This is the TV show that should be screened in every school in Australia.

“Jake” started dealing drugs at 11 and by 15, was an ice cook and addict.

Bradley pulled most of his teeth out of his head with a pair of pliers when he was high.

Ethan became addicted to the drug after just one hit — and before long, was trying to bust down the door of his family home, willing to hurt his own mother for drug money.

These men are just three of the countless Australians whose lives have been ravaged by the ice scourge currently decimating rural Australia.

It’s estimated that almost 350,000 Australians took ice, also known as crystal meth, in the last year — and according to clinical nurse Darren Cutts, who works with young ice addicts in regional Victoria, the age of the average user is dropping.

“The demographic for ice is changing all the time,” he said. “There’s been reports of 10-year-olds presenting at the Emergency Department here.”

This is the frightening story revealed by the ABC’s Four Corners last night in a report so shocking, so sickening and so fascinating, we believe it needs to be screened as a cautionary tale in schools.

Jake became an ice cook at 15 — and says in rural Victoria where he lives, it’s “as common as weed”.

He told Four Corners there are a number of young people like himself cooking the drug for bikie gangs.

“It’s pretty much like training an attack dog. If you get ’em young, the sky’s the limit,” he said on the program, which aired last night.

The report also told the devastating story of Ethan- a seventeen-year-old boy from Castlemaine in Victoria who says it took just one night for him to get addicted after he was injected by a local drug dealer.

“I wanted to kill somebody almost… I wanted to,” he said. “I couldnt live without it. I felt like… it was my way of life, you know?”

After becoming hooked, Ethan left school and joined a pack of fellow addicts hopping from town to town chasing the drug.

His devastated mother told the program she’d had to call the police because her son would return home in a violent rage, looking for money to fuel his addiction.

“He just… his mouth opened like a furnace and he looked like he could have lifted the house up, his rage was so immense,” Penny said.

“Mum locked the door on me and I remember thinking… if I get in there I will hurt her for money,” Ethan said, recalling those out-of-control nights. “I will get money out of her some, one way or another.”

Another tragic story is that of Kim — who, at 55, already has a daughter and a grandson also addicted to the dangerous drug.

Her top teeth had to be removed after she picked at her teeth and gums with a pen, causing a nasty infection. She also often has” the shakes” as a result of her addiction.

“You do all this weird sh*t like pick your teeth, pick your face, pick all these holes in your arm,” she said.

The drug is highly addictive — even more so now that some are cutting ice with heroin, Four Corners reports.

“It releases a massive amout of dopamine (the nuerotransmitter responsible for feeling pleasure)… it causes this enormous rush in young minds. They simply cant cope”, Mr Cutts said.

Over time, the drug destroys the brain’s ability to naturally produce dopamine, and can cause brain damage.

Kim, now the matriarch of a family witnessing three generations of addition, says she’s ashamed of the example she’s setting for her loved ones — but after six years of addition, she’s struggling togive up the drug.

She has a word of warning for young Australians who have began dabbling in ice.

“I would say get help now before it gets its hooks into you. Otherwise, you are damned,” she said.

“You”ll end up with nothing and you will end up lonely and you will end up with brain damage.”

Watch the Four Corners report by Caro Meldrum-Hanna and Ali Russell here. It will be replayed on Tuesday 21st October at 11.00am and 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview or abc.net.au/4corners.

If you agree that this program is important enough to be screened in Australian schools, tell Education Minister Christopher Pyne, via his Facebook page.

Former ice addict speaks out:

Ice addict rummages through rubbish while high:

Ice addicts speak about addiction:

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