The Criminalisation of Methamphetamine: Everyday Social Harms in Rural Settings

Prohibition remains the dominant policy response to drug use in Australia, with methamphetamine possession and use considered criminal offences. Despite claims that criminalisation deters use and protects community safety, global evidence suggests punitive approaches generate a cascade of social harms that disproportionately impact people who use drugs. Methamphetamine use in Australia is more prevalent in rural and regional areas than in metropolitan centres, and Australia has one of the highest rates of methamphetamine use globally, with use more prevalent among people subject to criminalisation and other forms of criminal legal contact. This study draws on 23 qualitative interviews with people who smoke methamphetamine in rural and regional Victoria, conducted between February and July 2024, to examine how criminalisation shapes everyday life. Guided by a social harm approach, the analysis centres the harms produced by prohibition, law, and institutional responses, rather than treating criminalisation as a neutral response to drug-related harm. Findings highlighted how policing, stigma, and limited health and social service infrastructure intersected to sustain cycles of surveillance, punishment, and exclusion, extending criminalisation well beyond formal legal sanctions. Many reported being permanently marked as ‘suspects’, subject to repeated police attention, and drawn into revolving sequences of arrest, court appearances, sentencing, and re-sentencing through community orders that were often difficult to meet in rural and regional contexts. For Aboriginal participants, these dynamics were further intensified by racialised policing and the enduring effects of colonial governance, compounding the harms of criminalisation in settings where access to care was already limited. Overall, findings demonstrate how prohibitionist drug laws in rural and regional settings magnify inequality, entrench stigma, and sustain cycles of punishment and control for people who use methamphetamine, rather than alleviating drug-related harm.