Speed users in need of help

[Lunar Loops]

Not sure about this particular line (if you'll pardon the pun) "amphetamines such as speed", but anyway this is taken from TheAge.com (Aus) :

Speed users in need of help
Carol Nader
June 28, 2006

VICTORIA lacks a specialised service for people who take dangerous amounts of amphetamines such as speed, according to the state's leading drug treatment service.
The Turning Point Drug and Alcohol Centre believes there is an urgent need to establish a specialised service and is working on developing one.
Detox and counselling are available in generic drug services, but Turning Point director Nick Crofts said there was no treatment focus on amphetamines, as there was for heroin, meaning some people did not get help.
"We get calls regularly from the residential detox agencies who will take in somebody with a heavy speed problem," he said. "They will help them detox and then there's nowhere to go for continuing treatment."
Professor Crofts said amphetamine use was probably declining. "What you're left with are the harder-core users … and they're the ones who are of great concern, the ones who are in need of intensive appropriate treatment."
He said it was harder for someone with an amphetamine problem to stay clean because there was no medical substitute for it like the methadone program for users of heroin. Instead, intensive counselling sessions were needed.
Depression, anxiety and psychosis are some of the problems associated with heavy amphetamine use. It can make people more aggressive and violent, and can be fatal at high levels.
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre information manager Paul Dillon said the most recent figures showed there were 75 deaths in Australia in 2004 in which amphetamines may have contributed. Of those deaths, 17 were directly caused by amphetamine use. In the same year, there were 357 deaths from opioid use, mainly heroin.
A spokesman for Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said specialist facilities to deal with amphetamine use were being considered in the long term.