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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Benita Kolovos

‘People don’t choose to become addicts’: the push to end Victoria’s war on drugs

Victoria Fiona Patten Australia
Baden Hicks, 36, from Melbourne, says he used drugs ‘to deal with a lot of pain in my life, which really felt unbearable’.
Baden Hicks, 36, from Melbourne, says he previously used drugs ‘to deal with a lot of pain in my life’. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/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”.

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