Sentencing to FFREEEEDOOOMM

Three weeks before my actual release I would front up to get sentenced. I was excited  about it, to me it was an outing out of jail, even if it was in a steel box on wheels. I arrived at the watch house, put my suit on and walked up to the courtroom. I see mum and a long time friend sitting there waiting patiently. I get to the holding dock and a wave of intense emotion comes over me. I am not sure whether it was fear, anxiety, stress or just realization of the situation I am in. The judge reads the details of my case out and I can feel my throat clamping and my eyes filling. I am holding back a volcano of emotions coming up and then the judge reads a letter my mum had written. She had written about her past and how that would of affected me and some traits passed onto me. I hear a big “whimper” come out of mum and she starts crying as if to take blame for this situation. I tried for the life of me to be strong and hold it in that day but still a few tears came rolling down. I don’t care what your made of that would buckle anyone. The sentence was passed down and taking into consideration time served I was out in 3 weeks.

The morning of my release I get up say goodbye to everyone and make my way down for processing. The feeling is nervous but exciting and as I get through and walk towards the huge gate. It starts sliding open and I break smile and my excitement reaches a higher level. I get in mum’s car and drive towards my mates where I am staying. Everything is colourful and so busy, I would hate to think what it is like to adjust after 10 years.

Back packing in Jail

For anyone who has not been to jail it is not what you think it is, do not get my wrong I don’t want to go back. 6 months was enough but in reality compared to others, i was just a back packer. As I said before jail is just a mind game. I feel sorry for the people who have girlfriends in there and lots of family struggling through it with them. Most suicides or attempts are over girlfriends because someone has told them something or they didn’t pick up the phone. The thing with jail is you have to do your time on the inside not on the outside. It used to take me months to ring someone and I did not like visits, simply for this reason, on saying that it was good to see my mum and friends come up. Funnily enough the friends that came up were ones from school and none from the crime world, brought to me a huge realization.

Mum would fly up from Sydney to see me and at my low point I confessed everything to her. My criminal activities and my double life she was not aware of. This hit her hard as she felt betrayed and as tough my mum is tears started rolling down her eyes, a look of I have failed as a mother took over her face. You see mum comes from a very tough place and my uncle was a drug cook. Mum moved here to get me away from the gang related legacy that resides back home, but here we were, I certainly hope its not in the blood. From confession came a promise, a promise to leave crime behind and break the family legacy. This promise would be very challenging and essentially what has led me to do this blog.

Is it jail, gaol, goal or prison

I hear a “Click”, I quickly get up off the hard bench to a bright freezing steel room. I lay back down and start processing the thoughts coming to my head. I look up again and there are people pacing backwards and forwards outside my door. “Whats going on here, am I going to get into a fight already” I think. I get up cautiously open the door and step out, the prisoners come towards me at a fast pace but go past me. I say to them “what are you doing?” They respond with “your first time brother, pacing helps you do time easier”. I start pacing with them but it wont be apparent how much it helps till later on in time.

The watch house is the first place you go before jail, it is the worse part of the journey. The drunks come in and be drunks, emotions are high, food is shit, its bright its cold, people are coming off drugs and for most people their fate is uncertain. I was only there for 4 days and then off to the remand center or maximum security jail. The Remand Center is where you go when you do not make bail. I did not arrive till late at night and I was shoved straight in my cell. I lay there awake to deal with my own thoughts in complete silence, no distractions. The only way I could push the feeling of fear down was to continuously tell myself “plenty of your mates have been here it is just a mind game, your game is to focus on training everyday, meet people and learn what you can”.

The lab unfolds

BANG BANG BANG BANG, the police come in guns drawn, they a screaming questions at me and my unresponsive behavior forces them to drag me out and slam me against the car. “This is the worse day of your fucking life” one of the policeman yells in my ear. I feel some pressure under my ribs and I realize the same policeman was kind enough to throw a punch in as well, we will call him “Bad Cop” for this blog. After a bit of a struggle they drag me up to the shed and sit me down.

“Bad Cop” is pacing backwards and forwards and staring at me intently, i can tell he is trying to create fear. At this point though I am surprisingly calm and my head is clear, almost like this day was expected and the adrenaline has put me into a focused less hazed state. “Bad Cop” starts throwing questions at me and my head instantly flashes back to what I was told about cops and questions. I without thinking calmly reply with “I do not wish to answer any questions for sake of my families safety”. “Bad Cop” pauses…. I can see the frustration in my lack emotional response and cooperation. I look closer at his body language, his jaw movements, high strung nature and it dawns upon me…. This policeman is on drugs. He storms off and another cop sits down.

This cop we will call “Good Cop”. He sits down with a calm nature, open gestures and introduces himself. He starts by explaining how is just another guy who goes to work, has a family and he wants to help me. I can tell this guy is trying to appeal to my emotions after “Bad Cops” failed fear attempt. I continue to explain that “I cant answer any questions for fear of my families safety”. With less haste he gives up and gets back to dealing with the lab site. As he is walking off I say to him “your cop mate is on drugs” he abruptly states “oh no he is just a fitness freak”, “Pffttt this drug really is as big of a problem as they say, its even in the police force” I think to myself.

Now I am on my own I sit overlooking my previous quiet acreage to an ant mine of activity. There were people in hazmat suits, uniform police, detectives, fire workers, paramedics and later on the news crew, but there I was calm as, and I still to this day don’t know why. I was given a slip to appear for court and dropped off at the hospital. For seven months I would pick myself up get sober and start a Tafe course. Unfortunately I was caught with some drugs in a 7 series BMW driving around in a ghetto area at midnight, honestly i deserved to be caught because that was stupid.

 

My Meth lab, and the unwanted visitors

My last blog was about how taking Ecstasy transitioned into smoking Ice and how it prompted me to learn how to make Speed or Ice.

I was always good at science, and the ease at which I learned to make speed will attest to that. Someone showed me once, I then read a chemistry text book twice, that along with experimenting got me the knowledge I needed. It was not long till I was doing little cooks and getting product.

A break up with the girl that introduced me to smoking drugs, fuelled my desire to go bigger and better. It was not long and I was out on a farm with some good equipment, the connections and the chemicals I needed. I had boxes of glassware, litres of chemicals, big stainless steel extraction units and plenty of drugs to smoke. I have showen people chemistry equipment and 95% of them do a big gulp and take a step back, not me though I was numb to all of this. I would sit in a closed up house with the most rancid chemical odour, have big apparatuses boiling and not be bothered, the drugs had created a thick haze of denial.

I was out there for a few weeks trying to fix up someone elses mistake. Something wrong was mixed in and had created problems. After weeks I could not figure it out and gave up. I then did a little cook to show my supplier what I could do. After finishing that, I got in my car to go meet up with him/her and I notice a car parked just up from my house. I got a strange feeling about it, something was not right, but my drug induced haze quickly faded it out of my mind, and on I went. Impressed with what I had done, I returned with more chemicals to do another, I set it up and got it bubbling.

I flopped on the couch exhausted but yet still wide awake. I look at my arms all covered in tattoos and my weight must be somewhere between 150 and 160kg. I sink into the couch to reach another level of relaxation, but in the back of my head I know I cannot go to sleep, why, because of the sophisticated meth lab in the back room bubbling away. I have been awake for 3 days straight. I decide I better check the lab, I heave my large body up and suddenly I hear a BANG BANG BANG, OPEN UP POLICE. I freeze, trying to figure out if it is really happening or paranoia. No this is real and they came through the door guns drawn.

Welcome to “Rock Bottom”.

The evolution of drugs.

Last blog I touched on how I got into dealing drugs. The seductive nature of the industry complimented my personal issues. That did change though, and the drug scene evolved aswell as the participants.

When I first got started, ecstatsy (MDMA) or eccys for slang was the in thing. It was strong, affordable, didnt have the stigma of ice or heroin and not as addictive. People stayed in their jobs, and could afford the money to get high for a weekend, and most importantly people stopped to go back to work. Getting robbed was rare, and drug fueled crimes because of ecstasy even rarer. I could only imagine a eccy stick up, guy dances into a servo, holds it up with a rave stick, then hugs his victim on the way out, very unlikely. These were the best times. A good party scene, plenty of cusomers, money and no fuss.

So as eccys are illegal and sought after by the police, eventually they managed to do their job and took out the major players. Eccys dried up. So what happens when thousands of drug users have no supply, they look elsewhere. Heroin was a downer and is looked so downly upon by the major drug populous, weed was a downer and only appealed to certain people, it definately was not a party drug either. The only other drug going around was speed. So speed was the new mainstream drug. It was cheap, lasted for hours, and as long as it wasnt ice or injected, you were not considered a “junkie”.

As speed became more popular, stronger and different varieties came out. Colloquial words such as “pure” and “smokeable” came out in reference to these different varieties. “Pure” was regarded as really strong and “smokeable” meant it was cut with an agent that meant you could smoke it. This smokeable speed was a stepping stone to a rife Ice epedemic. Everyone was already eating the stuff so they thought “I’ll try smoking it, I mean it’s not Ice”, This was around the time the Ice deterent adds came out. You smoked Ice you were a junkie, but if you smoked speed, you were still considered an honourable drug user or “weekend warrior”. People from all demographics were using this perceived honourable way of taking drugs.

Just because it is the same drug doesn’t mean the way you take it will have the same effect. If you inject speed, you become more drunk like and go out and cause trouble. It is a very addictive way of taking it and is near impossible to go back to other methods, once on that train users go for weeks, months or even years. I have never injected but I have seen first hand it change countless people. Eating speed is more like ecstasy, you dont fiend for it, you take on a more of a party frame of mind and most importantly you can easily stop and go back to normality. Smoking speed is different again. You have a puff and a massive rush comes over you but doesn’t last long. You seem to not go out as much as when you eat or inject it, you just want to hover around the pipe and chase that initial rush for atternity. The addictivness of smoking it though is close to injecting it. All these “weekend warriors” started smoking speed and got caught up in the addictive trap, it is not long before they are blinded and smoking whatever they can, even Ice. Essentailly Ice and Speed are exactly the same chemical compound.

This changed the scene immensely. It became a dirty untrustworthy game of people getting robbed, bashed and just done over by their friends, all succumned to uncontrollable addictive urges. I never had to rob anyone to support my habit, my addiction prompted me to learn how to make it.

My next blog will be about my lab and getting busted.

A taste of crime

Well happy new year people, well to my one follower, they do say you always remember your first. I am not sure how to get my blog out there, and even more unsure whether I should share this with my immediate friends. I guess if it is worth reading it will get around.

Ok, where were we? Al-right, I am 16, I am a very bright, creative and a highly energetic young lad, free from the confines of parental restriction and out to conquer the world. To start my conquest I get a job engraving trophies, no to boring. I remember repeatedly saying to myself “your better than this, what are you doing here”. So I went fruit picking, no to boring. I worked in a bar, no to boring, but I stayed here the longest because the people and party aspect I liked, especially ecstasy.

Ecstasy was a drug that made you feel amazing. There were no doubts about yourself, you could talk to anyone, the over analytical hyper-vigilant part of my mind was as relaxed as my drug induced smile. People would feel an enhanced level of comfort with me and I with them. I thought to myself “I could do this forever”. My best mate at the time was the same as me, loved the drugs and he started selling them. I saw how easy it was to make money and what I thought to be an amazing lifestyle. We can party forever, so through him I started selling drugs to my friends.

Boom…. What a lifestyle change. I went from being broke and only barely being able to live, to having plenty of money and partying all the time. You rocked up to an event and everyone wanted to talk to you, girls, guys, your like a bar tender with 10 times the gravitational pull. You are constantly being invited to parties, or the party comes to you. We would walk past a massive line into the top clubs and girls would call out “I’m with them” and you instantly felt god like. The party did not stop, and we would go for days. For a young lad with self esteem and acceptance issues this is a dream come true, and the status that comes with it, addictive on its own. Some people get off on the power, some money driven, mine was for the party, and I had found exactly how to do keep it going.

Don’t judge a man till you walked a mile in his shoes.

Only a short blog this one. Next one I will write sooner and go into the evolution of drugs and the party scene.

 

 

Where does crime begin?

I flop on the couch exhausted but yet still wide awake. I look at my arms all covered in tattoos and my weight must be somewhere between 150 and 160kg. I sink into the couch to reach another level of relaxation, but in the back of my head I know I cannot go to sleep, why, because there is a sophisticated meth lab in the back room bubbling away. I have been awake for 3 days straight.

At this point in my life I am completely comfortable with this. I am numb to the activities of the drug world. I am convinced that everyone knows someone in this world, or has ties to it. Under the belief it is somewhat accepted. For over ten years I believed this. I decide I better check the lab, I heave my large body up and suddenly I hear a BANG BAN BANG, OPEN UP POLICE. I freeze, trying to figure out if it is really happening or paranoia. No this is real and they came through the door guns drawn. How the hell did I get here you ask? Well I’ll tell you. It was not till later years and a bit self-discovery did I realise.

I was born in New Zealand. Mum brought me over here when I was very young. Mum was young herself, having me at the ripe old age of 15. Before I go further I just want to say I love my mum to death and she has done everything she can to support me. Now back to it. We are from a very rough gang orientated part of New Zealand. My Dad went to jail and she seized the opportunity to come to Australia, to get me away from all the violence and abuse from our home town. Unfortunately she grew up there and the effects from this environment had a huge effect on her mental and emotional self. These effects included the ability to look after me. We moved around a lot, I was fostered a couple of times and then later on adopted my mums psychiatrists.

I remember the day I was adopted. It was the day before I was put up a grade at school. I was in year 3 and the teacher asked the class “why do we have a leap year?” I promptly explained that “the earth takes 365 days and 6 hours to rotate around the sun, and after 4 years that equalled a day.” The teacher then decided to put me up to year 4. The next day a lady came in, I had seen her before, at my mums “doctors” appointment. She talked to the teacher and then both looked straight at me. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in my stomach. A feeling I had become so used to over the years, but each time it still had a profound effect on me, and it was always reliable. I was quickly taken out of school and put into a car with this lady.

My mum was in the front seat, she was unresponsive. The lady explained my mum was going to hospital now and I was going to live with them for a bit. That was that and I was adopted. I went back and forth living with mum and then living with my adopted “grandparents”.

Living with mum was emotionally challenging. The damage had that been done to her emotionally from back home would put tears in most people eyes. It certainly did in my mums psychiatrists. Maybe that’s why they adopted me, if they didn’t, I would have become a child of the state and be a much different person. Considering what mum went through she did an excellent job with me, but there was damage done that was unavoidable. When I was 16 I moved out of home and started my own journey. How does all this tie into the drug lab and police with guns at my head? I’ll tell you more in the next blog. The saying that comes to mind after writing this blog is one that has rung loud with me for a long time. “We are but a product of our environment” unknown author.