I'm in the United Sates and have used meth since 1995, at first we had powder meth only here locally produced and of high purity, but made in small batches of 30-90 grams per batch, this meth was 90-95% avg from the cook, and not from a middle man, or delaer who cuts it and then sells it, but know crystal meth from Mexico is the dominate type availalbe, and I have smoked both powder(crank) and crystal on foil when it was late and no store were open nearby to go and buy a glass stem or pipe.. In the US, in most places, gas stations/convience stores sell both straight glass tubes and glass pipe with a rounded end with a hole already in the round end , all as noveltys as they have a fake platic flower stem and fake flower bloom in both types of glass,but I prefer hand blown pipes ,glass is defintely the best ,most effiecent way to smoke crystal, and most of us clean our pipes and have a good smoking teqnique, the documentarys, and so on, are usually the people who are using so much crystal they smoke it and end up wasting it...lol.
.I do not know if Australia has stores of numerous types that sell glass pipes as noveltys like here, but in the US, most people throw out a glass pipe rather than clean it, as they are so easy to obtain, even hand blown glass pipes are easy to get and make, 1/2 the people I know that smoke crystal end up being awake for a few days or more and start to make hand blow glass meth pipes for something to do, also glass meth bongs as well...some people still prefer foil, which I am very good at smoking crystal off of foil and wasting almost none, except that glass pipes have all the meth residue that accumulates in the stem which can later be smoked, where as foil does not, unless you use a glass tube as a "tooter" instead of a straw or hollowe dout ink pen!! lol.smoking off of foil is an art, as is smoking out of glass, you can tell when a person has not being smoking crystal very long or smoking out of a glas pipe by the clumsy way they do it, often scorching the meth with too much heat...lol..this is something that pisses all of us that have the proper technique down, and usually someone will be told to smoke it this way, and be made to watch someone else smoke it properly or someone will even light and vaporize the meth for them, they just have to inhale the meth..lol..
meth is so very cheap here though, many people smoke it and waste a good deal, becasue most people tend to buy at least 1 gram or more at a time, most people like me buy an 8-ball of 3.5 grams or a 1/4 ounce of crystal(7 grams) and so it is common for some people to put a gram in a pipe and smoke it with a group,and so on..I have seen a meth maker put 3-4 grams of crank(powdered meth) on a piece of extra heavy duty foil and it would go around the room for hours..lol.this one guy would have rocks the size of a 1/4 gram or more fall of the foil or off the thing he was using to put the meth from the bag of dope onto the foil..lol..we would go the next morning and pick up rocks of meth and crystal also and end up with several grams of meth to use or sell..lol..it must suck to have such high prices for drugs as you do in Australia!