The Ice Age (26 page)

The increase can be explained by simple supply and demand. However, the rise in individual labs also shows how relatively easy it is for untrained people to learn how to make meth. The method can found on the internet, and that is often where people are buying the ingredients as well. According to the Victorian parliamentary inquiry paper:

The process of manufacturing methamphetamine using ephedrine and pseudoephedrine is not difficult. Extracting the precursor involves simply soaking the tablets in methylated spirits, decanting or filtering to remove sediment, and then evaporating the solvent, leaving the precursor.

Addict-based labs are also very difficult to police; the amount of resources used to find one single addict-lab may not be worth the effort. And even if the police
do
find one, it won't take long before another addict — perhaps in the same suburb, or even the same street — is going to learn how to do the same. All of this is in palpable contrast to other heavy drugs like heroin or cocaine, which need entire agricultural fields to grow. And while it has become far more difficult to get pseudoephedrine-based medications from chemists, it is thought that most addict-based labs are still using these medications to make their gear. Jason Ferris, who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) at The University of Queensland, told me that all you need as base ingredients to make an entire gram of meth is in just two packets of Sudafed.

While there is now more potent meth on the market — that is, the crystallised form — all forms of methamphetamine are manufactured the same way. The form in which the end product is sold simply depends on how far the manufacturers extend the crystallisation process.

Now to an extremely important point, which is crucial to understanding why meth has risen again as a problem in Australia in the last five years (this being in addition to the growth of Southeast Asian production). In 2010, it came to the attention of police that a new, simple method for making powdered meth had been discovered and was being used widely — the ‘shake and bake' method that allowed individual users to make meth quickly by shaking ingredients together in a plastic bottle

The ‘shake and bake' method is a variation on the more traditional ‘Nazi' method (which was indeed used extensively by the Nazis, and then by OMCGs in the early 1970s). This method retains the majority of crystal meth's traditional ingredients (pseudoephedrine, lithium, Coleman fuel, hydrochloric acid, etc.), but rather than using glassware and an open flame, they're mixed by shaking them all together in a regular plastic bottle with water. Nobody is sure who started this method, but it quickly spread from the United States to Australia. The entire process takes less than fifteen minutes, and is fast becoming the method of choice for ten of thousands of meth-producing addicts, creating a phenomenon known as rolling meth-labs: transportable laboratories which are often found in cars, hotel rooms, or rented properties. The end result is not as potent as crystal meth by any stretch of the imagination, however the ease with which it is made is clearly an issue for authorities who are understandably finding such vast, individualised production difficult to police.

One user, Helen, told me she makes her own meth using this home-made method. ‘I guess anybody can make it, but making good stuff is hard,' she told me. ‘I like to use a lot, so that's why I make my own batch.'

‘How did you learn how to make it?'

‘From a friend,' she said, going on to explain the process of making meth via the ‘shake and bake' method — for obvious reasons, I will provide a mere skeleton view of what she told me.

‘The first step involves grinding everything in a food processor, and then you shake it all up in an empty Coke bottle using lithium from a battery,' she said. ‘The main ingredients are over-the-counter cold remedies. I know people who case big warehouses for this stuff, but most of the time I don't need it, because with a few packets I can make about three grams in a few hours.'

There are plenty of strange places where meth labs have been spotted: Melbourne police officers once discovered people cooking crystal meth and selling it from a van in a park, as if it were an ice-cream truck. In Bundaberg, a car was pulled over with smoke rolling out of its windows — the driver was making meth as he drove. At other times, it has been found in bathrooms, car boots, caravan parks, and even retirement homes. Hotel rooms can be the perfect place to make the substance, particularly when booked under false or no ID.

Drug manufacturers more generally seem to favour rented properties, so they don't have to carry the liability of a property that has become so infested with toxic smoke that it seeps poison out of the walls for months, even after a lab has been removed and the area has been professionally cleaned. First National Real Estate in Queensland even held two specific information sessions at its recent national Property Management Conference to ensure its property managers are fully equipped, both to identify and effectively manage their response to the rise of meth labs.

And in Australia, meth-lab cleaning is becoming a fast-growing industry. In 2011, the Meth Lab Clean-up Conference and mini trade-show, held on the Gold Coast, drew 150 delegates. Other exhibiters at the conference included Real Estate Dynamics, Veda, and AON, who have recently included cover of up to $10,000 for illegal drug production in their landlord insurance. Jena Dyco International, the leading Australasian trainer in carpet and upholstery cleaning and restoration, announced the addition of a new course to their scope aimed at teaching restorers how to clean-up and remediate illegal drug labs.

I spoke with Jenny Boymal from Jena Dyco, who said they had noticed a spike in the number of meth-lab cleaning inquiries from around 2010 onward.

‘Government departments didn't know about it, nobody knew much about it, we actually had to contact a forensic scientist in New Zealand about it, and we developed the course as a result. It's not okay to say, “I have been cooking meth in this property — I'm going to paint the walls and she'll be right”, because it won't be fine. It will seep right through the paint in many circumstances,' Jenny told me. She also explained just how toxic the stuff I had been injecting straight into my veins could be — or, at least, how toxic the production process is.

‘The first thing we do is test for mercury and lead … what happens is that the smoke from the chemical process means these substances are in the wall, so if we find mercury and lead we need to more than just a surface clean; if you just do a surface clean then these substances will simply start seeping out every couple of months. If people live in this environment they often come down with colds. We know of one cleaning company that didn't use masks going in and they all came down with excruciating headaches after inspecting a meth-lab scene,' she said. ‘Our cleaners usually go in with respirators, Tyvec suits, shoe coverings, gloves, and eye goggles.'

Each kilogram of meth manufactured creates 10 kilograms of waste. Ammonia and hydrogen chloride are both corrosive gases that will affect the eyes and respiratory tract, with damage increasing with concentration, and in a worst-case scenario, the result is pulmonary oedema and death. Currently, there are only state guidelines for meth clean-ups, and there is no obligation for landlords or prior owners to tell new tenants or purchasers that the property was used as a meth lab — a fact that has led to some calls for national disclosure laws.

Making meth is dangerous work. Royal Perth Hospital alone has treated at least 50 patients in the past five years for burns linked to methamphetamine manufacturing. It seems being a meth chemist can be dangerous and messy as well as lucrative.

Aaron Dalton's father told Fairfax media in May 2014 that he had watched his son transform during his two years in Port Phillip Prison. Aaron went from constantly talking of ‘getting people back' to telling his father how bad ice was and what it was doing to people. Dalton is now studying behavioural science. Meanwhile, with Dalton behind bars, Wangaratta thought the worst of the crystal storm was behind them. History was, however, determined to tell a different story. Just a few months after Dalton's syndicate were dismantled, a new, highly sophisticated syndicate sprung up in the town. A few months after Dalton was put in jail, another gang — this time an OMCG — started selling meth in town, and police again went to work, making more arrests and seizing $100,000 of dollars worth of the drug

And as for ‘Hot Wheels'? He was sentenced to eight years jail for drug trafficking on 19 December 2014. The 33-year-old Ryan Salton appeared in a hospital bed for his trial, in which Judge Anthony Serrick rejected any notion of lenience in his sentence because the paraplegic had a history of drug and firearm convictions.

Chapter Nine

Understanding the lure of crystal meth

THIS IS A
surprisingly difficult sentence to write, but here goes: meth has a good side. It is a sentence I have to write, though, because if I am going to tell the story of meth, I have to tell you about all the fun times that I and others have had, and continue to have, on the world's most powerful stimulant.

I spoke with a number of users from different states in Australia, and from different walks of life, about their experience of meth, and each of them said very similar things about its positive qualities. When I asked one user (who wanted to remain anonymous) about meth's good side, he said it makes him feel ‘giddy, like I'm in love' and as if every single cell in his brain ‘is more alive than ever before, more awake, more happy than ever before. I feel like the most entertaining, edgy, cool fucker whoever did live'.

One woman who works a 9–5 office job and maintains a marriage and three kids in the western suburbs of Sydney reported that, for her, taking meth feels like ‘getting something done; I feel this immense sense of pride, as if I'm the smartest and most accomplished person … I feel flawless, and that I haven't made a single mistake in my whole life'.

If we take her line of reasoning a little further, we could arrive at the following: ‘You can do anything and be anything you want in life with just a sprinkle of meth'. From my experience, I would say this is true, provided you don't want it done particularly well, and provided that nobody rudely taps you on the shoulder to say ‘it's all in your fucking head' — which is unlikely to occur if you surround yourself with other meth users.

Using crystal meth makes it difficult to tell the difference between what is real and what is not. It enables you to construct a fantasy that what other people (who, in reality, are all as self-centred as each other) do and think revolves around you and how good you are. Meth psychosis and its self-centred excesses are really just a more extreme version of the individual narcissism that meth creates.

After the initial rush, meth users are often enraptured by fantasies that they experience as either real, imminently real, or a hidden truth that they have finally discovered. The fantasy world creates the impression of a new, higher, more authentic, and ultimately more satisfying form of meaning. A shot of meth effectively goes straight to the brain, where it quickly forms a bubble cushioning you from the banality of the here-and-now, as well as from the failures and shortcomings of your past life and self. The consequence is that users tend to think of themselves as much more successful than their actual lives would suggest. Crystal meth allows you to become pleasantly confused about who you are, and these daydreams of imminent achievement become so real that they are instantly incorporated into your definition of self. The drug allows the construction of a new life narrative — a simplistic, victorious mythology, in which you are not only as beautiful, strong, successful, and popular as you can possibly be, but also that you are more beautiful, stronger, more successful, and more popular than anybody else in the room.

This process of believing your own delusions is what I call being in the world of ‘Fantasia'. I'm not talking about psychosis, or crazy out-there ideas like being able to fly or being a foot taller than you really are; Fantasia is when a waking fantasy means you think you have achieved your ego ideal. It's almost as if you are a kite, and your ego swells roughly to the level of how high you are flying.

Molly Andrews writes in her book
Narrative Imagination and Everyday Life
: ‘We know that the not-real might also be the not-yet-real, and that that which is real is never a static category … The real and not-real are not then polar opposites.'

Once you come out of Fantasia, you are presented with a chance to reach genuine revelation — or, at least, it seems that way. It seems, in fact, as if you have a clean slate. You have to pick up the pieces, to find a way to work out what is actually true: where imagination ends and reality begins.

My experience of Fantasia taught me that the ways in which we construct our selves and our egos are built equally on our fantasies of ourselves, our interpretation of the past, and our expectations of the future. Much of our life is given meaning through mythology, fantasy, and imagination, such as, for example, the ‘fantasy' of currency's value, the ‘fantasy' of property rights, of the need for fixed working hours, the ‘fantasy' of the ideal self in a media- and marketing-saturated world. I hope I haven't lost you here: please allow me to explain.

Prior to moving into Smithy's house, I had been living in Darlinghurst, Sydney. I really disliked the city, and I disliked the Oxford Street strip particularly. But when I reflected upon this after coming out of a Fantasia trip, I felt it had become clear to me that it was a place where people were trapped in their own imaginations. In particular, the imagined value of property, both to own and rent, meant people worked long hours in jobs which were not very fun, sacrificing weekends, week nights, and treating their minds like they were working in a nineteenth-century factory. Why? As far as I could tell, the professional middle classes of inner Sydney believed themselves to be in the throes of an imaginary social hierarchy, a bit like professional tennis players who play each week to improve their ranking. Many of those at the upper end of the scale longed to be in the elite — which meant owning a house that they and our society recognised as being of high value, and working in a job that, while not enjoyable, placed them at the top of an invisible ranking. Eventually, everything about the experience led me to believe that the conventions of bourgeois life were a charade; from the homogenised dress code and mannered passive-aggression of it all to the fact that people worked unnecessarily long hours to pay off ridiculously over-inflated mortgages.