'Ice epidemic' media coverage creating unnecessary fear, drug expert says
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"There is no ice epidemic, that is absolutely clear."
Dr Nicole Lee wants to challenge the media's coverage of the drug's use in Australia, and said "unduly negative images" had created unnecessary fear.
"That fear creates stigma," Dr Lee, an adjunct associate professor at Curtin University's National Drug Research Institute and director of 360Edge, told ABC Adelaide's Mornings program.
"One of the problems in the reporting [on ice] at the moment is it is really focused on the really negative outcomes.
"Twenty-five per cent of people who use methamphetamines fairly regularly will experience some type of aggressive or psychotic symptoms.
"That means 75 per cent of people who use it don't experience that.
"We miss that bigger context when we are just focusing on the very pointy end."
Dr Lee said fears of an instant addiction to the drug were also misleading, with only 15 per cent of users at risk of dependency.
She said 75 per cent of people who were using ice used less than once per month.
"If you are using more than once a week, you are heading for trouble."
Ice epidemic 'untrue'
Dr Lee said branding the usage of ice in Australia as an epidemic was simply untrue.
"What the community, the government and the media are responding to is a shift in the way that people have been using methamphetamine."
She said ice was simply a stronger version of the street drug speed which had been used in the country for decades.
An increase of problems related to ice was noticed between 2010 and 2013, she added.
"What we saw was people who used to primarily use speed switching to ice.
"We haven't seen an increase in the number of people using, but we have seen an increase in the number of people using having problems."
Dr Lee said that although figures of 5 per cent of the population had used being publicised, her research revealed 1 per cent had used the drug in the past year.
"It is a small proportion of people and it has not been increasing — in fact it has been decreasing in the last 15 years."
Dr Lee said the problem was not a huge increase in people using the drug but an increase of users experiencing issues.
Generating fear not solving the problem
Dr Lee said commercials and programs which created fear around the drug only compounded the problems.
"Fear messages don't work and the people at the highest risk of using just switch off when we show them scary things.
"Sometimes those scare tactics and media campaigns can actually increase young people's interest in using."
She said regional communities confronted with higher usage of ice were also prone to higher overall drug use.
"That is a problem of regionality rather than of ice, with a whole range of potential reasons for that."
A lack of rehabilitation services compounded the problems and its prevalence, she said.
Topics: drugs-and-substance-abuse, drug-education, drug-use, drug-offences, mental-health, human-interest, adelaide-5000
