By Aja Styles
Melbourne rapper Matthew James Colwell, better known as 360, has revealed his battle to recover from methamphetamine, commonly known as ice, has been the hardest of all his drug abuse over the years and watching Victorian government anti-ice television campaigns only makes him itch for more.
"Out of all the drugs out there, there is one that is leagues ahead of every other drug in every way and that is ICE. It's the MOST addictive by far," he posted recently to his Facebook page.
He went on to say "government funded anti-ice campaigns are f---ing terrible" because "they have zero idea that simply showing a picture of a pipe will have every addict itching".
"Even just looking at the glass pipe literally sets them off, it's THAT bad. I guarantee that there's people out there who saw that advertisement and it caused them to go and score," he wrote.
Addiction: Rapper 360 aka Matthew Colwell has written a song about his ordeal.Credit: Tim Bauer
The ad campaign Colwell appears to be referring to in 2014 and featured the slogan What Are You Doing On Ice?, and depicted young people blowing smoke in cars and holding smoking implements in their bedrooms (not included on this article for obvious reasons).
Attempts to speak to Colwell were dismissed by his agent who said he wasn't speaking to media at the moment.
Melbourne community agency TaskForce, which offers services to people with drug, alcohol and disengagement issues, has experienced some of the fallout of anti-drug campaigns, particularly on the 2500 clients living across the southern suburbs from St Kilda to Frankston and across to Dandenong.
TaskForce CEO Raymond Blessing says most heavy ice users feel vilified by the government ads, and some have complained of wanting to use again after seeing the ads.
"Our front-line staff say that the advertising demonises users, creates stigma and some clients say it gives them cravings. So it most instances they just wipe it away. It certainly doesn't appear to have any positive aspect, it just seems to create more of an issue for them about initiating cravings or causing that kind of activity in their mind," he said.
"To a degree it causes fear and apprehension in the community, it misdirects community views and it creates disproportionate government responses.
"From the feedback that I'm getting from the staff and from their indication of the thousands of clients we work with across the southern region of Melbourne, they don't see the campaign as successful. It seems to stimulate more interest in the drug than avoid it."
The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the campaign, has pointed out that the ads have not screened since 2014.
"The ads were specifically targeted at young Victorians, not people in treatment for ice issues," a department spokesman said in a statement. "They were developed with drug treatment experts and sector organisations, and were widely road tested on the target audience.
"The campaign evaluation shows it successfully met its objective to raise awareness about the harms associated with the drug ice, and in particular, it's highly addictive nature."
Mr Blessing believes it is more effective to work with information in schools and peer leadership as intervention rather than a blanket campaign on television that can actually be harmful to those using or heavily impacted by drugs, who "are a life story unto themselves".
"I just find that people making outrageous statements [that] ice users are just a disaster and there's no hope for them, it's just so negative and we're talking here about people's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. At TaskForce we're [instead] saying, 'how can we help my brother or my sister'?, and for me it's about effective recovery and having easy access to counselling and easy access to support."
Colwell has made no secret of his drug addiction after posting rap I'm Sorry to Facebook in January, which detailed the mental health and drug battle that caused him to postpone his Utopia tour last year. It includes the lyrics "I should be dead, maybe I got nine lives. Seven left, 'cause I've already died twice".
Language warning for the below video:
Colwell says in his most recent post that ice is "the only drug that I still get cravings for", despite the fact that his drug of choice are opiates, mostly "80mg oxycontin, sometimes heroin and a lot of the time codeine when i couldn't get the oxy", and he has never been a huge ice smoker and has been living drug free for two years.
"I used to idolise people like Anthony Kiedes and Motley Crue, etc and all I wanted to be was a rock star and live that life. I actually lived that life and it was so much fun, at the start. So though my poison was opiates i'd be down for anything and everything. Coke, MDMA, Benzos, acid, 'shrooms, DMT, speed and the monster itself meth," he wrote.
"... Coke in Australia is terrible and costs a fortune though where ice whilst expensive lasts days on end. I loved going on benders so I used to smoke it a LOT. It never reached an everyday thing for me though ... as long as i had my Xanax and Oxy there was no such thing as a comedown so I was always down for it if others were too."
He details his fears for the next generation of Australians, given that the "majority of the people I know who use the shit end up doing it so much and for so long that they never come back".
"Out of everyone I know who has tried to quit I think 90 per cent haven't been able to stay off it. I only know a few people who have fully cut it out of their lives but it took years of hard work and many relapses whilst losing a lot of friends and family in the process. It is the devil," he wrote.
"I really do love this country but the effect ice is having on it is very noticeable and scares the shit out of me.
"The fact that in most rural towns you can probably find ice easier than you can weed says something. I know some people have had to move to another country because it's everywhere here and if you're an addict it can be impossible to escape.
"When I was young people would pass around a joint at parties, maybe even a rolled up note for some coke or x to snort. These days people are passing around pipes."
Mr Blessing says TaskForce treats many more people for alcohol addiction than ice, which makes up a smaller percentage of the population. But even so, any campaign that demonises people who are "just looking for a way out and don't know the way out" should be re-examined.
"I know of individual circumstances where some of the finest people and families here in Melbourne have got a child who is 20 or 30 who has been into drugs for 10 years, and particularly into ice, and you look at that family and you think 'they have tried everything' and it's heartbreaking for them," he said.
"So dramatic ads on television aren't necessarily going to help them. What they want is where can they find that doctor or that service that'll be able to hopefully break that cycle. And there's no guarantee that it will ever be broken but they need encouragement to keep trying but also then we need to be able to promote the good stories, and the positive stories of people who actually have been able to overcome this cruel substance."
The federal health department's eight-year national drug campaign, Ice Destroys Lives, most recently televised ads (in 2015) showing ice addicts attacking their family and hospital staff. It acknowledged that the aim of the campaign was to create negative attitudes towards drugs, but they argued that it was effective in communicating to young people at risk, and their parents, the harm ice created and it was not "counterproductive amongst this audience".
"More than 90 per cent of both youth and parents who saw the campaign indicated that they had taken some sort of action, predominantly around reinforcing existing knowledge about ice," a Department of Health spokesperson said.
They went further to say that "concept testing of the user groups found that ice users exhibit high levels of familiarity with the drug, the circumstances in which it is taken and its effects. In many cases users believe advertising about the harms of ice is a positive step for the government to take to target the population at large".
Its findings are published here.
A Victorian government spokesman said its Ice Action Plan does address "urgent issues to support families and provide treatment for users", while also protecting front-line workers and closing down manufacturers in a bid to make the community safer.
"More than $100 million has now been committed to implement the plan, including an additional $57.6 million announced as part of the 2016-17 budget," he said.
Colwell has encouraged users to seek help, saying: "It's not something you can beat on your own. Don't be ashamed either, being open and admitting it is a huge deal and is respectable. It takes balls."