Australia: The push to end Victoria’s war on drugs

By Benita Kolovos , The Guardian

Baden Hicks battled drug addiction for 20 years, during which he says he survived 18 overdoses, five by the “skin of his teeth”.

He has experienced homelessness, been in and out of psychiatric wards and jail. But the 36-year-old wants to be known as more than “just a drug addict”.

“I’m a father, I’m a brother, I’m a son, I’m a grandson, I’m an uncle. Through my functional addict years, I got a boilermaker apprenticeship, I went to night school and did further studies in that. I worked in the dive industry for eight years. I’m a scuba diver and a spear fisher,” he tells Guardian Australia.

“People don’t choose to become drug addicts. There’s a reason why people generally use drugs. For me, I used drugs to deal with a lot of pain in my life, which really felt unbearable.”