Australia has some of the highest recorded methamphetamine use globally. Researchers are calling for improved access to timely, effective treatment.
With multiple drug toxicity and circulatory system diseases among the most common causes of methamphetamine-related deaths in Australia, experts are calling for increased research and treatment provisions.
These were the findings of the University of New South Wales’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC)’s latest report on the methamphetamine market, use and health impact trends in Australia, released last week.
Although only 1% of the population uses methamphetamine and amphetamine, amphetamine-type stimulants accounted for 39% of drug-induced deaths in 2024 – a share that’s climbed over the past two decades – with most deaths involving males, being unintentional, and occurring in an increasingly older age group.
In 2024 alone, there were 753 overdose deaths – roughly 2.9 per 100,000 people – involving amphetamine-type stimulants.
Following a brief decline in 2021-22, researchers found in 2023-24, 53 people per 100,000 were hospitalised for methamphetamine use, representing almost a quarter of all drug-related hospitalisations. Rates were highest in remote and very remote areas.
Coronial data showed clinically significant cardiovascular pathology was common in methamphetamine-related deaths, even when it was not the immediate cause, pointing to increased mortality among an older age group with more complex health profiles.
“These findings warrant national policy attention and a coordinated response,” the report read.
Associate Professor Amy Peacock, deputy director of NDARC, said its use was increasingly concentrated in the more potent crystal form, “ice”, among people who inject drugs.
Crystal meth was also described as “very easy to obtain” by more than 40% of people who injected drugs in 2026.
This was partly attributable to the price of crystal meth falling to some of the lowest levels since it rose during covid, now resting at $300 per gram, or $50 per point (0.1g).
“Wastewater drug monitoring analysis also shows record levels of consumption in 2024-25 across all states and territories – an estimated 15.8 tonnes was detected – but was particularly elevated in regional areas,” she said.
Among people who inject drugs, 79% reported using methamphetamine at least weekly over the previous six months.
Since 2014, it was also the most reported drug last injected among people attending needle-syringe program services nationally, according to the Kirby Institute.
Methamphetamine was the second most common drug of concern in closed treatment episodes in 2024-25, accounting for 24% of episodes, double the share recorded in 2015-16.
Treatments most often involved counselling and took place in non-residential settings. More than 60% of clients were male, most aged 30 to 39 years, and most often reported smoking the drug.
A somewhat older cohort carried the highest risk of unintentional overdose death involving amphetamine-type stimulants, with 59% of such deaths occurring among those aged 35 to 54 years.
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While people aged 15 to 24 years represented one in eight overdose deaths from amphetamine-type stimulants in 2005, in 2024 they comprised just 5%.
“We’re kind of faced with a bit of a challenge here in terms of not really understanding the gap between how many people want treatment and how many people need it, but we know that gap exists,” Professor Peacock told TMR.
“Unlike opioid dependence, where we have methadone [and] buprenorphine, there isn’t really an equivalent for methamphetamine. More broadly, it is about that continued research and investment in trying to find effective treatment options for people,” she said.
Drug checking, drug alerts and naloxone can help reduce the risks of misrepresented substances and polysubstance use.
While CanTEST reported methamphetamine purity at approximately 80% between July 2024 and July 2025, drug-checking data has also detected heroin mixed in with the stimulant, as well as O-PCE sold as methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine had also appeared in pills sold as MDMA, ketamine, 2C-B and GHB.
“For people who are not used to consuming opioids, that’s a real risk in terms of potential overdose,” Professor Peacock said.
Dr Eric Hadinata, the immediate past chair of the RACGP Victoria alcohol and other drugs committee and an addiction medicine specialist, told TMR that general practice required a low threshold for routine cardiovascular screening.
This included blood pressure, sugar level and cholesterol monitoring for patients who were currently taking or had previously taken methamphetamine.
“And of course, targeted echocardiogram[s] in those who are actively symptomatic,” he said.
Warning patients about the dangers of combining other substances, including alcohol and benzodiazepines, and of concurrent GHB dependence was also essential.
“If your patients already have co-occurring substance use, this adds to the urgency of harm reduction, and referral to more comprehensive addiction services,” he said.
The TINA trial from NDARC, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, found that people who received mirtazapine – a treatment available for depression – reduced their methamphetamine use by seven days out of 28, compared with 4.8 days for those who received a placebo.
Doctors can currently prescribe mirtazapine only off-label.
“As long as there’s no contraindication for the medication, it is quite reasonable to use in general practice; at least…while waiting for the patient to be picked up by the specialist system,” Dr Hadinata told TMR.
GP Dr Hester Wilson said practitioners had to consider the modes of communication that could help patients make better-informed choices, as while psychological treatments were available, no pharmaceutical treatments are officially approved, and further research was needed.
“This is not uncommon. Be okay to ask about it; don’t feel like you need to know everything. Be non-judgemental. I’d be really interested in looking at what meaning it has for people, and how you can support them,” she said.
In particular, patients with ADHD or Autism face a significantly higher risk of developing substance use disorders, she told TMR.
Read the full report here.
