Ballarat drug and alcohol counsellor Stuart Fenton told the Law Reform, Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, sitting in Ballarat today, that he started to experience drug induced psychosis in the early 2000s.

He said he was living in Sydney in 2000, it was very common to inject the drug, which he did.

That was when he started to experience the negative effects of ice.

"I thought people were trying to kill me or plotting to kill me," he said.

"I was putting sticky tape on walls so people couldn't kill me."

Mr Fenton told the inquiry he found himself "helplessly addicted".

"Nothing seemed to be able to stop me from doing something that I really didn't want to do," he said.

A high functioning addict, Mr Fenton went to a 12 step program, got support but was still relapsing.

Later, he went to a Byron bay rehab program, was there for six months and then four months in a halfway house.

He has now been clean for 10 years.

Mr Fenton has worked with addicts for the last six years in Sydney and has recently started a counselling program near Ballarat.

He said education and awareness in schools was paramount to combating the ice menace.

He also recommended a 30-40 bed 12-step rehabilitation centre open to the public.

"I don't think preventing meth being made or sold will prevent this, people will another substance."