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Speaker 1: More meth trouble in a country seemingly besotted with the stuff.

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Speaker 1: We've got a fourfold increase in hospital discharges. This is

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Speaker 1: in the last ten years. It's gone from seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty seven people to three thousand, ninety five. Drug

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Speaker 1: Foundation boss Sarah Helmer's with a Sarah, very good morning

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Speaker 1: to you.

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Speaker 2: Good more name.

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Speaker 1: See the interesting thing about three thousand and ninety five

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Speaker 1: not to understate what's going on with meth and the

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Speaker 1: various problems in this country, but they're canceled in a

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Speaker 1: single day yesterday with the strike over four thousand procedures.

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Speaker 1: So three thousand in a year is not that many people,

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Speaker 1: or is it.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think we have every right to be concerned

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Speaker 2: about the number of people who are presenting with meth

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Speaker 2: and fetter men harm. So to me, what this figure

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Speaker 2: really shows is a bit like what the minister just said.

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Speaker 2: We need to invest much earlier on and not wait

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Speaker 2: until somebody is presenting an d or ending up in

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Speaker 2: jail before we offer them any help.

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Speaker 1: I mean, literally, what are you invest in? Do you

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Speaker 1: stop me buying the meth in the first place, Do

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Speaker 1: you stop the price of the myth going down? Do

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Speaker 1: you give me a job so I don't feel like

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Speaker 1: taking meth?

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Speaker 2: What do you do at the moment. We're barely investing

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Speaker 2: anything in help or support or what actually works, so

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Speaker 2: we need to invest in those things. So there's been

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Speaker 2: a really good program up north on mepmphetamine that's been successful.

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Speaker 2: We've been calling for that to be rolled out for

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Speaker 2: years now and invested in properly treatment support. So that

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Speaker 2: is the least funded area of health, the lowest paid profession. Moreover,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot that can be done to support people

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Speaker 2: and very cost effective peer based, community run things when

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Speaker 2: they have methaduction. You don't necessarily need to go to

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Speaker 2: rehab if you like. There's stuff in particular that we've

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Speaker 2: found out recently about half of people who use illicit

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Speaker 2: stimulants like meth andphetamine have untreated ADHD. We might actually

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Speaker 2: be able to make huge inroads into prevention and helping

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Speaker 2: people through that more successfully recover if you like treating

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Speaker 2: the idea?

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Speaker 1: Actually, okay, are we an outlier in the Western world

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Speaker 1: we've seen besotted with the stuff? Are we or as

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Speaker 1: just the whole Western world besotted with it?

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Speaker 2: There's two things. We actually have an unusual drug profile.

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Speaker 2: It's true, but that is because we don't have some

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Speaker 2: other kind of worse drugs. So it's a lot of mess. Well,

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Speaker 2: some of the really potent typeioids that are causing.

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Speaker 1: Fatality in America, for example, Yeah, the people in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco bent over, unable to move and all that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing.

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Speaker 2: We have had some presentation of that here, but not

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Speaker 2: a lot. So really it's yeah, it's there is a

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Speaker 2: massive increase in the drug supply globally, and that's part

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Speaker 2: of what we're seeing reflected here. And we've had some

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Speaker 2: change in our local criminal activity and that's resulted in

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Speaker 2: a very significant price decline over the last year.

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Speaker 1: But I don't have time to argue with you, and

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Speaker 1: I'm not actually arguing with you all you people talk

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Speaker 1: the same way. You talk about how cheap it is

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Speaker 1: and how the gangs are dreadful, and I agree with

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Speaker 1: all of that, but somewhere someone's got to own some

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Speaker 1: responsibility for themselves. I couldn't give a crap how cheap

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Speaker 1: method is. I'm not taking any where's that argument.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, that's fine. It's a bit similar with alcohol.

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Speaker 2: You know, eleven percent of our presentations d alcohol relators.

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Speaker 2: We might think that that's bad behavior, and there's some

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Speaker 2: other things that we could do to prevent that roost harm.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I think we can just say don't do it.

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Speaker 2: But I think that's exactly what we've been doing for

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Speaker 2: many years and it hasn't actually worked. So let's try

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Speaker 2: and do what will work.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Sarah, I appreciate your time. Sarah helm who's the

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Speaker 1: Drug Foundation boss, with us this morning. For more from

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