Free The Ice Age by Luke Williams

lives. Their brains have become so convinced it is good for them that they will use any justification to keep using it, even if it does not appear to be benefiting them, even if it appears to be causing them harm, or, even at the very least, if it is not allowing them to live life to the full or take pleasure in other things.
    For me (as for Marc Lewis), the risk of using meth even occasionally is that you stop striving for new goals or new life-experiences that give you the same kind of thrill. Meth attacks your ability to reason, your sense of time, your counting skills — I admire anybody who is able to control their use of it. Indeed, the notion that meth use can be non-problematic or even life-enhancing must be tempered by the fact the drug wears down your self-awareness. Meth is not unlike the bite of the blue-ring octopus, whose poison is worse than its bite: it takes quite some time to realise you have been poisoned. With meth, you can go on functioning and feeling while addiction wraps itself around your body and mind.
    Ms Trish Quibell from Berry Street South services in Shepparton told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry:
    A lot of our young people would not see themselves as having an addiction; they would completely deny that they have an addiction. That would be prevalent regardless of what strata of society you come from. Most people do not believe they have got an addiction until something hits them and they have hit rock bottom.
    With more than a bit of uncertainty floating around my mind about these issues, I decided to ring Dr Nicole Lee to ask some of these questions, knowing that she has a reputation for being fair, centrist, open-minded, and compassionate. In addition to her positions at Flinders University and the National Drug Research Institute, Lee is a practising clinical psychologist. In 2012, she co-edited Australia’s most extensive academic book on amphetamines, and her consultancy company, LeeJenn Health Consultants , was hired by the Victorian parliament as part of its inquiry to provide answers to some of the trickiest questions about methamphetamine use in the community.
    Lee, a friendly and gentle-sounding person who spent much of our interview listening closely to my questions before giving long, considered answers, told me that she believes there are three broad types of users: acute — who are what we might term meth addicts, and use upwards of once a week; long term — who use intermittently over a long period of time, or go on binges before getting clean in a fairly constant cycle; and occasional users — users who use very, very occasionally, sometimes as infrequently as once a year. To this, she added the caveat that ‘unlike many other drugs where addiction is black and white, meth use occurs along a complex and varied continuum’.
    So if we are able to draw something of a contingent, cautious line between addicts and non-addicts, where do we go with the question of harm? Does the occasional user risk becoming depressed, anxious, or losing enthusiasm for life?
    Lee told me that there is a risk,
    but that the risk of occasional users getting any of the serious mental-health issues are very low. It’s the long-term users who we often worry about because they always run the risk of becoming an acute user … it can also be very difficult for people to recognise their depression is being caused by their meth use, and what our research also indicates is that there is often a five-year gap between when people first develop problematic use and when they first seek treatment.
    And, of course, there is always the risk that when people report their drug use to a researcher — particularly if they want reasons to continue their meth use — they will both understate how much they are using, and overstate the positive impact it is having on their life.
    I also called Neil Mellnor, drug counsellor and lecturer at the University of Sunshine Coast, who told