Australia's drug-consuming community is as diverse as it is fluid, with patterns of use sometimes varying dramatically with age, gender, location and class. Women's drug use is catching up with men's. Although men make up the majority of drug-related arrests and people seeking treatment, national data shows women account for an increasing share of drug users. Among past-year users, the share of women reporting the most frequent use of methamphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy or cocaine surpassed the share of men between 2010 and 2013 – a first for the national survey. In NSW, arrest rates for possession or use of amphetamines are rising faster for women than men (55 per cent versus 39 per cent rise over two years), according to the bureau. "You could say we've won equal rights to use drugs," says psychologist and addiction expert Rebecca McKetin from the Australian National University.

"With women becoming more independent, more involved with labour force, you see these trends emerging where that gender disparity is closing." Drug users are becoming older, partly because people are living longer and partly because users are not giving up their habits, says Marion Downey of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. People over 50 showed the largest rise in illicit drug use in 2013, according to national figures. Heroin users are the oldest illicit drug consumers (median age 37) and ecstasy users the youngest (median age 25), with the heaviest ecstasy users aged 14-19. When it comes to cannabis, the opposite trend emerges – people in their 30s have the highest rate of past-year use, but people in their 40s are the most likely to use it every day.

"A lot of our perceptions are biased by how common the drug is … Today, tobacco use is concentrated among low socioeconomic groups but if you went back to the 1950s that wouldn't be the case because at that point half the population were smoking." Matt Noffs, CEO of adolescent drug rehabilitation service Noffs Foundation, says ice is "prolific" in disadvantaged areas. "It's cheap, it's easy to get and it does the job." By contrast, cocaine use is three times higher in the most advantaged social class than in the least advantaged class and ecstasy use is twice as high – although researchers believe cocaine use, in particular, is significantly under-reported. "Higher income, higher educated people … are not going to volunteer their drug use," Downey says. The latest data suggests ecstasy is on its way out – rates of use have been falling since 2007 – and amphetamines, particularly ice, are in. Experts warn that a storm is brewing as ice becomes more available to a broader cross-section of people and gains greater acceptance among a more privileged social demographic.

"Historically, the forms of methamphetamine we had in Australia couldn't be smoked," McKetin says. But now, the availability and accessibility of crystal meth that can be smoked has boosted its appeal to a different demographic. "They're a younger group of people … They're a little bit more educated. They're more in the direction of the general population," she says. Treatment episodes for smoking amphetamines, including ice, has trebled over the past two years, according to figures from the Institute of Health and Welfare. Smoking now accounts for nearly 40 per cent of amphetamines-related treatment episodes, compared to just over 20 per cent two years ago. "Smoking is not held with the disdain that injected meth is," says Dr Caldicott, a leading researcher on drug-taking in Australia's party scene. And the increasing popularity of smoking ice is changing the social status of meth users within the drug community. "In the drug-consuming community there's a hierarchy of respectability. Party people who use pills, people who use cocaine, people who regard themselves as functional drug users … look down on people who inject drugs."