Ice-addicted parents to get more help

Ice addicts in some of Queensland's most drug-riddled communities will have access to rehab and other services under a $6m plan to tackle the scourge.

A PETA ad highlighting drug use in the wool industry.

The Queensland government will spend $6 million a year on communities most impacted by the drug ice. (AAP)

Ice-addicted parents in one of Queensland's communities worst-affected by the drug will be among those targeted for help under a $6 million plan.

Five regions - Cooktown, the Gold Coast, Rockhampton, Charleville and Cunnamulla - will receive extra rehabilitation services while two new Drug and Alcohol Brief Intervention Teams will be set up in the Logan and Townsville hospitals.

The money will also allow a health practitioner to work intensively with ice-addicted parents in Logan, south of Brisbane, Health Minister Cameron Dick said on Sunday.

"When we see families who are clearly suffering because of the use of drugs by parents, they will get in there and start intensive case management with those families," he said.

The government is considering using proceeds of crime to fund its response to the ice scourge.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged the National Ice Taskforce to follow suit, saying it was the most cost-effective way of helping ice addicts.

Mr Dick said about $10 million worth of unexplained wealth and proceeds of crime was seized each year and much of it went towards funding the corruption watchdog and Director of Public Prosecutions.

The two new intervention teams will screen all patients for potential alcohol and drug problems for referral to other services, as is done at the Gold Coast University and Royal Brisbane and Women's hospitals (RBWH).

The model was borrowed from overseas, RBWH addiction psychiatrist Dr Mark Daglish said.

"Often when people are beginning to run into problems with substance abuse, they're not usually in contact with alcohol and drug treatment services," he said.

Referring such patients would also reduce the burden on emergency departments and general practitioners, he said.

Dr Daglish estimates his team sees half a dozen stimulant-using patients every Saturday and Sunday, mostly aged 16 to 29.

The weight of police seizures of ice in Queensland has increased by 100 per cent in the last five years, the Queensland Police Service says, while the purity of the drugs seized has risen by 72 per cent.

The premier has also launched a discussion paper called Ways to Combat Ice Addiction in Queensland and the public has six weeks to make submissions.


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Source: AAP


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