26 August 2018
National charity, the Australian Anti Ice Campaign will unveil its expansion into South Australia with a community forum at the Goodwood Community Centre on Tuesday.
Business SA will be partnering with the AAIC to help address the unprecedented use of ice in South Australia, as highlighted in our recently published discussion paper, The Ice Age – The Drug Epidemic Hitting the SA Workforce.
The community forum will include speakers from AAIC, Business SA, the South Australian Government, Narcotics Anonymous, recovered addicts, and a mother who has endured the horror of having her child go through ice addiction.
The Business SA discussion paper highlighted data showing South Australians up to 5000 South Australian workers in safety-sensitive industries are turning up to work each day affected by methamphetamines. AAIC Operations Manager, Glenn Ivers, says other data indicates a looming national catastrophe due to escalating ice use amongst Australian teenagers.
AAIC will unveil a multi-faceted approach to addressing this potential catastrophe, principally through education. Speaking from first-hand experience after enduring a two-year, $500 a day ice addiction, AAIC Founder and CEO Andre’a Simmons stressed the incredible difficulties faced by people trying to escape from the entrapment of addiction to this insidiously destructive drug.
“We need to take a proactive approach to stop our kids getting on ice in the first place. Existing efforts to stop the spread of Ice into our schools are failing. We need a radically different approach if we are to begin to address this problem at the grass roots level” Ms Simmons said.
AAIC recruits, trains and employs people like Ms Simmons, who have recovered from addiction to integrate their own often horrific stories into a high impact education workshop promoting AAIC’s core message – Not Even Once.
AAIC will also unveil its plans for a wide-ranging community response to help address the destruction being caused in regional South Australia.
“This is a community problem and we need a community based response. The AAIC program is designed to work in collaboration with existing service providers and programs. We do not suggest that we have the whole solution, and we applaud the efforts of Business
SA in pushing for policies and testing for ice in the workplace” Ms Simmons said.
To arrange an interview or for further information, please call Verity Edwards from Business SA on 0412 678 942 or Glenn Ivers from AAIC on 0491 479 211.