The ACT has recorded one of the biggest increases in ice or crystal methamphetamine use among injecting drug users in Australia, according to a UNSW report.
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The report, which was prepared by National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, found injecting drug users in the ACT admitted to using ice twice a week on average – the highest rate in the nation.
Dr Lucy Burns, an associate professor at UNSW and lead author of the report, said the increase in crystal methamphetamine use among injecting drug users was not a surprise.
In the ACT, 72 percent of injecting drug users admitted to using ice or crystal methamphetamine in the preceding six months, which was higher than the national average of 61 per cent.
Those ACT residents who used methamphetamine during a six-month period in 2014 did so of 48 days on average, which was double the national average and the highest ratio in Australia.
"That's a significant number of days to be using methamphetamine and the highest in the country, although the ACT does have a small population size," Dr Burns said.
"To keep this in context, the prevalence of this drug is not as bad as cannabis or alcohol and marijuana but we are seeing an increasing number of deaths and hospitalisations."
On Wednesday, a police taskforce arrested 19 people in a large-scale operation designed to dismantle a far-reaching drug syndicate supplying ice in Sydney and the South Coast of NSW.
In Braidwood, two 45-year-old men were arrest on Wallace Street outside the IGA supermarket with officers allegedly seizing a large amount of crystal methamphetamine.
NSW police said the crackdown on the expansive illegal drug network had succeeded in wiping a large quantity of the methylamphetamine off the streets.
Nationally, the use of ice or crystal methamphetamine in 2014 was significantly higher among injecting drug users at 61 per cent, an increase on 55 per cent a year earlier.
The study relied on data from 898 injecting drug users who supplied information to the Illicit Drug Reporting System.
"To put it in context, we have been noticing the increase in crystal methamphetamine use for a number of years not but it is only in the past 12 months that we have begun to focus on it and talk more about it," Dr Burns said.
A separate report released by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre on Friday found methamphetamine played a role in 101 "drug-induced" deaths for those aged between 15 and 54 in Australia during 2011
"It is clear that there has been a change in use of the drug and we are now seeing increasing harms in terms of related deaths, amphetamine-related hospital presentations and treatment episodes," Dr Burns said.
"What is not clear at this stage is whether the main change is a change in use among people already using drugs or whether new users are coming onto the market.
"We are increasing our monitoring of these trends and clearly our treatment and prevention effort needs to be evaluated to match changing needs."
In May, the ACT government committed $800,000 funding boost to drug treatment and support services as part of the growing response to ice use.
Mr Corbell said recent use of crystal methamphetamine had more than doubled from 22 per cent to 50 per cent.
The Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy will receive $115,000 to roll out a pilot program for naloxone overdose management.
The Salvation Army rehabilitation clinic in Fyshwick expects to receive about $90,000 of funding from the ACT government, which they will likely spend on a nurse with experience in mental health and medicine.
