About the book
With the courage to follow her instincts, Mandy Whyte is able to get her malnourished and brain-damaged Kiwi-born son, Hemi, from his new base in Australia to hers in Indonesia, and provide home care that turns him around.
This is a book about tenacity and love. It explores the limits of care available for drug addicts in New Zealand and Australia, and challenges the idea that it’s up to these people to find their own way to treatment. Whyte declares any other approach is both socially negligent and a violation of human rights.
As our families, health services and courts try to come to grips with the scourge of crystal meth that is devastating so many lives, Dancing on a Razor’s Edge is a must read.
“Every addiction worker in Australasia would do well to read this book for the descriptions of this mother’s determined struggle to do the best for her addicted son, her fraught attempts to access the services she needs, and her criticism of a system that demands people take personal responsibility for their addictions when they are often unable to do so.”
—Doug Sellman, Director, National Addiction Centre, New Zealand
Mandy Whyte is a New Zealander who has worked for thirty years advising and managing aid and development programmes in the Pacific and Indonesia, and currently in the Solomon Islands. She was brought up in Taranaki but her New Zealand base is now on the Kapiti Coast. She is married to Opan and has one son.
