SYDNEY, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The University of New South Wales is challenging the widely held belief that Australia is in the grip of a methamphetamine epidemic.
Two studies from the drug and alcohol research center of the University of New South Wales, released on Wednesday, show that while the use of methamphetamine has significantly increased among injecting drug users, it has remained stable among the general population.
"The word epidemic simply means a drug problem spreading within a small group at a rapid rate, so that could be happening," Michael Farrell, director of the center, said on Wednesday.
"But what we don't think there is what we call a pandemic, so that's like there is a large number of, a large outbreak of large numbers of users."
The research - from annual surveys of two groups of drug users, injecting and users of ecstasy and other drugs - found only a significant (6 percent) increase in ice use in the heavily addicted injecting drug group.
Crystal methamphetamine among those who use ecstasy and speed was much lower.
Researcher Amanda Roxburgh of the center said there has been no change in the numbers of people reporting recent methamphetamine use, however there has been a shift in the way it's used from powder to crystal methamphetamine.
"So we have seen a little bit of a shift across to crystal meth, but again we're not seeing any change in the numbers using it in the general population," Roxburgh said.
Though the number of people needing hospital treatment in Australia because of amphetamine-related issues had doubled, "when we really look closely at a lot of that data, it seems to be ... that those people who are running into problems with their use, by and large, already appear to be engaged in the illicit drug market and already be experiencing problems with their drug use," Roxburgh said.
Roxburgh said the concentrated use of the drug in Australia's country areas had made the problem seem worse than it actually is, however they will now look to do more research and identify trends in those areas.
