Where drug use is most prevalent in Victoria

New crime data has revealed which Victorian areas are hotspots for cocaine, cannabis, meth, heroin and across the state. Search how prevalent drug use is in your area.

Police are charging more people with cocaine possession in the cashed-up suburbs of Albert Park, Middle Park and South Melbourne than anywhere else in the state other than the CBD.

Figures compiled by Crime Statistics Victoria show the Port Phillip local council area is the cocaine capital of Victoria, with 53 charges laid in the year ending March 2023.

The Stonnington local council area, which includes Melbourne’s wealthiest suburb, Toorak where the median house price is $5.9m, had the second most cocaine busts outside the CBD with 36 charges laid.

Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro said it was no surprise the more affluent suburbs used drugs that were perceived to be “cool and prestigious”.

“You will find a prevalence for cocaine in the upper income levels areas like Toorak, South Yarra and Armadale,” he said.

“Cocaine is very expensive and so people will quickly fall into debt if they don't have a high level of income. And those people with a lower level of income may then become low grade supplier of the drug in order to support their cocaine addiction.”

Overall, officers charged Victorians with more than 31,000 drug offences in the year ending March.

Of those, almost 25,000 charges were for drug use or drug possession, while just more than 4000 were for drug dealing or trafficking.

When it comes to methamphetymine, arrests were more common in Melbourne’s outer suburbs and regional areas.

Greater Dandenong had 310 charges laid, while nearby Casey had 210.

Knox, which covers Ferntree Gully, Bayswater and Wantirna in Melbourne’s east, had 240 charges, while in the west Brimbank had 204 charges.

Mr Watson-Munro said meth or “ice” was universally considered to be a “dirty street drug” which made people “dangerous”.

“Meth is cheaper compared to cocaine but still costs money and because it lasts longer in the system, people tend to need lesser to get the same effects,” he said.

“However, it’s much a more dangerous drug in terms of its impact on judgment and behavior.”

Unlike heroin, where people tended to “fall asleep or overdose and tragically die” if they consumed too much, Mr Watson-Munro said meth instead brought out anti-social behaviour in people.

“If people have high quantities of meth they become strong, dangerous, impulsive and paranoid. Some studies suggest when on high doses of the drug they’re clinically indistinguishable from people who are suffering severe psychotic episodes like paranoid schizophrenia,” he said.

Mr Watson- Munro said there was a direct correlation between drug use and criminal activity.

“Drugs affect the individual’s cognition, drugs affects all parts of the brain but in particular, the prefrontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for consequential thinking, impulse control, and judgment in general,” he said.

“So when one is under the effects of these drugs, they become highly impulsive and potentially more likely to break the law and more dangerous in terms of potential violence. It’s particularly more with ice.

“When they’re in that state of mind, and impulsive, clearly they’re going to be more likely to commit crimes of violence, because of because of their paranoia and their poor judgment and so on.”

Dodgy prescriptions were also most prominent in the southern local government areas of Greater Dandenong and Casey.

Mr Watson-Munro said prescription drugs like benzodiazepines often went “hand in glove” with stimulant use because they helped bring people down and were more prevalent in affluent suburbs.

“People will use benzodiazepines like Xanax and valium in order to sleep but more particularly to take the edge off. Its used for very high levels of anxiety and paranoia, which they typically experience particularly when coming down,” he said.

Cannabis was by far the most used drug in Victoria, with people all around the state being caught with it.

Cannabis has “been around forever” and has a “well established” supply chain in Australia, according to Mr Watson-Munro.

“Cannabis has been recognized for its medicinal properties and is less psychoactive — for some people it assists them with pain management, anxiety, depression and sleep,” he said.

Heroin was one of the least used drugs in Victoria in the year ending March 2023, where the suburbs of Richmond, Clifton Hill and Carlton outdid the CBD, with 134 charges compared to just 13 in the city.

Mr Watson-Munro said people were less likely to use heroin like they did in the “olden days”.

“45 years ago heroin was the choice of drug but since the last 25 or some years it’s meth. And it’s a much more dangerous drug,” he said.

Out of the CBD, Greater Dandenong was the most drugged up LGA, with next-door Casey — which covers Cranbourne — the second more drug affected.

Brimbank in Melbourne’s west was also drug addled, followed by Knox.

In regional Victoria, drug hotspots were unsurprisingly found in the major centres, with Greater Geelong leading the charge at 811 charges.

Latrobe, which includes Victoria’s most unsafe suburb per capita, Morwell — came second, with Melton sitting third.

Mr Watson-Munro said the general driver of using drugs was “a sense of despair” and “depression” making people who were on the lower socio-economic scale more vulnerable.

“People become addicted and become part of the food chain — they’ll be supplied by someone higher up, and they’ll keep selling to someone else. That’s how they support their addiction and the treadmill of criminal activity, and in the absence of treatment, continues,” he said.

Education was key, he said, to stop the prevalence of drug use in Victoria.

“Education needs to start in primary school because by the time we wait for high school, the horse has bolted in many ways,” he said.

“We need to have a lateral approach to dealing with this problem because arresting them and locking up to punish them doesn’t work. And paradoxically, what tends to happen then is people get a criminal record which means they can’t get jobs, they feel more alienated from society, and consequently the likelihood they’ll use or supply drugs will escalate accordingly.

“People who are caught with small amounts drugs should you get cautions and they steered into treatment. And if they get the treatment and they get the insight then there’s a strong likelihood they won’t return to that scene.”