CHILD prostitution, dealers in schools, child addicts and home-made drug labs - that’s the shocking reality in the Eurobodalla, due to ice.
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Drug and alcohol outreach worker Steve Jackson has a tougher job than most.
He sees few successes with users of the drug ice, but the stories of broken families and destroyed lives are many.
He said his youngest client was a girl of just 13.
Her mother was on ice and her dad was in jail, so she prostituted herself to pay for her addiction.
Mr Jackson, who works for both the Katungal Aboriginal Corporation Community and Medical Service and South East Women and Children’s Services, said ice did not discriminate – rich or poor, indigenous or non-indigenous, young or old – “it affects everybody”.
And, he says, it is rife in shire.
“It’s quadrupled in the past 12 months,” he said.
“It’s at an epidemic level.
“Two to three days of the week, I get phone calls from people in distress about their children, father or mother, saying ‘it’s ice’ and asking what can be done.”
Mr Jackson has called for a shire rehabilitation unit, so users and families do not have to leave the shire for help.
He primarily works with youth, who report the drug is in shire schools.
He said dealers met students and offered ice under the names “fairy floss” or “sherbet”.
“It is coming into the schools heavily,” Mr Jackson said.
“The kids are using it, and (the dealers say) ‘now you’re addicted, you need to work for us’, and so goes the process.”
Mr Jackson is speaking in schools to warn students of the drug’s effects.
“Rolling out the program through the schools is great, because it’s putting it in the faces of the kids,” he said.
However he wants to make a bigger impact.
“We need to show – ‘if you use this, this is what happens’ and (have) more speakers with lived experience.”
He encourages children to report drug dealings to the police.
“The police aren’t their enemy and they would love to know who is selling,” he said.
He said if children were uncomfortable speaking to police, they could approach a counsellor or phone or visit Katungal.
“If you see someone dealing drugs around schools, dob them in,” he urged.
“You need to.”