If you thought the scourge of methamphetamine abuse was limited to what you saw on the hit TV series Breaking Bad, think again. Meth, a highly addictive, caustic drug also known by street names like “ice,” “glass,” and “shards of broken glass,” is now invading the quaintest, roughest of neighborhoods. The harrowing new documentary, titled ‘Children on Ice’, explores an area where methamphetamine addiction is fast becoming a full-blown epidemic – rural Australia.
These small, tight-knit communities, degraded by a thriving underground methamphetamine industry, became hosts to a horrific cancer; a virus that was spreading at such an alarming rate that tight-knit local law enforcement could do little when it tried to contain it.
Children on Ice unabashedly examines every aspect of the current crisis wreaking havoc on the region. This includes a treatment facility that has seen an 80 per cent increase in meth-related admissions in the past 18 months. Counselors there had to make do with very limited resources and often had to turn away addicts as young as 14 because they didn’t have enough room to care for them. We learn about the methods dealers use to swiftly smuggle drugs from densely populated cities into the most remote remote parts of the country, and show how these dealers ruthlessly exploit the innocence and vulnerability of a drug-addicted young man to carry out her quest. Order.
Perhaps the most heartrending element of the film is the portrayal of the addict himself. The lives of these people are forever ruined by the hypnotic effects of the drug. What begins as a mild excitement quickly turns into a way of life for each of them, leading to violent outbursts, criminal activity, broken relationships, and a total loss of thought and purpose.
When journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna asked a recovering young man to remember his lows, his responses revealed the dramatic consequences of addiction. “When I tried to hang myself in my mother’s shed,” he replied. Addiction is tearing at the fabric of our society, and there’s no easy fix. But Children on Ice shows us that redemption begins with understanding.
