And now new figures are showing ice-related deaths have spiked in regional areas like Hepburn.

What is even more concerning is a national study showing users are getting behind the wheel of vehicles under the misguided notion ice will improve their driving.

Professor Shane Darke, who led the national study, said there was a belief among ice users that the drug improved their driving and reflexes.

What ice is really doing to a motorist is giving them false bravado, an over confidence in their own abilities.

What these doped-up drivers are really doing is loading a two-tonne deadly weapon and aiming it other unsuspecting motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.

Shocking figures released by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre show the annual death toll linked to ice use in Australia doubled between 2009 and 2015. Half of those deaths were in the country.

The research, released Monday, also showed the drug ice was not just a metropolitan problem, but was increasingly accessible in regional Victorian towns and cities like Hepburn and Daylesford.

In an effort to curb the use of ice and other drugs by motorists, police are increasing roadside drug testing.

Local Highway Patrol officer Acting Senior Sergeant Ben Young rightfully describes the combination of illicit drugs and driving as a recipe for disaster.

“Impaired driving is an over-represented contributing factor in road trauma,” he said.

Statistics from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre show of the 1649 deaths reviewed by the centre, 156 were ice users who died while at the wheel of a vehicle.

Other figures show ice overdose was the common cause of death at 43 per cent, followed by heart disease and suicide, with Professor Darke stating heart disease and stroke was a risk for users.

Hopefully, these new health figures are shocking enough to be a wake-up call for ice users in Australia. Because it is a sad scourge that knows no boundaries … rich/poor; young/old; male/female … this is a problem which needs to be taken seriously.