A SHOUT of “police, don’t move” followed by the sound of a ram bar against the front door could be the price of ice addiction, Orange and James Sheahan Catholic high school students heard yesterday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Year 10, 11 and 12 students from the two high schools attended Orange Function Centre for a forum on ice, held by the Rotary Club of Orange Calare, featuring former ice addict Jackson Oppy and representatives from NSW Police, NSW Ambulance and drug and alcohol experts.
Canobolas Local Area Command Detective Sergeant Andrew McLean said ice had a direct impact on crime and involvement could risk users being searched by police.
“There are very few, I suggest, ice addicts who hold down nine-to-five jobs, most if not all of them, are criminals - they are involved in anything that can get them money to buy ice,” he said.
“I’m a police negotiator and part of that function is to respond to high-risk incidents - I went to a job here a couple of months ago in Orange where an ice addict was armed with a knife, it was a six-hour siege.
“You can’t talk to them, you can’t reason with them because the drug won’t let them, so quite often those situations are ended tactically.”
Mr Oppy said he had no intention of becoming addicted and did not know what the drug was when his friend gave it to him, but it changed his life for the next decade.
“Psychosis is terrifying because when you’ve been awake for days on end and you can’t sleep and you think there’s people after you and you’re having fictitious car chases through town and the paramedics find you like they found me, along the sidewalk rocking backwards and forwards crying, it’s not fun,” he said.
He said he and his wife used drugs during a pregnancy and their first son was born an opiate addict.
“For the next month, I sat in the ICU and I nursed my son through his detox,” he said.
“A month passes, they let us take the baby home, we have a party at home - after all the promises I’ve made for my son, I’m smoking crack by 11pm.
“It was three years before I was able to stop.”
Two more groups of students from Canobolas Rural Technology and Blayney high schools, Kinross Wolaroi School and Orange Anglican Grammar School will take part today.
danielle.cetinski@fairfaxmedia.com.au
