’
A residential care programme was needed to get meth users off the streets and away from associates, so they could ‘‘reset’’ she said.
‘‘[Where] they don’t have to prove anything to their mates. Because they’re on the phone all the time . . . making deals and meeting up.’’
If the facility wasn’t going to be funded by the local district health board, she suggested the community should fund it.
‘‘I’m happy to contribute . . . let’s get it up and rolling.’’
Nelson Marlborough Health is standing by its position that Nelson does not need a residential treatment centre. It says adequate services are already in place for people seeking help with meth use.
The idea of a ‘‘wet house’’ venue in Nelson is still on the table, where people with addictions could go after hours to connect with support services including accommodation
‘‘It destroys, it kills, and there’s nothing stopping it, unless . . . we can start seeing a future for these people.’’
Winnie Luthje
and employment. This didn’t go far enough, Luthje said.
‘‘You can’t just take them to a wet house and tell them, ‘This is what you do’. You have to physically work with them – they lose themselves so easily.’’
The police started testing Nelson’s wastewater for drugs, including meth, last year to assess the scale of drug use in the region, after a jump in meth-related crime across the top of the South Island two years ago. The first results are expected to be publicly released in April.
Luthje said she believed more people were falling prey to meth in Nelson.
A period spent freedom camping in the region this summer had left her feeling unsafe at night, amid what she saw as a growing drug scene.
‘‘I’ve never taken meth, so that world is a closed area . . . I don’t know how big it is, but I just sense something needs to happen.
‘‘It destroys, it kills, and there’s nothing stopping it, unless we offer that service to say, ‘Look, here’s a clean bed, here’s a good meal, here’s what we are going to do today’.
‘‘Then we can start seeing a future for these people.’’
Nelson Marlborough Health’s alcohol and drug addictions service had cleared a waitlist for people referred there for treatment, the latest monthly DHB chief executive’s report showed. People would be seen within one to two weeks, or straight away if there was an urgent need, the report said.
The service referred people to residential rehabilitation like St Mark’s Addiction Residential Treatment Centre in Blenheim, the DHB’s general manager of mental health and addictions, Jane Kinsey, reiterated.
But this had not happened for many people presenting for meth use, the service’s manager said last year, as staff were not seeing many chronic cases.
Stemming the number of people getting to the point of addiction remained the challenge, Kinsey said.