BYRON BAY and its ICE problem provided scintillating fodder for Channel 9’s ravenous crowd pleaser, A Current Affair, but left many viewers cold because of ACA’s trademark cheap shots and over-dramatised presentation.
A Current Affair’s Chris Allen reported last night, October 11, on the growing ICE problem in Byron Bay.
He said, in true scandalised and breathless ACA style, that Byron Bay was owned by backpackers during the week, but on the weekend thousands of party animals descend on the town from as far away as Brisbane and Sydney.
He said booze and dope have always been a Byron police problem, but announced – as if it were a brand new phenomenon – a new and “even uglier” problem for the Bay Police to deal with: ICE.
Superintendent Wayne Starling, boss of the Byron Police region, interviewed very well, positioning his statements in the only manner a police representative should – based on pure facts like the number of arrests and charges.
Wayne also accurately described the effects of ICE on a user, and their personality changes after imbibing.
Australia for Animals head, journalist Sue Arnold, has lived and worked in Byron for 25 years, arriving on the scene in the late 1980s.
She says people are coming from all over Australia to Byron because it has “such a reputation as a party town”.
“And what goes with parties? Drugs,” she said, implying Drugs = ICE, even though that is not the case.
Sue also described personal experiences of individuals affected by the ICE problem. She didn’t however relate her hearsay ICE-usage instances to the whole set of Byron drug, holiday and business experiences.
If she had, she may have found the percentage of people coming to Byron to use ICE was extremely small, perhaps as low as less than 1 percent.
A Current Affair, as usual, used dramatic footage and wide-eyed, appalled commentary to tease and titillate ACA’s main audience demographic.
One local we spoke to wasn’t sure what was sadder – the way ACA dramatises things, or the fact that they simply do it because that’s how to hold enough Australians enthralled every night to make ACA as viable as it is.
Chris Allen finally conceded that the actual ICE problem was centred in Lismore where arrests for ICE offences have increased 70% in the last 24 months.
All the traditional ACA tactics were in evidence: shots of large stashes of cash and weapons, plastic bags of white powder, violent footage of people who were off their tree (but on booze, not ICE), a scapegoat (music festivals) because ACA audiences always need a scapegoat. And a passionate on-the-ground local (Sue). Because otherwise it might look like they made the whole thing up.
Anne Bleaker from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation put the Bay’s ICE problem into a more accurate perspective.
“We need to remember that for every ICE-related death, there are 63 alcohol-related deaths,” she said.
That’s not to say there isn’t an ICE problem in Byron. There is.
And dealing with it effectively will be more efficiently achieved by going to events like the Breaking the ICE Byron Community Forum tomorrow night at the Byron Bay Services Club.
Not by watching A Current Affair.
The Breaking the ICE Byron Community Forum will take place from 5.30 to 9 pm tomorrow night, Thursday October 13 at the Byron Bay Services Club.
For more information contact Nicqui Yazdi at buddiyouthteam@yahoo.com.au or 0402 013 177
This event is presented by BUDDI Community Drug Action Team and supported by –
- Alcohol & Drug Foundation
- NSW Health
- Noffs Foundation
- North Coast Primary Health Network
- Tweed/Byron Drug & Alcohol Services
- Northern NSW Local Health District