Rising ice use in Vic triggers more deaths (AAP)

A report has found 72,000 doses of the drug ice in waste from a Melbourne sewage treatment plant over two days.

Deaths from methamphetamines have more than doubled within five years as Victorian drug users increasingly turn to ice, its most potent form.

The state recorded 166 deaths where methamphetamines were a factor last year, up from 66 in 2009.

A parliamentary inquiry also found related ambulance call-outs, and emergency department presentations, surged alongside the rising popularity of ice.

"The purity of crystal methamphetamine has also increased over the past two years, which exaggerates the drug's harmful effect," Simon Ramsay, chair of the Law Reform, Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, said on Wednesday.

"It's a drug that takes no prisoners in terms of its addictiveness."

The committee's report says just two per cent of the Victorians use methamphetamines and, among this group, men aged 20 to 29 were most likely to be using ice.

Overdose, suicide and fatal road crashes were the most common causes of death for ice users.

The ice problem was not confined to metropolitan areas, with rural towns also showing big increases in related harms.

Glamorisation in the media was a factor, committee member David Southwick MLC said, pointing to ice's role in the acclaimed 2008-2013 "Breaking Bad" television series.

"It has been built up by television shows like Breaking Bad, and there is almost a hero-type mentality around it," Mr Southwick said.

"We need to send a very clear message out to the community that this drug is a dirty drug, and it is being marketed quite the opposite even by its name."

The Victorian government is considering the report's 54 recommendations, which include mirroring a successful New Zealand initiative to set up a premier-led ministerial council on ice.

Premier Denis Napthine announced $4.5 million funding to roll out roadside drug testing capability to all highway patrol cars in Victoria, and $1.6 million to train up 11 additional drug sniffer dogs.

THE RISE OF ICE IN VICTORIA:

Ambulance call-outs doubled in city areas, trebled in the country, from 2011/12 to 2012/13
Arrests up 50 per cent (4494 to 6762)
Emergency department presentations hit decade-high 167 - up from 92 in 2009/10
43 per cent of meth users take ice
Caused a quarter of all calls to support services, just 6 per cent two years earlier.
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