A national study has found ice-related deaths have spiked in regional areas such as Ballarat, with researchers saying users are taking to the road thinking the drug will improve their driving.
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The new paper released on Monday comes just months after police swooped on properties with alleged links to an ice trafficking syndicate across Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh and Melton.
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre's Professor Shane Darke, who looked at the coronial records of 1649 ice-related deaths, found the yearly death toll linked to ice use in Australia doubled between 2009 and 2015.
And almost half of these cases were in the country.
“This is a problem that extends far beyond cities and in fact, it’s over represented in regional and rural areas,” Professor Darke said.
Ice was increasingly accessible in regional Victoria, where many users smoke the substance through pipes instead of using needles, according to Professor Darke.
He said ice could be produced in the regions at increasingly high levels of purity unlike heroin, which was usually imported from overseas and circulated in capital cities.
"There's a belief among methamphetamine users that (it) improves your driving and reflexes, but what it does is improve your risk of death. You're intoxicated, you’re not actually performing ... that over confidence needs to be addressed.”
Acting Senior Sergeant Ben Young, who belongs to Ballarat’s Highway Patrol, said police had ramped up roadside drug testing.
“Use of illicit substances and driving is a recipe for disaster – it is never acceptable,” he said.
“Impaired driving is an over represented contributing factor in road trauma.
“All drivers have a responsibility for road safety to themselves, their passengers and all other road users."
In the sample of 1649 deaths reviewed by professor Darke, 156 ice users died while at the wheel of a car or on a motorbike nationwide.
However, ice overdose was the most common cause of death at 43 per cent, followed by heart disease at 22 per cent and suicide at 18 per cent.
Professor Darke said the drug had serious long term health implications relating to heart disease and stroke.
“I think that the heart disease and the stroke (risk) are just not known to young users, but the risk is real” he said.
“Methamphetamine causes heart disease and then you go onto use it with a damaged heart, and the problem with it is that damage continues. With drugs like heroin, you're rolling the dice each time you use, but with a drug like methamphetamine you're causing progressive damage.”
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