The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) commissions the monitoring to track trends in consumption of drugs and alcohol.
The samples are taken from wastewater sites covering 56 per cent of the population but the organisation does not provide details of the sites, or data for specific locations.
“Understanding drug consumption at a population level supports effective allocation of resources to priority areas,” ACIC chief executive officer Michael Phelan said.
“It also allows the progress of demand, supply and harm reduction strategies to be monitored.”
During the current sampling period, average per capita regional methamphetamine use fell below capital city levels for the first time since 2017, but not in Victoria where use is still more than 200 mg/1000 people/day higher than in Melbourne.
For the first time ACIC included ketamine — a powerful drug used to induce and maintain anaesthesia in medical and veterinary settings — in the study, but it will take several sampling periods to reveal any trends.
The results for regional Victoria reveal significantly higher use of alcohol, tobacco and the opioid drug Oxycodone.
Cannabis use in regional Victoria is close to double the capital city average but the use of cocaine and heroin are well below city levels.
