Those were the words from Western Victorian MP and head of the Victorian Parliament’s Law Reform, Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee Simon Ramsay in response to the long-awaited inquiry into the prevalence and impact of crystal methamphetamine – or ‘ice’ – in our state.

This is not new territory for those in Ballarat who have seen this scourge develop in recent years. It’s almost a daily occurrence in Ballarat’s court system to hear of an offender whose crime is partly attributed to ice use or abuse.

The report found organised crime groups are behind the distribution of ice and while outlaw motorcycle gangs are suspected of being involved, this was “difficult to establish”.  It also found that young men aged 20-29 are the most frequent users of ice and while the use of the drug has not increased in the general population, there has been a significant shift towards a more potent version.

It says there are concerning increases in the number of ice-related ambulance call-outs, a rise in the number of ice-affected people presenting to emergency departments, and a rise in the number of ice-related deaths through unintentional poisoning, suicide and road crashes.

In the Ballarat region, the government has confirmed there were raids on four separate clandestine ice laboratories in the past 12 months. It paints a disturbing picture of what was already anecdotally understood.

What is needed now is action. The inquiry report lists 54 recommendations, including expansion of ‘drug’ courts, new laws to assist trafficking detection, new education programs and harm minimisation programs.

Both the state government and opposition have now committed to various measures to alleviate the impact. This, however, is not an issue on which we should be playing politics. 

The serious impacts on those addicted, their families and most wretchedly the innocent victims of crimes perpetrated by those on ice are already being felt broadly in our community.

We need efficient and effective investment in the programs as identified through the inquiry report, now and beyond this year’s election.