Minister says the nationwide level of methamphetamine consumption is ‘extraordinary’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Three tonnes of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of MDMA and more than 700 kilograms of heroin were consumed in Australia between August 2016 and August 2017, while a staggering eight tonnes-plus of methamphetamine were shot up, smoked or snorted.



The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s fourth National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program report, released on Thursday, showed an overall increase in illicit drug consumption across the country compared with the previous report.

We know we have a very serious issue with methamphetamine Angus Taylor, minister

Methamphetamine remains the drug of choice.

“More than all other hard drugs combined,” the federal law enforcement minister, Angus Taylor, told reporters in Mandurah, a town south of Perth selected for the planned welfare recipients drug testing scheme.



“That’s extraordinary consumption. We know we have a very serious issue with methamphetamines.”

The highest meth consumption was detected in Adelaide and regional Western Australia.

Taylor said meth was “devastating” country areas where only a decade ago hard drugs were rarely seen.

Biggest meth haul in Australian history seized in WA Read more

“That ice was produced locally even five, six years ago,” he said.

“It’s now being imported through major, very well organised, very sophisticated global criminal networks and that’s why our strategy now has to be not just border interception but disruption of those business models.”

Asked to speculate on why WA had such a strong appetite for meth, Taylor said the state’s open coastline made it an attractive target for drug traffickers.

“Maybe it’s about the remoteness, maybe there’s an element of what we’ve seen in regional Queensland where there’s higher levels of fly-in, fly-out workers – that seems to have an impact,” he said.

“We don’t have strong evidence on this.”

In Mandurah, a medical service is helping youth as young as 12 to stay off drugs, the federal MP for Canning, Andrew Hastie, said.

Ice-related drug deaths in Australia double between 2009-2015, study finds Read more

“We’re seeing inter-generational drug use,” he said. “Parents are addicted, they have young children and of course they’re in a household where they see drug usage so they unfortunately get caught up in it.”

He said residents in Dwellingup – a tiny WA timber and fruit growing town with a population of just a few hundred people – had told him drug users were making it somewhat “ungoverned”.

The CIC report also showed cocaine and heroin use was higher in capital cities, while MDMA, oxycodone and fentanyl consumption was greater in the regions.

NSW recorded the nation’s highest average capital city and regional use of cocaine, while the highest average regional consumption of MDMA was in NSW and Queensland.



Victoria and the ACT recorded the nation’s highest average capital city heroin intake.