Cleaning Up After Meth: The Toxic Truth They Don't Want You to Know | Ice Wars | Documentary Central

and it's tearing apart the fabric of community it's not just the victim that's the victim it's the friends it's the loved ones it's the mother the Father the sister the children they're the victims Australia is under siege I want my police station to be full of criminals you lose your soul you lose everything worse in heroin worse in Coke worse in pot we are the world's second highest uses of crystal methamphetamine street name ice 1.3 million people in Australia have tried ice some of your friends and members of your family would have to have tried ice in this series ice Wars goes behind the headlines every second house is a dealing these days all the kids are on it it's shocking there's messages in your phone that that's saying that you're dealing drugs to pregnant ladies ice ice is not a drug confined to those people who others would refer to as junkies it doesn't matter who you are what part of level of society we're in lower upper middle wherever you can get hooked on this stuff pretty quick you can't have anything I have to take my pan bag to the toilet with me that's how bad it is with exclusive access to Police Operations police SE open the door you're under arrest for the supply a drug what's with all this cash man don't mind I was going to say before appears to be the barrel and a part of the stop for a shotgun from the street who ran who ran who ran who ran a genuine sweet puff oh hello the criminal gangs down on the ground now this is a story of a drug Alpha 21 Alpha 20 and Alpha 19 when when did you find out you had the meth Vib in your property we see these premises explode they volatile environments run by am scientists dealing with dangerous chemicals it's grip your roadside test has come back positive okay six of those cars drivers have had to be arrested it's a strike rate of every 2 and a half cars they test as a positive and those fighting back the community is asking for our help the they're human beings underneath there we need to support those people who are suffering as a community as a country I want you to be in charge of your I don't want to be in charge of your life I don't care whatever's going to save my son's life and I'm going to throw it at them because I don't want to lose my son and I'm certainly not going to lose him without a [Music] fight it's tough to stop a drug manufacturing industry that can be hidden in plain sight much of Australia's ice is made in small labs that can be set up just about anywhere warehouses sheds Apartments the house next door we can walk right past an ice lab every day and never suspect a thing police believe this house in a quiet residential street in Sydney's West contains a meth lab they're very volatile situations um and we can't pose that risk so a force is a hand and we have to move in and ensure the safety of the community today they're going to shut it [Music] down inside a Weston Sydney police station the operation begins with an early morning briefing The Raid involves local cops organized crime Squad detectives and plenty of muscle from the operation support group also up early this morning is the big boss froms Chief Inspector Michael cook is in charge of chemical operations for the New South Wales Drug Squad this morning we're executing a search warrant um at the moment we're just talking with a surveillance team that are at the location they've been there since early this morning very quickly thanks all for coming here today and assisting us with this Strike Force and search warrant just a bit of background the target of today's raid is a career criminal well known to police and ran intelligence uh has also indicated to us that he does have a history and tendency to uh manufacture small amounts of prohibited drug from his residence it does take a certain person to profit off of someone's pain basically investigators anticipate on the commencement of the search warrant that will at Le find chemicals and apparatus uh relative to the manufacturer prohibited drug thanks very much jent when they get the all clear just get ready first through the door will be the Tactical entry team so all doing now we're going to bring our kid in we're going to start getting ready to go once we get the word we're out of [Music] here [Music] timing is crucial on clandestine lab raids too early and the stage of manufacturer won't be Advanced enough to secure a conviction too late and the evidence could be destroyed mate how are you okay mate we're rolling in now so about 7 minutes off see you soon what a what Cru could be [Music] mov information activity police saer police SRO after the door time Poli open the door hit hit [Music] hit the campaign to destroy ice Labs is led by The Drug Squad they're based here at police headquarters in param yeah I don't think there was anything in the house last time just the in the rear shed and meth again yeah ice is a large part of our business there's is no denying that it's a problem for us detective superintendent Tony cook and his team advise the state's police on their response to to ice manufacturer and distribution it's a big property there's lots of stored glass wear there some chemicals the manufacturer of ice occurs in all manner of premises it can be in large industrial settings it can be in residential homes on residential streets it can be in moving vans we see these premises exploded their volatile environments being run by am scientists dealing with dangerous chemicals ice can be made from acetone which is paint stripper toine another powerful solvent red phosphorus which is used in matches and highly flammable lithium from batteries that will burn the skin on contact Hydrochloric and sulfuric acids that corrup metal and sodium hydroxide that dissolves human flesh you wouldn't go and drink a bottle of Na polish remover but these are the types of chemicals that are used to make these drugs Drug Squad detective Sergeant Allison Smith and her team must track the chemicals to their Source it's easy to become passionate about the work it's very important to me and I think I bring a little bit of a feminine perspective to The Drug Squad Sometimes women have a different way of looking at things and sometimes we can bring a different Viewpoint to a discussion that maybe the boys haven't thought of being a mum that has its benefits as well you learn how to multitask really well when you're a mom so Allison and her team have the job of investigating the drug lab in Western Sydney once the Tactical group have secured the house we respond to those type of support operations almost weekly our numbers haven't grown significantly over the last couple of years but what we're seeing is more complex Laboratories of a larger scale Michael cook has no doubts about who's behind this trend for bigger ice Labs it's generally people who have money to back their processes so we'll be an organized crime group to make their investment pay the crime gangs need to find Cooks who are skilled in working with these chemicals skilled cooks are very highly sought after by organized crime we find that a lot of the cooks are older Mal Australians the returns for the activity they undertake can result in huge profits for these organized crime groups so they're very well looked after that pulls them back into that activity on a regular bis in Sydney's West police are raiding a suspected ice lab but the suspect is not inside as the secondary team of officers arrive on the scene a man wanders out of a neighboring house and onto the property is he been secured I don't know he mate looking for me he you mate Hi how are where are you been no you're right man I doing what I done I'll bring you up here police only find one other person inside the house yeah but look [ __ ] socks you be right you're big boy I'm the big boy [ __ ] camera please just detective Ray we just going to explain to you what's going on here today okay okay we have a warrant here to search the premises okay it's to search premises for prohibited drugs namely methamphetamine also ledgers U paraphernalia and Australian currency okay right away police can see some kind of lab inside the house but they haven't got the suspect locked up just yet without the right evidence properly presented in court their case could collapse at the moment we're just in the early stages of the search warrant uh inside the house we have identified some chemicals and some apparatus that are consistent with the manufacturer prohibitor drug um just from my observations uh this setup here is fairly typical of what we call the drug premises um underneath the Eve there there's a uh CCTV camera um with pan tilt and zoom capabilities so obviously they can see directly up the street here you can see say for instance police coming here today they've got the heads up they can flush the the uh drugs down the toilet but the raid took the suspect by surprise finding a stash of ice on the property will give police the evidence they need to make an [Music] arrest we found some um ammunition Clips in the um G they've been there for years still know nothing about them people involved in cestin Laboratories more often than not you're looking at people that that have links to organized crimes have you ever eared anys yeah years ago I did you yep more often than not you're going to find that they are armed whether it be with Firearms knives other sorts of weapons because they're looking at protecting their own interests appears to be um quite a lot of cartridges of um 7.6 2 mm rounds you're going to have other criminals coming to their house uh you may have driveby shootings they're not the sort of people you want next door they don't care about the neighbors or anything like that they're indiscriminate they been up years and [Music] years as we're finding items of interest and like such as this they might give a little bit away but they always showing distance themselves this appears to be um the the barrel and a part of the stock for a um shotgun first time SE right now the only thing police can charge the suspect with is possession of an unregistered firearm as more ice leeches into the community the number of people seeking medical help has increased five times since 2010 so just relax mate it just all right the kind of things that people turn up with at an emergency department are often psychosis so mental acute mental health problems that are usually related not just to the drug but also due to the fact that people stay up for days without sleeping so that trips them over into some kind of psychotic or perceptual disturbance so that that is a common presentation but people can also have cardiovascular problems and problems with their hearts and strokes problems with their brains and very occasionally seizures too dirty about 25% of regular meth users will have some kind of psychotic symptoms and they're quite visible then because they're they very suspicious and they may be seeing things that aren't really there hearing things that aren't really there feeling things on their skin or they may be getting quite aggressive because they're paranoid okay let's have a look at this one in nearby Blacktown District Hospital around 40% of the patients in the lockable acute side of the psychiatric unit have used [Music] ice mental health trauma unit manager Ash Baker is catching up with Aaron one of his patients Aaron has schizophrenia and is also an ice addict so Aaron's been in a hospital for the last few weeks after he went to the hospital asking for help because he had ideas of wanting to hurt people I've known Aaron since he's about 20 years of age when he first came in hospital in 2002 he's got a history of paranoid schizophrenia and and when he's also using uh amphetamines and ice in particular um has quite marked deterioration he mental state good Aaron how Ash good mate how are you not too bad not too bad that's so way how you been yeah not too bad yeah yeah still using the ice yeah still using the ice having episodes of um my um schizophrenia kicking in and um you start hearing voices like that are real like in your house or around you yeah um and they control you control your thoughts and your mind and your thinking and everything like that you see a you see a similar face and you think that they're stalking you and stuff like that you just get like you get real paranoid and you get real like um anxious to like hurt someone and and and um you just need another shot to um make it all better So eventually do you see yourself ever stopping sort of using ice or do you think sort of you may have to use it forever or I I feel like I have to use it forever right okay is it because of that that feeling that you get from taking it giving that up on yeah yeah it is okay you're smiling when you say that yeah yeah yeah I like it too much yeah I like it too much okay um but I feel like I don't want to hurt anyone that's why I come in here I don't want to hurt anyone I don't I love kids I don't want to hurt any kids or anything like that y um but I'm still going to stick with the ice into using he's got that thought that you know ice is making him better uh that he's he seems more confident able to do things a lot more um which he may feel but I guess something that he doesn't have the insight into is that that it's causing him sort of to have these paranoid ideas that people are after him and that people are telling him to become aggressive um and that sort of insight he doesn't have because of his illness as [Music] well I do have a mental illness um it's schizophrenic it's not because of drugs I I use ice to have have a good time and be good on it you know and stuff like that it's not the ice people reading your mind getting in your head playing with your thoughts it's just stuff like that and and and when I'm on drugs I hear them more it's more better for me to hear the voices because um then I know what they're talking about they could be your friend but then they couldn't be your friend they could be talking behind your back or they could be you know what I mean like it's good to hear voices like that um in those certain ways methylamphetamine hydrochloride known as ice this extra strong form of amphetamine has been available in Australia since the early 60s Ice is like nothing else it's like a it's like a Superman pill if you en injected immediately you feel a surge know when a roller coaster first takes off that's what it felt like it felt like I just felt like nothing could stop me like there was no other way to put it like nothing could hurt me and nothing could stop me a really intense all consuming sense of euphoria so this is what happens in the brain it has very very strong effects in the brain it releases huge amounts of dopamine it also increases sex drug dopamine is the pleasure neurochemical in our brain so anything we do that's nice we get a little squirt of dopamine makes us feel good so we do it again methamphetamine releases far more dopamine than anything else some of the estimates are around 1200% of Baseline levels it heightens the senses I can hear better I can see better I felt like I could focus better my thinking just was super clear it took away all my inhibitions I didn't struggle with my feelings anymore it's it's almost like a zone out is the only way I can describe it's like a drug that wants you to forget the real danger when someone takes methamphetamine is that the person becomes violent and they become violent largely because they're paranoid people become psychotic um so they experience hallucinations delusions are you going to for doctors working in hospital emergency crystal meth is in their face every day of the week the health workers call them ice monsters a significant dose of methamphetamine uh can produce all these effects because there is this flood of dopamine in the brain and it's really causing major imbalances in brain function and brain function is fundamentally changed you got the itches The Bugs Got The Bugs no so it's as if the person is living in a completely different world that's why they can be quite unpredictable they form these beliefs that are quite irrational and act on them uh and in that case they they're quite dangerous 2012 a few hours into the raid at the suspected drug lab in Western Sydney police find a handwritten note in the suspect's speedboat within the boat we found a looks like a bit of paper trying to set up a deal where they would um purchase pseudo ephrine or they refer to it as pseudo for about 70,000 a kilo and then um sell it for considerably more and they also turn that pseudo into the methamphetamine themselves and and yeah to sell on the street you would think it would be uh silly to leave a document total to yourself which enle an agreement to manufactur prohibited drug these people are often so focused on earning money and Manufacturing that they'll slip up at some some point and it appears in this case that the occupant slipped up leaving the letter in his boat you don't have to say or do if you don't want to anything you say do is going to be recorded we use evidence in understand the first time ever laid eyes on right now um it's been placed under arrest by police and that's in relation to being the position of the ammunition we saw before the firearm part and also operating a drug premises which is what we believe this is here the cooks and making money out of the misery of the users they're making huge amounts of money and they don't care where that money comes from um I got no no respect at all for these people I'm concerned that they're held up in in their own circles as Role Models I suppose any 2bit drug dealer wants to be meth cook they see the lifestyles these people live until we catch up with them and they just want to be like them so it's it's just very annoying to see see that type of activity happen the police aren't done yet the forensic team moves in to find the evidence to build their case after several weeks free from meth in psychiatric care Ash feels Aaron is well enough to return home he's going quite well he's um getting put out on leave at the moment to to try him but he is looking to be put on a community treatment order on Monday so that'll see him go back into the community but with monitored support for 6 months to ensure that he's receiving his medication and also to make sure that he that he's U being looked after in the community by a case manager I've been in here now around about five times five times in hospital now yeah I'm looking forward to leaving yeah I'll leave Monday yeah can't wait it's about time that I do quit and um get some um counseling for it and um yeah get it get out there and start working and then um yeah get another relationship and have some more kids and settle down and hopefully that doesn't come up again in my past life was he using again right so is he aggressive he was talking about raping women oh okay all right so it's not looking good for there's no furniture in the house really oh gosh okay yeah so he's still got those delusional beliefs about all right no worries thanks a lot cheers bye so that was Allison the case manager so she went out to see him the other day and uh he was really elevated speaking quite rapid and talking about uh that he's going to build all the um tow houses around his area so he's got those still those same beliefs as what he's he's got chronically um but she was saying that you know he said that he has no plans of wanting to stop on us it's not very good no you know it's sort of sad to see that he back in that Circle again yeah I don't know what else we can do you know coming into hospital he can't use but then as soon as he's into that Community back into the environment he's using again we'll probably go out there and have a try and see what we can do to help him yep fair enough but she said just be a bit weary the way that he's going if he is continuing to use and these delusions are coming out more and more um and he's at risk or others are at risk we then yeah would have to probably write a schedule and bring him back back into Hospital yeah I do have the power to take away someone's Freedom if I feel that they're unwell uh the only person that uh you know you can't do it to is your family so but I can schedule the Mother-in-law if I need to um she's not related um but no but certainly you can't schedule any of any of your uh blood relatives [Music] hi mate hi sweetheart how are you you remember Joe how are you Joe yeah I'm really good how are you thanks so have you been using ice um I haven't been using ice for a while since I got out of the hospital but so you haven't had anything no I haven't had anything okay cuz you just seem a bit sort of Speedy I'll tell you the truth yeah I did have some I had I had some I had some ice and I had to smoke a pot um to stay awake um and just a listen um I got some sleep I slept all night like I can sleep while I'm on it but it just keeps like when I when I injected it it keep me um awake but not um so how you're thinking at the moment it seems like you're jumping my thinking my thinking is like I'm telling you my part of my life story if I'm going to go to the jail system I want to come as a forensic patient under protection in jail too as well I've been stabbed and stuff like that down at M then I'm seeing all other people from other jails and that coming in the area especially rapists and murderers and they banging on the window telling me to get out they use these key things to their pins and they use a pair of pliers to open the front door but person told me that um the photographs of your daughter's um split head there um they ax her in the head do you notice at the moment that your thoughts I mean from having a tattoo hold on can I just hold on a minute sorry your thoughts at the moment like you're jumping from one topic to another topic do you find that you you've got a lot of thoughts happening maybe a top of um a paranoia schizophrenic type of thing um through um scaredness are you feeling unsafe here I feel I don't feel I feel I feel I feel unsafe wherever I go do you ever sort of get to a point though with being here where you ever think that you may want to hurt someone or because of what they may be saying or do you ever get worried that you you're having those thoughts I'm I do have thoughts of um with mouthy people that want to mouth off and stuff like that if they want a mouth off at me right and only believe the other side of the stories through the lies I can do that too and if I get violent I'm going to smash you with something or I'm going to blow your [ __ ] brains out or snap your kid neck you know or I'll ask your kid in the [ __ ] head or I'll grab of people running through the schools with machetes and all that and killing your kids and that if my family's going to die and I'm getting Frets and that that's the way it goes he'd be pushed in society I'll cut your [ __ ] kids head off when I walk through the streets and that they're going to have to have Army coppers and all that following me and my own family and that cuz a newborn baby I'll stab it straight in the head I have no feelings for for anything people in society that want to carry on about my kids saying sck that my daughter got raped Mary saying suck you [ __ ] do you're not my [ __ ] some of the longer term problems related to methamphetamine use um uh to do with the neurocognitive effects in the brain those brain structures and function can be damaged for quite some time um it takes 12 to 18 months for those brain structur to start to recover and we don't know how long after that until they're back to Baseline levels Crystal myth causes a massive release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine into our nervous system but as crystal meth stops the dopamine molecules being reabsorbed users have to use more and more and heavy users may lose the ability to feel good at all we also need dopamine to send signals from our brain to our body in order to move properly the effects of dopamine depletion are disastrous you 17 times more likely to get Parkinson's disease and we found this in the vast majority of people who' used um methamphetamin despite the obvious terrible effects of this drug ice has overtaken ecstasy cocaine and heroin as Australia's illicit drug of choice it second only cannabis in [Music] popularity at the house in Western Sydney the suspect has been taken away police are carefully dismantling the ice lab toxic chemicals reaction beers utensils and storage jars all this is happening in the middle of a school day in an ordinary Australian suburb what what is concerning is you have a look the close proximity of all these residential houses so that's the real danger here um these things are volatile as the experts will tell you and it doesn't take much for these things to go off as you can see pedestrian walkway down the side you probably got school children everything like that coming and going something goes wrong someone innocent gets hurt along with the risk of explosion and fire meth labs release toxic fumes into the air when you go into a meth lab you'll smell a certain smell certain chemicals give off a certain Aroma um I got a bit of a whiff before of something I've smell number of times at meth labs and you'll get that um like a costic sort of a sweet smell that's it you clear officers from the evidence Recovery Unit are testing the suspect's paraphernalia to prove the lab here is producing [Music] ice you got some hypo okay so the first bottle has come back as hyper phosphorous acid which is a schedule 1 precursor chemical it's prohibited it's not a drug but it is an essential ingredient that you need to make methan cedent this key piece of evidence will be cataloged to help convict the suspect it looks like um some residue of methampetamine they usually use containers to dry the product when they're manufacturing it we're going to make sure preserve for prin and DNA it's hours into the the operation and the team has dismantled some of the walls in the house the Searchers found a a significant quantity of um white cine powder which we believe to be methamphetamine or ice they found it in the bathroom of the premises hidden behind uh partially formed wall on the street it's probably looking from about 20 grand to 30 grand worth and uh judging by the uh the chemicals and apparatuses that we've found at this location already it is indicative of um of Meth phom cook and chances are that the um the product that we did just sees was made at this premises CTIC Flames acid [Music] oone Alpha 21 Alpha 20 and Alpha 19 the chemicals and Hardware colle Ed at the raid in Western Sydney and more than 100 others each year end up in this secure warehouse this is the first time cameras have been allowed inside every time there's a clandestine laboratory located in New South Wales The Drug Squad manages all of the exhibits there's a lot of exhibits that are collected and these exhibits can't be stored at a police station because they're contaminated um because it's flammable liquids um Can someone put a TI cam on and put the APR on to open that one detective Sergeant Allison Smith has a degree in applied science so my role is to keep a record of what's on hand but also to make sure that we can get rid of those exhibits because it costs money to hang on to these things so we're going to have to mark each item off independently A5 yep all the evidence including toxic and explosive materials must be safely stored until the cases pass through the courts If people could only see the ingredients that go into making this some of these chemicals are disturbingly toxic to human consumption my first ice bus was quite large it was residential um there were children living in amongst it it was dirty it was dangerous these people this is their lifestyle they think nothing of exposing their own children to these toxic environments and it's quite quite sad to see from an investigator's point of view that um these kids really they they're not given the best start in life they're exposed to things that they shouldn't be exposed to but it's not just the chemicals there's meth lab Hardware to dispose of too these were found in a large scale manufacturer process in Western Sydney they weren't produced necessarily for drug manufacturer but they can be used in drug manufacturer so they would have legitimate uses when a large scale meth production line is shut down police often find thousands of liters of byproduct that needs disposing of safely some of the common meth cooking techniques produce waste solution that contains lead and Mercury we've had instances where we've had thousands of liters of waste tipped into local Creeks uh and it's been responsibility then of local Council authorities to clean that up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes we just see it lighted in 44 gallon drums and dumped on the side of the road um in each of these occasions councils generally required to respond or the EPA and clean up the mess there but there's always a significant cost associated with cleaning up those type of things the residues from a meth lab can hang around for years and years a lot of CTIC or acidic chemicals a lot of unknown chemicals going into the water table myth Cooks have been known to dump waste from a moving vehicle onto public roads when the labs move on they leave a toxic reminder when I first met my tenant I didn't think there was anything wrong with him he seemed to be nice he didn't sleep a lot he was up all night rumaging around downstairs and and then I was noticing U strong smell like vinegar like smell but because he said he was a chef I didn't take any further notice although in my head I thought that's not something you would like to eat it smelled a little bit strange and strong the meth lab in anet harof Sunshine Coast granny flat is one of the 377 detected across Australia in the 5 years to 2014 every one of them is a serious health risk there's not enough information out there to explain to people and get people to understand that um there is contamination left behind and it's actually not safe to live in these houses even though you can't see it it's not safe the same as we look for asbest and we look for lead paint on a house we should be looking for methamphetamin the main thing that's left behind is actually methamphetamine the drug itself it hangs around for a long long time it seeps into all the Furnishings it gets all through your air conditioning so as soon as you turn your air conditioner on it's just pushing methamphetamine rang your house the common health effects that we're seeing are respiratory problems in children so they develop asthma like symptoms they've never had asthma before they experience ADHD type of Behavioral changes um some of them are a little bit different from that some of them become a little bit more aggressive in the house toxicologist Jackie Wright recently investigated a family who lived in a meth lab site for 2 years without knowing the danger we've actually done hair testing for that whole family family to see how much methamphetamine has actually got into their body while they've been living there and for the younger children the levels that we're seeing are the same as lowlevel adult drug users so it's not a small amount so this is the granny flat that we went out underneath our house my bedroom is above this kitchen here so when he would do his cooking here he would open his window of course to let the fumes out and I would have my window open in my bedroom all night and so the fumes went out this window right up into my window and I inhaled them all night I had some psychotic episodes during the time that my tenant lived downstairs and I had a very heavy anxiety attacks that happened to me on on the highway while I was driving the car I was thinking everybody would come and kill me I then was very disorientated and I I went into the roundabout the wrong way I didn't know it was a roundabout I didn't know how I got there and I was like what is wrong with you and now in hindsight it turned out that by cooking that stuff up at night in that kitchen he poisoned me with that the Australian crime commission asked Jackie to develop a guideline for safe levels of exposure to meth residue so part of my research involved going and actually talking to the cooks in prison to actually better understand the things they do inside a house when they're cooking and the way they treat chemicals that can result in contamination so it's not like Breaking Bad where they're wearing all a protect stuff when they store everything nicely in the house none of that goes on they really have no perception about the damage they may cause to other people and what they may leave behind none of them considered that they left behind a [Music] problem Jenny boal runs a company that teaches professionals how to clean up after meth labs when when did you find out you had had the meth lab in your property there are a huge amount of labs out there and on the whole they're not remediated I I can guarantee you that out of the 600 plus meth labs that are discovered every year there's only a small fraction that are professionally remediated which is a concern exactly how the chemical cleanup should be done and whose responsibility it is to ensure it's done properly is a gray [Music] area this property was busted by police about 6 weeks ago and after they were finished they put that sticker on the door and the council is supposed to notify the owner the owner then needs to organize for a qualified person to test it to see how much contamination is Left Behind a cleaning company then will come in and clean it and then there'll be some more testing done to check to make sure it's clean enough and safe enough for people to live in none of the that seems to have happened in the 6 weeks since it's been busted that's common and quite often it may not happen at all unfortunately what commonly happens is councils don't want to take responsibility for the the meth lab they don't notify the owners at all so they just sit on the information the big issue with meth labs is that people don't know that a property has been used as a meth lab often what happens is you know people will move into a property it's not disclosed cl to them that it was a meth lab they noticed that some of them are getting quite sick and they can't work out what's going on and then they start talking to their neighbors was there anything here oh actually yeah there was some sort of raid on this property and comes back this property was used as a meth lab and then they trace it back and realize well no remediation didn't actually take place in Annette Hof's case it was clear the lab needed to be cleaned up but she wasn't happy with the official advice the drug SWAT came in in protective suits and went in and and seized all the material they found and took it away and then one of the officers talked to me handing me the leaflet and said you have to have that place cleaned up just wipe everything three times and then I said to that officer I think we should have a professional company come in to do this and the officer then said to me that will cost you thousands and thousands of dollars it's not that bad dear just wipe everything three times Jenny boal runs a reputable training company but finding a contractor who's squeaky clean can be a challenge this business at the moment is run by the mafia that's the way I look at it because there is no guidelines hygienists are out there demanding astronomical prices for testing and the testing is so simple I'll give you an example I've got two hygiene is in my mind right now one person charged $16,000 for initial testing another hygienist quoted 2,800 for the initial testing they're doing the same job so this is the test kit that the forensic cleaner um brought out here and uh he did all the testing and everything came below the legal limit but we decided still to go ahead and have this kitchen cleaned up forensically we did that voluntarily we didn't have to do it but we did it so that the kitchen is really really [Music] clean in Blacktown Aaron is back on the ice mental health unit trauma manager Ash baker has called an emergency meeting to discuss what to do next so we went out and saw Aaron and he was grossly thought disorted tangental he has used ice he has used pot he's quite paranoid about other people consultant psychiatrist of the crisis team Dr gorov Tandon is considering options for Aaron can we safely I haven't seen you've seen him can we safely say give him some medications today yep Mon and let's go whatever time we go and home visit him see him tonight see him first in again yet again tomorrow in the morning and take it from there the team needs to balance Aaron's Freedom against concerns for Community safety in hospital there's one way path we know exactly what's going to happen yeah yeah y absolutely he would be secluded he'd be he's agreeable to take a Lenin we spoke to him about that so I'm happy to give that okay in the 14 years Ash has known Aaron there have been no violent incidents and so the decision is made to leave him in his home I've got some Pleasant news for you but Dr Tandon decides to send a team of care workers right away with strong stive [Music] medication this job you create thick skin you know to be able to deal with what you see every day some of the things that you go out there and see in people's homes you you can't possibly fathom like it's it's disgusting previously I was supposedly quite a sensitive person um but now the wife say you know that I've toughened up a fair bit I've had to do that to survive this role and do this job because if you don't have a good coping strategy to deal with all these hard things that you see you won't last and they they're people they're human beings underneath there my hope is that you can find that in everyone and I really do strive to find that for so long a lot of people look at the negative side of things and if you change it around to what's actually positive in your life at the moment trying to find at least one thing to to grow on it can really help them hello Don how are you good mate how are you good that's s is no lights on yeah yeah I've put some lights on yeah I don't know what he's doing in that house he doesn't use electricity there's no TV there you know it's indicative of the only thing for him to to do is probably use drugs so what's your plans tomorrow my plans tomorrow yeah um just keep back at home and relax and go see my mom and um say hello to my mom and just think about what I want to do for a career in life and um good have a good time thank you hold your hand out like that for me thank you okay so it just helps your thought processes and sometimes when you've had the paranoia about people it helps with that yeah I think something Aaron I guess that we've really really got to make sure that we can try and help you out with is that ice can create and make these paranoid feelings worse for you um I'm paranoid without the without makes it worse Aon doesn't believe that ice is doing anything wrong he actually thinks ice makes him better but the ice you don't hang out from or the ice it's just like a hormone type of thing through acity through hormones and um and even when you're on Ice you get to still get a good night's sleep because um the purity of the ice that I get doesn't make you scatter out or it doesn't make you see things or it's not always about the drugs or anything like that's why I told you yes I do use ice it's extremely difficult because Aaron thinks ice is the thing that's going to make him feel better and then when you're trying to help someone that doesn't have that Insight it's virtually impossible to try and then get them to a place where they're going to be able to understand that ice is actually creating this paranoid thoughts making this sort of internal rage that he's got going on when he becomes unwell I like to just to be left alone and be left in and make sure my family's okay you know I had a lot of friends I a lot a lot of friends and stuff like that and thanks for your help anyway guys thank you problem tomorrow okay no problems thank you guys thank you have a good night yeah you too mate okay see you guys see [Music] you Aaron did really really well after we saw him we linked him in with the ongoing case worker and community support worker um unfortunately he did Relapse uh he had about a month admission but you know I think he's staying at a hospital longer which is good he's come a long way he was been in hospital for months on end and now he's actually being able to stay out he's re-engaged with his family again um he's doing quite well when he's really well he's well you know it's just unfortunate when he takes the ice he just goes backwards a bit since Aaron's return to the community he got into trouble he is now in jail for armed [Music] robbery next time welcome to operation Iceberg the community is asking for our help as ice spreads from the cities to the country The Way Wellington is every second house is a dealing these days and all the kids are on it it's shocking small towns are fighting back against the scourge I want my police station to be full of criminals I want them locked up and off the streets a mother's anguish he has taken something like $25,000 off me I have to take my pan bag to the toilet with me that's how bad it is and roadside testing yields frightening results they've tested 15 cars and six of those the drivers have had to be arrested stri rate of every two and a half cars they test as a positive does she know that you use [Music] ice

Channel: Documentary Central

Views: 99,219

Keywords: Documentaries, Documentary, crystal meth, 60 minutes, drug cartels, world news, illegal drugs, abc news, drug addiction, ice addiction, crystal method, documentary 2023, documentary 2024, documentary film, liz hayes, charles wooley, ray martin, peter stefanovic, jeff mcmullen, jennifer byrne, peter harvey, michael usher, ross coulthart, george negus, ian leslie, gerald stone, sarah abo, ice addict, ice epidemic, ice epidemic australia, crystal meth victims

Id: vO7DAHDFjzU

Length: 55min 50sec (3350 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024