NEWS: Meth Media Watch

Ice epidemic top priority
By Glenn Milne
October 22, 2006 12:00

The "ice'' epidemic will become the top priority of the Federal Government's $40 million National Drugs Campaign. / The Sunday Telegraph

THE "ice'' epidemic will become the top priority of the Federal Government's $40 million National Drugs Campaign as politicians react to the terrifying effects of the drug.

The new anti-ice campaign will include confronting advertisements on television, radio and in print.

"Ice is now our number one target in the war on drugs,'' the Parliamentary Secretary for Health Christopher Pyne told The Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Pyne met with departmental officials last week who briefed him on the third phase of the National Drugs Campaign.

He told them there was insufficient emphasis on "ice'' and to come back with an education kit that elevated the dangers of crystal methamphetamine and its effects on users.

The Government will fund trials of the drug, Modafinil, to treat methamphetamine withdrawal. It is also developing the National Amphetamine-Type Stimulants Strategy to deal with "ice'' use at law enforcement and health levels.

"The thing about ice is that it is both incredibly addictive and incredibly destructive,'' Mr Pyne said.

"While you can get off heroin using methadone, so far there's no way to get off ice.

"And you need more and more to get the same physical effect. "That's why these evil drug barons are pushing it. It's terrifying.

"Cannabis continues to be the most widely used illicit drug, however amphetamines are emerging as a major drug menace. In 2004 methamphetamine was the most common drug recently injected by drug users.''

The Federal Government's decision to target "ice'' coincides with NSW Premier Morris Iemma's call last week for a national summit to address the problem.

It's estimated that more than half a million Australians have used amphetamines in the past year.

And the latest study conducted by the National Alcohol Research Centre found there were more than 73,000 dependant "ice'' users in Australia. Courts have recorded a rise in the number of ice addict-driven crime.

As well as being highly addictive, methamphetamine use can lead to violent psychotic episodes and self-harm.

Frontline health workers are also at risk of attack. The Government is now trialling sedatives to help health workers deal with violent users.

Mr Iemma has written to all state and territory leaders requesting their attendance at the summit to be held in Sydney next month, prior to the regular Ministerial Council on Drugs meeting.

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Deadly drug pipes sold in Sydney
By Steve Gee and Gemma Jones
October 23, 2006 12:00

These glass pipes, used to smoke Ice, are available across Sydney. / The Daily Telegraph

SYDNEY tobacconists are illegally selling pipes used to smoke the insidious drug ice, with one audacious enough to display them a block from Kings Cross police station.

Three months after the State Government outlawed ice pipes, The Daily Telegraph last week found pipes clearly visible behind the counter at a Kings Cross store – just 400m from the police station.

Despite the threat of two years in jail and a hefty fine for stocking drug paraphernalia, retailers across the city are selling ice pipes for as little as $10.

Addicts pack the glass pipes with crystal methamphetamine and smoke it. Retailers said they often sold up to 30 a day, with users walking straight off the street after buying a hit of ice for $45 to $50. The pipes range in price from $10 to $30.

"We've been selling them for ages," one tobacconist said.

"But I've never had any problems. I've even had police come in to buy cigarettes and not say a word."

There was a display of at least 50 pipes inside a glass cabinet at the Kings Cross Tobacconist, on Darlinghurst Rd, when The Daily Telegraph visited last week.

The shopkeeper was only too happy to discuss the prices but became upset when he became suspicious after being questioned over the pipes.

"We sell a lot," he said.

The State Government this year banned the sale of ice pipes.

"A ban on ice pipes, the sale, the supply and the display came into effect on the 24 July this year," a spokesman for Police Minister Carl Scully said.

"The penalty is a $2200 fine or two years jail or both. Police are keen to be alerted when shopkeepers are selling these types of pipes."

Some tobacconists said yesterday they were not aware the pipes had been blacklisted. Nil Jon from Bondi Road Tobacconist said he had never sold the pipes because he knew they were used to smoke drugs but he was not aware they were illegal.

"I am against it, all that stuff it is really bad," he said yesterday.

A cashier at a Pyrmont tobacconist said the owner was aware selling ice pipes was illegal and that the shop did not stock them.

The revelation comes as police and health officials admitted Sydney was in the grip of an ice crisis, which is fuelling an explosion in drug-induced violence and hospital admissions for psychosis.

Laws banning the sale of ice pipes were drawn up after the Government consulted a group of experts in fields ranging from healthcare to the courts.

At the time, the Government said the shift in drug culture to designer synthetic drugs such as ice was behind the changes to the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act.

The Opposition yesterday hit out at the State Government's response to the ice crisis.

"Ice has been on the Government's radar as a problem for the last decade," Opposition police spokesman Mike Gallacher said yesterday.

'The slack approach taken in addressing the ice epidemic has meant the problem is soaring out of control."

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Send Sally to rehab
October 23, 2006 12:00
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

THE father of ice addict Sally Brennan has vowed to continue the fight to have her put into rehabilitation.

The 20-year-old Miranda woman has spent the past three days in the Mullawa Correctional Centre after being refused bail on Friday for an alleged carjacking.

She blew her first chance to avoid jail last week when she breached a bail condition which ordered her to attempt to kick the habit of three years.

Her father, Brett, said yesterday he hoped her first stint in an adult jail would be a wake-up call for her.

He will again argue for her to be granted bail and given another chance at rehabilitation when she reappears in Sutherland Local Court on Thursday.

"She has no money in her account so she wouldn't be able to buy drugs (in prison) so when she's in court on Thursday she'll be straight and not coming down off it like she has been the two other times," he said.

"I'm hoping jail will shake her up but it's not going to solve her problems. She needs rehab."

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Secure rooms for drug users
CHRIS SALTER
October 24, 2006 12:15am

EXCLUSIVE: VIOLENT or agitated drug users will be segregated from other patients under a Health Department plan to ease the strain they are putting on hospital emergency departments.

The facilities, which will be monitored by security guards, will take patients affected by drugs - particularly methamphetamines - out of public areas at all major hospitals.

The guidelines for the treatment plan, which has been successfully trialled at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, will be sent out to hospitals across the state next month.

The plan is in response to the growing number of methamphetamine users reporting to emergency departments and concerns hospital staff are increasingly being placed at risk.

The move comes as South Australian researchers finalise a groundbreaking study on the extent and effects of amphetamine use in South Australia.

The study, to be published next month, will show more than a quarter of patients who attended the RAH in an intoxicated state were under the influence of amphetamines or more pure methamphetamines, including the highly addictive "ice".

The State Government's Drug and Alcohol Services SA clinical policy director, Dr Robert Ali, said "quiet rooms" were part of a treatment plan for methamphetamine users developed by SA experts for the World Health Organisation.

He said the plan involved drug users, in addition to receiving treatment for any injuries, being put in a monitored quiet area to sleep off the effects of the drug.

The facility would be staffed by professionals able to talk patients through the detox.

In the RAH trial, security guards were assigned to assist nurses if they had to deal with violent patients or a group of agitated patients.

In many cases the patients were also injured and in need of water, food and sleep when they arrived at hospital, which made them more agitated.

"We need to give them time out," Dr Ali said. "We have moved them to quieter environments. That's clearly to help control them and settle them down."

RAH emergency department assistant director Michael Davey said the state's largest hospital was treating an alarming number of methamphetamine users.

"We have a major problem with methamphetamines," Dr Davey said. "Our assumption is that there has been a dramatic rise in the amount of patients who have psycho-stimulants on board, particularly methamphetamines.

"Patients who present as a result of methamphetamine use and abuse may be psychotic, they're all agitated. The violence in the department, the risk to others and themselves and particularly others - staff and the rest of the community - is enormous."

Quiet rooms were currently operating in some country hospitals - including Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie - with success.

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Chris Cain said there was merit in establishing specialist emergency care centres for patients.

"Medical departments are generally designed to deal with medical emergencies," he said. "We need to look at the changing behaviour of people in our society."

While the drug ice was not as common in SA as in the eastern states, general methamphetamine usage in this state was higher than the national average.

Police believe a rise in the popularity of the drug has led to an increase in violent crime.

Detective Superintendent Paul Dickson said some drug users were committing burglaries and motor vehicle theft to fuel their habits, while others produced their own speed in dangerous undercover laboratories.

Nineteen toxic laboratories were found between July and September, compared with 48 for the entire 2005-06 financial year.

"There's direct evidence that the people using amphetamines have a predisposition to be involved in high-speed chases, violence and those sorts of issues which are a great concern to both police and the community," Supt Dickson said. "There's no doubt it's very, very dangerous."

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Government drug ads will rely on scare tactics
Matt Price
October 28, 2006 12:00am

STUNNED by the explosion in crystal methamphetamine use and egged on by increasingly desperate medical experts, the federal Government is planning the grandmother of all public scare campaigns to dissuade young people from experimenting with ice.

Chris Pyne, the parliamentary secretary for health, intends to spend as much as $30 million terrifying Australians about the dire consequences of dallying with the popular party drug.

The Government will take its lead from the notorious Grim Reaper anti-AIDS television campaign of the mid-1980s, which was widely criticised as being alarmist and melodramatic but proved resoundingly successful in curbing the spread of the disease.

"Those Grim Reaper commercials warning people about safe sex terrified people into changing their behaviour and stopped AIDS almost in its tracks," Mr Pyne said.

"I think that's what we need to look at with ice. In the absence of a silver bullet to address the crisis, we need to terrify people with a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred campaign warning of the horrendous consequences of using ice."

The AIDS commercials featured a "bowling alley of death" in which the Grim Reaper bowled over men, pregnant women and crying children. Health Department officials have a budget and an instruction to come up with something similarly effective by year's end.

Mr Pyne this week visited the emergency department of St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney to speak to staff about what was now widely accepted to be an ice epidemic. He was accompanied by Ryan Stokes, chairman of Headspace, a group responsible for advising the Government on youth mental health issues.

"Drug use, and more particularly ice, is having a shocking, detrimental impact on young people's mental health and putting hospitals under enormous strain," Mr Stokes, 30 years old and son of Seven Network chief Kerry Stokes, told The Weekend Australian.

"A lot of young people are confident and comfortable around drugs, but they just don't understand the catastrophic effects of ice. It's important to disturb them by stigmatising this drug and let them know the horrific consequences, which I suspect aren't widely appreciated."

Doctors and administrators at St Vincent's recount horror stories of crystal meth use, which is straining hospital resources. It is a cry for help echoing around Australia.

Mr Pyne began his visit to St Vincent's optimistic about the alleged development of a drug tailored to calm ice users in the same way narcan resuscitates heroin victims. "I was wrong - nobody in the casualty department had even heard of it," he said afterwards. "It's very depressing."

Facing mounting casualties and no instant or easy treatment of ice victims, medical experts agree scaring the wits out of drug users may be the best short-term approach.

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Cops seize deadly ice
By Julia Kogan
October 28, 2006 12:00am

SEIZURES of ice have increased in the Territory during the past 12 months.

The majority of the seizures were from southern states, police said.

"Ice is methylamphetamine (speed) in a purer crystalline form," Drug Enforcement Section Detective Sergeant Peter Schiller said.

"It is not a new drug."

Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) executive officer Gino Vumbaca was not surprised by the increase of seized ice.

"Until recently, Australia has not been a stimulant drug-based culture," Mr Vumbaca said.

Crystal methylamphetamine is an extremely potent drug that poses a high risk of overdose and addiction due to its higher purity.

Taking the drug can result in paranoia, severe mood swings and extremely aggressive behaviour.

NT Police advise anyone who has information relating to the distribution of methylamphetamine to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or the Northern Territory Police on 131 444.

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The federal government is planning a $30 million advertising campaign against the illicit drug ice.

The government plans to model the campaign on the Grim Reaper anti-AIDS television adverts from the 1980s, which were very successful despite criticism of their imagery.

Chris Pyne, the parliamentary secretary for health, said the aim was to present young people with stark images of the terrible consequences of experimenting with crystal methamphetamine, News Limited reported.

"I think that's what we need to look at with ice. In the absence of a silver bullet to address the crisis, we need to terrify people with a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred campaign warning of the horrendous consequences of using ice," Mr Pyne said.

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hoptis said:

The Australian

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Drugs crisis facing capital
By Andree Stephens

Canberra is facing its worst drug crisis since the heroin overdose tragedies of the 1990s, according to ACT Deputy Chief Police Officer Commander Shane Connelly.

"If you were to ask me what's the worst drug I've seen in my 23 years in Canberra, as a police officer largely investigating drugs, I would say it's ice," he said.

Police on the ground were facing more drug-related crime, particularly assaults and domestic violence, and the impact was being felt across the emergency services, he said.

"It's the behaviour we're seeing post the drug.

"It's the innocent victims we're seeing. People being bashed for no reason at all.

"And what I'm having trouble with, as someone running a crime branch within the ACT police force, is the amount of violence we're seeing that we believe is connected to this drug. It's not characteristic of Canberra and it's not characteristic of some of the people who are involved."

Ice is a man-made, highly purified crystalline form of methamphetamine. Its side-effects include aggressive and violent behaviour, and it can lead to psychotic episodes among users.

A report issued by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre last week found almost one in 10 Australians had tried methamphetamines.

Yesterday, South Coast police reported they had seized at least $250,000 worth of ice in raids over the past fortnight.

Three people had been arrested after searches at houses in Lake Heights and Cringila, and in a Holden Commodore at Warra-wong.

Commander Connelly said ice was becoming the "drug of choice" for young people and former heroin users in Canberra, and while it was particularly associated with the clubbing scene, it was increasingly being used in the suburbs. He said that based on recent drug seizures, police were alarmed to discover the rise in the level of purity in ice, as much as 80 per cent.

The ACT recorded a 321 per cent rise in the number of seizures and weight of amphetamines in the last financial year - 207 seizures totalling 1.195kg, up from 190 seizures of 284g in 2004-05.

Treatment support coordinator at Directions ACT Wayne Capper said this week that the incidence of ice use among young people was "going through the roof".

"I'm scared about what it's doing to the young people," he said. "I went through the whole ecstasy thing when that was going on, and I saw what was happening in that market. I think they're coming into the ice a lot quicker and a lot stronger."

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Hospital goes cold turkey
Paul Anderson and Mark Buttler
October 29, 2006 11:00pm

Chill out: Nurse Renae Roll pictured in the "cold turkey" room at St Vincent's Hospital. Picture: Bill McAuley

THE Royal Children's Hospital now has a special room for violent children who are affected by drugs or alcohol.

The RCH joins several public hospitals in offering harm-minimisation rooms for drug-affected and psychiatric patients.

Many violent patients arrive at hospitals suffering the effects of designer drugs such as ice (crystal methamphetamine) and speed (powder methamphetamine).

Police and paramedics say methamphetamines have replaced heroin as the drug of choice both for occasional users and for addicts.

A leading drug counsellor said ice was the most destructive drug now in circulation.

Richard Smith, of the Raymond Hader Clinic, knows of one 15-year-old ice user who had resorted to working as a prostitute to bankroll her habit.

"It's common for young people to prostitute themselves. This is the worst drug I've ever seen and I'm a hardened warrior," Mr Smith told the Herald Sun.

Mr Smith has twice received death threats from ice-affected clients.

"These people are dysfunctional and they can be very violent," he said.

"They don't eat. Their personal health and mental health are diminished."

RCH emergency department director Simon Young said his hospital's special room would be empty, except for a foam mattress.

"This is not specifically for people who are affected by methamphetamines, and I would say that is an extremely rare occurrence at the Children's . . . but it's a possibility," Mr Young said.

"The room is designed for anybody who is disturbed at that point in time, be it from drugs, alcohol or a psychiatric disorder.

"It's part of a whole strategy because we've noticed over the past few years that we've been getting an increasing number of disturbed people being transferred or brought in."

Nurse unit manager Susan Cowling said St Vincent's Hospital's behavioural assessment room, open since 2002, provided dignity and safety for the patient concerned and security for staff and other patients.

"We run it with senior staff going in there to provide a form of resuscitation to the patient's behaviour to make them manageable to be brought into the main area," Ms Cowling said.

"I'm not sure what Sydney is developing for their ice-type rooms, but no patient is ever locked in our room or left on their own in there."

Violent patients are handled by medical staff, two security guards and an orderly.

"They're usually quite paranoid," Ms Cowling said of those affected by ice and amphetamines.

"They're often quite angry and aggressive, both physically and verbally. A lot of it can be through fear. It can be, at times, intense. No one ever responds to them on their own."

According to a recent St Vincent's survey, about one in five patients placed in the room is affected by drugs -- possibly several different types -- while almost four in five suffer an alcohol or a psychiatric disorder.

Paramedic Alan Eade said psychosis and violence were not solely caused by ice.

"We see just as many people who have taken other forms of methamphetamines (speed, for example) who are just as sick," he said.

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Dealers duping users with 'fake ice'
By Nigel Hunt
November 05, 2006 12:00am

POLICE suspect South Australian drug dealers are cashing in on the ice craze by selling "normal" methamphetamine as the more potent form of the deadly drug.

Police Commissioner Mal Hyde has revealed there is "anecdotal" evidence ice was more prevalent in SA, but this was not being backed up by seizures.

And while police were finding more ice pipes for smoking the drug – with 100 seized at Salisbury North last month – only two clandestine laboratories manufacturing ice had so far been found in Adelaide – one in February, 2004 and the second in May this year.

In the past 15 months, police have found 63 clandestine laboratories producing the less potent form of methamphetamine.

"Anecdotally it is believed there has been an increase in ice on the street," Mr Hyde said.

"But you have got to balance that with the fact there is a product out there that looks like ice, it is produced to look like ice, but it is methamphetamine that has been cut with another agent and it produces a crystal form.

"So a lot of people might be reporting using ice, but in fact they are really using methamphetamine, rather than the ice form of methamphetamine."

Ice is methamphetamine that has been further refined using another "cooking" process to remove impurities and produce a more potent, crystalline form that is highly addictive.

In New South Wales, increased use of ice has been described as an epidemic, with NSW Premier Morris Iemma organising a national summit to develop strategies to deal with its effects.

The Federal Government says ice will be the priority in the next stage of its $40 million National Drugs Campaign.

Extended use of ice, which is usually smoked, results in devastating physical effects and severe psychosis.

Last month, the State Government announced it was setting up "quiet rooms" in SA hospitals to deal with violent and aggressive drug patients – many suffering methamphetamine psychosis.

A National Drug and Alcohol Research centre survey released on Friday, showing increased use of ice in SA by intravenous drug users, supports anecdotal evidence.

While NSW was experiencing significant problems associated with increased ice use, Mr Hyde believed SA may not necessarily follow that trend.

"It is not the case drug fashions or drug trends are repeated exactly around the country," he said.

"For example, cocaine has not been a significant problem in many jurisdictions as opposed to NSW, in particular Sydney. We have also seen a variable problem with methamphetamines around the country. It is not uniform.

"We can't just assume what is happening in NSW or overseas will be replicated here."

Mr Hyde said the major concern with the increased use of ice was that because of its purity, it had a higher rate of addiction.

"Even though it's not as expensive as heroin, you can build up a substantial habit pretty quickly, which means there is turning to crime to finance the habit," he said.

While this was a major issue, methamphetamine users were also problematic for police in other areas, including "aggressive, risk-taking behaviour with cars" and safely dealing with a user experiencing psychosis or withdrawal symptoms once in custody.

Police were equally concerned at the health problems methamphetamine users encountered.

While fatal overdoses were not common as with heroin use, there were still "enormous" health effects.

"You only have to look at the before and after photographs to get that message across," Mr Hyde said.

"There is a real prospect you are going to go down the slippery slide pretty quickly if you start taking methamphetamine, particularly ice.

"There are no upsides to methamphetamines and ice, they are all downsides."

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Splatt said:

Hey, better than getting 100% epsom salts from some dodgey local on a night out in the town. Most addicts will pay double the price to get a smokeable product, fake ice has been around for ages.

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State war on killer ice
November 26, 2006 11:00pm

THE Beattie Government has declared war on the "brain frying" drug ice.

Premier Peter Beattie yesterday announced the Government's ICE-Breaker Strategy, which will push education, rehabilitation and drug law enforcement programs in an attempt to beat the highly addictive methamphetamine.

"Lives have been lost and thousands of users have inflicted serious damage to their mental and physical health as well as resorted to violent crime to feed their habit," he said.

"We've got to say young Queenslanders, if you use ice it will fry your brain."

Mr Beattie said a taskforce of experts from health, justice, ambulance, education and law enforcement authorities would meet before year's end to develop strategies.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson said the Government would continue working with pharmacies to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine medicines, which can be used to manufacture amphetamines.

Already a 'Project Stop' is operating at 81 per cent of Queensland pharmacies which require those buying pseudoephedrine tablets to sign for the medication, he said.

A web-based computer tracking system matches up people who have bought unusual amounts which has led to 37 arrests and seven drug labs uncovered resulting in 260 drug-related charges this year.

Mr Robertson said the drug had detrimental effects on all parts of the community, including hospital staff who had to deal with violent abuse from patients on the drug.

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Police blame ice for rise in robberies
Andrew Clennell and Jonathan Pearlman
November 29, 2006

THE highly addictive drug crystal methamphetamine, or ice, is partly to blame for a big increase in robberies in parts of Sydney, according to the Police Commissioner and the Police Minister.

Quarterly figures published by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showed robberies had risen in the inner city, the inner west and parts of the west and south-west.

The commissioner, Ken Moroney, and the minister, John Watkins, said use of the drug was fuelling violent robberies. The figures are unwelcome news for the State Government, particularly in marginal inner-west electorates, with the election four months away.

Ice was "the new scourge", Mr Moroney said. "I'm concerned we risk losing a whole generation of young people as they succumb to this vile drug."

But the director of the bureau, Don Weatherburn, said there was no evidence to show the use of ice was behind the rise in robberies, although "we can't rule it out".

The figures showed robberies with a firearm had increased by 50 per cent in inner Sydney and 71 per cent in the inner west in the past two years. In Blacktown, Canterbury-Bankstown and Sydney's central west unarmed robberies increased by more than 30 per cent.

Dr Weatherburn said the rises in the number of robberies could have been caused by the success of one or two gangs. "Robbery offenders are pretty prolific. When they get started they don't stop. It could be a couple of gangs that will have found robbing pubs is a good way to make money and they will keep doing it till they get caught."

Most crime rates have continued their downward trends across the state, with car theft and break and enter falling about 5 per cent and indecent assault falling 3.6 per cent a year over the past two years. "We have had five or six years of falling crime, but obviously when you get an outbreak of robbery in western Sydney police should move in, because they're the first line of defence," Dr Weatherburn said.

Mr Watkins said crime had been "stable or falling" in the two years to September this year. But there had been an increase in armed robberies, particularly in pubs and clubs.

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Ice fuels surge in violence
November 29, 2006 12:00

VIOLENT crime is on the rise for the first time in six years, with a 71 per cent increase in armed robberies in parts of western Sydney.

The deadly drug ice is being blamed for the dramatic increase in robberies.

Blacktown and Canterbury have become the latest hotspots, where robberies are accelerating at an alarming rate.

There is now a fear that if crime trends continue, Sydney will return to the 'sin city' days of 2000 when the capital was gripped by a heroin drought.

The shocking rise in crime was revealed yesterday in the latest Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures.

The news won't be welcomed by the State Government, which is just four months out from the next election.

Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said he feared a whole generation of young people would be lost to the "vile drug".

"Ice is having an impact in the community: It's the new scourge," he said of the highly-addictive drug crystal methamphetamine ice.

The Daily Telegraph has led a vigorous campaign to have the Government and police clamp down on the drug.

Police Minister John Watkins also said arrests had been made relating to a proliferation of ice.

"People on ice have the propensity to use more violent means," he said. "Clearly there's been a concerning increase in robberies in these areas and NSW Police have been cracking down with operations and resources during the past three months."

Bureau director Dr Don Weatherburn said research was needed to link ice and crime.

"The problem with robberies occurred a few months ago in Canterbury. Since then it seems to have spread to other parts of western Sydney," he said.

Blacktown has emerged as a problem area, witnessing a rise in car thefts and robberies.

In the 12 months to September there have been 300 robberies - a jump of almost 40 per cent.

Steep petrol prices have also hit, with petrol theft jumping to 2408 - a rise of 32 per cent.

"Blacktown is a particular problem area. What seems to be happening is the big falls in property crime which started with the heroin shortage in 2000 seem to be plateauing," Dr Weatherburn said.

The most alarming rise has occurred in Sydney's inner west where armed robberies jumped to 41 - a 70 per cent increase.

Inner Sydney also suffered from an increase in armed robberies - 105 in the past year.

Across the state both burglaries and car theft dropped by 5 per cent.

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