Victorian forensics begin identifying drug territories and track ice distribution
Victoria’s top forensic drug lab has begun matching batches of ice amid soaring seizures in the state.
Head of the Victoria Police Forensic Services Centre, Cate Quinn, confirmed the lab had matched a “small number” of seizures paving the way to identify drug territories and track ice distribution across the state.
The Victoria Police lab in Melbourne, is part of a $103 million strategy to battle the ice scourge in Victoria and is expected to revolutionise the fight against drugs through geographical “hot spotting”.
It comes as police have uncovered 106 clandestine labs so far this year, which is on track to rise above the 152 found in 2014.
READ MORE: 70% of ice users arrested by police admit being on welfare, study finds
Scientists have been working for 18 months after Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton unveiled the new crime fighting lab.
Drug crimes soared in Victoria in the past five years with drug dealing charges jumping to 5155, up from 3457.
Culturing and manufacturing rose from 1388 cases to 1767.
The use of drugs has also soared with more than 23,200 people caught using drugs last financial year, up from 14,066 in 2011/12.
“We are applying it (chemical profiling) in test cases,” said Ms Quinn
“We have had some matches. It is very early stages in terms of developing forensic intelligence tools, but we have had some matches between drug seizures.”
Ms Quinn said the matches had been passed on to intelligence to help build cases and information will also be passed on to health bodies in communities battling the issue.
It is too early to systematically ‘batch match’’ seizures or point to “hot Spots”.
More than 15,000 cases have now been entered into Victoria’ chemical profiling database with an extra 700 cases being added every month.
Police Minister Lisa Neville said the lab was essential to battling Victoria’s ice scourge.
“We know that illegal drugs — particularly ice — are having a devastating impact on families and communities,” she said.
“I recently visited the Macleod facility and spoke to those working in the forensic drug testing area.
“They outlined critical improvements in the testing and detection of drugs — and that more arrests are being made because of additional staff and technology.”