Helping Young Addicts
The Age
Tuesday June 9, 1992
What can be done about teenage drug addiction? SUZY FREEMAN-GREENE examines the options and finds there is no easy answer.
``PAM" may have freckles and a baby face but she is acutely aware that she is no standard-issue teenager. ``I am not one of those kids who get up and go to school and come home and argue with their parents about whether to watch `Home and Away' or `Neighbours' on television." A pale, worldly 17-year-old who does not want her real name used, Pam is a veteran of alcohol, pills, powders, scams and assaults. She might still be, she says, if she had not hitchhiked to Sydney and spent four weeks in a drug rehabilitation program for adolescents.
Like many teenagers who have had a lifetime of experiences before they reach voting age, Pam has a resilient wit and a knack for shockingly matter-of-fact statements. So many of her heroin-using friends have died that she says, ``It's always the question `Who's next?' It's pretty sick, but people take bets." She claims she did not qualify for any rehabilitation programs in Melbourne. `There's virtually nowhere to put a kid of 15 or 16." So she travelled to Sydney and after collapsing in the street, she spent four weeks in a program where the youngest child was an 11-year-old glue sniffer. She recalls fondly the role play, the group therapy and the fact that ``the workers were prepared to deal with kids like us...They knew we didn't go on drugs because we were happy..." We have heard so many stories of teenagers like Pam they have almost become hackneyed. Her path was predictable: a product of a broken family, she was a ward of state by the age of three and moved around frequently.
But how many Pams can a society tolerate? And while many worry about the crime rate, should we be doing more to contain a key source of crime _ drug addiction _ at an earlier age?
Most experts agree it makes sense to treat people early for a drug addiction. It saves lives and money in the cost of foregone crime. The problem is a lack of facilities to do so, say many people working with young drug users. They say there is an urgent need for a community-based drug rehabilitation program specifically designed for teenagers, offering much-needed accommodation.
It is hard to reconcile the notion of children as young as 12 or 13 using heroin or amphetamines or pills or sniffing butane gas. But a core of alienated youth are graduating in hard drugs rather than VCE subjects. Their drug of choice differs according to availability. Heroin is said to be popular now.
Odyssey House offers Victoria's only residential program specifically designed for adolescent addicts, says its executive director, Mr Joe Lamberti. He says Odyssey's therapeutic community takes teenagers who go to school and join in counselling, domestic and outdoor activities.
Odyssey has a 24-hour admission program for adolescents. But Mr Lamberti says the demand they can meet is ``next to nothing" compared with the numbers who need care.
While others applaud the role of Odyssey, they say this type of institutionalised approach is not feasible for many young addicts. They are not talking about teenagers dabbling in drugs at parties. Most teenagers with drug problems belong to a high-risk group of homeless unemployed and young offenders _ often from broken families _ who drifted out of school at 12 or 13.
Their lives are so fragmented and their faith in institutions so warped that the director of the Task Force drug treatment agency, Mr Craig McDonald, says they need holistic treatment at a community level plus accommodation. He says the biggest hurdle is attracting young people to treatment, therefore the environment must be inviting.
``We have young people in here every week ... that have drug problems and are homeless and are offending or at risk of offending and they have absolutely nowhere to turn." He has resorted to suggesting they go interstate.
How widespread is teenage drug use? Social researcher Hayden Brown says that between one and two per cent of students have tried heroin or amphetamines by the age of 17. But between 20 and 40 per cent of youth in the ``high-risk" group have used these drugs.
Mr McDonald says information will not stop people addicted to drugs; they need a program that looks at the deeper causes. Nor is detoxification enough. Drugs represent exhilaration and escape. Teenagers need to be offered replacements, to stop them later returning to drug use.
The executive director of the Windana Society holistic community, Mr Peter Bucci, says young homeless drug users are in a no-win situation. They will not be admitted in hostels if they are using ``powders". But they have nowhere else to go.
Windana has room for only two adolescents _ any more would be disruptive to adult patients. The consensus view is that teenagers and adults don't mix. Teenagers have more energy and require intensive support in a relaxed environment. They may also be at risk of ``contamination" from adult drug users.
A report released last July by Mr Brown found that of all people registered as clients with accredited drug and alcohol agencies in Melbourne during 1989-90, just 3.4 per cent were aged less than 20. It said ``even fewer (teenagers) obtained any discernible benefit or satisfaction from the experience".
Mr Brown says the paradox is that while most drug problems begin in adolescence, it may be between 10 and 15 years before addicts attend a drug and alcohol agency. Yet early intervention would benefit society.
In response to his report, Mr Brown says authorities have taken ``fairly fumbling and tentative steps _ almost as if to address criticisms about the condition of things without...making any effective response." To its credit, the State Government has worked to provide better education and counselling to drug users. In youth training centres, programs focus on health, self-esteem and drug use. The acting chief executive officer of the Langi Kai Kai youth training centre, Mr Jim Hopkins, says there is almost no comparison between the programs they were offering five years ago and those offered now.
But opinions are divided over approaches towards adolescent drug use. A Health Department spokesman says it wants to integrate young drug users into the existing health services such as community health centres rather than create specialised centres. It is spending money to improve the capacity of treatment agencies to meet youth needs through the publication of a resource kit and a directory of alcohol and drug centres.
The director of the Brosnan Centre, Mr Bernie Geary, thinks the State Government is ``on the right track" by encouraging a community-based solution rather than putting addicts ``in a big building in the hills".
But Mr McDonald says this ``high risk" group need to be targeted specifically as they do not attend community health centres. Mr Lamberti believes the Government is too wary of ``stigmatising" young drug users.
He says rehabilitation of teenage drug users is a very specialised area. ``You just can't get every religious group or boy scout group to turn themselves into experts on troubled youth...more often than not they need residential help." Task Force has submitted a proposal for a community-based adolescent program to the Health Department, featuring a day treatment program, covering such things as literacy, vocational, social skills and family relationships combined with supported accommodation.
Mr McDonald says the plan was rejected by a regional arm of the Health Department due to lack of money. He warns, ``It's not the cost of a program the community can't afford, it's the cost of not having one."
© 1992 The Age
Share This