By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
NO ONE takes drugs to feel worse.
This is how drug and alcohol expert Peter Wearne explained the internal reasoning of an addict.
Mr Wearne, director of the state-wide Youth Support Advocacy Service (YSAS), was the keynote speaker at Wednesday night’s Edrington Ward forum, where police officers, including Casey Inspector Paul Breen, councillors Susan Serey and mayor Mick Morland, and a small number of residents turned up to discuss the impacts of crime in their suburbs – with a focus on illicit drugs and family violence.
After 39 years working in the illicit drug industry, Mr Wearne has seen it all.
“It might be a myth that the drug will make them better, but they will feel better,” he said.
“So what do they want in that existential moment of taking the drug?
“They are seeking pleasure, and they are seeking relief, and they are seeking separation from what is ailing them.”
In the late ’90s, 99 per cent of all young people treated by YSAS suffered from heroin dependency.
Now it’s less than 15 per cent.
Mr Wearne said changing trends have seen alcohol, cannabis and ice become the three most common drugs for young people aged 10 to 25.
Though while the drug of choice has changed, the effects remain similar, if not amplified, when it comes to ice.
“When you take the drug, you empty the reservoir of chemicals that are in your brain so that when you go to use them tomorrow, they aren’t there,” Mr Wearne said.
“So what do people who use this drug experience? They experience what appears to be forms of clinical depression and sometimes psychotic symptomology.
“So if you use it more and more and more, it completely deregulates your ability to think and to act, to sleep, to eat, and to function.
“ … and then what you think is, you feel terrible, what am I going to do?
“Take more of the drug.”
But as Mr Wearne makes it clear, he wouldn’t have stayed in his line of work for almost four decades if he hadn’t seen hope.
“People recover from drug misuse,” he said.
“We see it every day of the week, otherwise, this is my 39th year doing this work. If I didn’t think it was worthwhile, if people didn’t change, I just wouldn’t do it.”
Mayor Mick Morland turned the forum’s attention to the family violence issue.
In the latest crime statistics the City of Casey recorded the highest number of family violence incidents of any local government area – 3759 incidents in the last 12 months.
Cr Morland said two women died from family violence every week.
“One in three women in their life span will have family violence so one third of all women will suffer family violence,” he said.
“And every three hours a woman is admitted to a hospital because of family violence.”
The mayor then reflected on the tragic death of Phil Walsh, making a heart-felt point.
“Now the football community came together and if you watched all the football matches over a couple of weeks, you had half a million to a million people there who had a minute of silence for a person with family violence,” he said.
“And it was very touching, and as a football supporter I had a tear in my eye because you never want to see anyone pass away, and that was sad.
“But every week, two women are killed. No-one stands up for a minute’s silence for those women.”
Insp Breen will be convening the crime forums in each of Casey Council wards, beginning with Edrington.
And while he noted his disappointed at the modest community turn out – roughly only 15 people – he said he wouldn’t be deterred in his attempts to reach out to residents.
“I’m going to start going around to the wards and to all the community and start saying, well what are you guys doing about this?” he said.
“Because at some stage, if it continues, it’s going to touch you. At some stage you’re going to know someone, (maybe someone) very close to you, that’s going to be harmed by this behaviour.”
The next forum will be for the Four Oaks Ward, held at Southern Cross Primary School, 1-21 David Collins Drive, Endeavour Hills, from 7pm to 9pm.
The other events will be held on 30 September for Springfield, 21 October for River Gum, 25 November for Mayfield, and 2 December for Balla Balla.
For more information, visit www.casey.vic.gov.au
