Ice 'a coping mechanism' for Queensland woman after brother killed in car crash
Updated
Coping with the loss of her brother in a car crash was difficult for Jasmine Adams.
Eventually, the 27-year-old single mother found an escape in the drug ice.
"You become this whole other person, you think you're the world's greatest. You're floating cloud nine. You're tough as nails," Ms Adams said.
"The high is really high, but the low is rock bottom."
Ice isn't the problem, people use that as a coping mechanism and that's what I was using. The drugs were just an escape for me.
Jasmine Adams
Ms Adams said the side effects from using the drug were hellish.
"You just get around looking like a ghost. The weight just drops off you, you don't want to eat," she said.
"I'd have sores on my legs from where you just scratch yourself and then you'd start picking, it was really gross.
"I didn't know how to cope with it ... the only way I knew how to cope was have more ice."
She said she decided to stop using ice because she did not like who she had become.
"I knew I had to get myself together."
Ms Adams said the answer to the ice problem was getting a better understanding of why people were turning to drugs in the first place.
"Ice isn't the problem, people use that as a coping mechanism and that's what I was using. The drugs were just an escape for me," she said.
"For me it was my brother and a few other key factors.
"In regional areas there's nothing else to do so you turn to drugs because you make your own fun when you're on drugs."
Her addiction was hard on her and her family, but with their support she has managed to kick the habit.
Ms Adams has been in full-time employment for eight months, has a house, a car and her confidence has started to come back.
"Looking back and seeing how far I've come and I know that if I do take ice again, how quickly that will all be taken away," she said.
Ms Adams grew up in Charleville, one of five locations recently targeted by the Queensland Government for new rehabilitation, treatment and outreach services as part of frontline initiatives to tackle the growing problem of ice in the state.
Ice causes disruptions at St George Hospital
Robyn Fuhrmeister knows how toxic this drug can be within a family.
She is the director of Care Balonne, the local neighbourhood centre in St George, and has a son involved with ice.
"You get Christmas times and you get all the celebrations for birthdays and things, and you just dread those times when there's drugs around," she said.
Ms Fuhrmeister has been trying to get people in St George to talk about this issue, but in her mind the answer is a drug counsellor.
"They come back [from rehab] and they're in the ideal world. It's like there's not a problem at all and then you've got phone calls, people dropping in or the drug in town," she said.
"It's very hard, the peer pressure, for them to stay off it, but having a counsellor here and someone they could talk to would definitely make a difference."
The other people who are seeing this first hand are the doctors.
"When people are using these drugs regularly their brain is squeezing all these neurotransmitters out of their brains," St George Hospital medical superintendent Dr Cameron Bardsley said.
He said while alcohol was still the hospital's biggest problem, ice was causing disruptions.
"We've got mothers and babies, old people and other sick people in our ward, so it's often difficult to manage these particular cases in the context of these other patients," he said.
"It does put our staff and the other patients at risk, so we need to have a very careful risk assessment."
'The last thing we need is further pressure'
Senior Sergeant Paul Tabrett, the Officer in Charge at St George Police Station, said ice was a drug with the potential to bring down families and destroy communities.
The last thing we need in rural and remote communities is further pressure after years of drought and other issues.
Senior Sergeant Paul Tabrett, Officer in Charge at St George Police Station
"It'll have an effect on business; it'll have an effect on the way in which our economy drives forward," he said.
"The last thing we need in rural and remote communities is further pressure after years of drought and other issues."
Drug testing the local rugby league competition has been another suggestion to address this problem.
Glenn Ottaway, the central division manager at the Queensland Rugby League said this could be arranged through a player's agreement.
"It's not as simple as coming in with a big broom and testing everybody and going right you, you and you are out," he said.
"We've got an education and welfare person so the first step in the process is around community awareness and education.
"Our NRL and State of Origin players carry huge amounts of profile, but so do the people in those towns that play in their local team, so that's the key for us."
Topics: drug-use, health, drugs-and-substance-abuse, st-george-4487, charleville-4470
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