DESPERATE parents are asking Warrnambool police to jail their children to get them off the destructive drug ice.

Users’ families and friends are embracing a Dob in a Dealer campaign as the community ups the fight against the ice scourge, which police have linked to a rise in Warrnambool’s drug offences in recent years. 

More than a year after the extent of the spiralling ice problem in the region was detailed at a parliamentary inquiry, the focus is shifting from measuring the impacts to limiting the personal and community damage.

A new rehabilitation service will open in Warrnambool in October and police are taking a “human approach” to reducing use.

Rather than arresting ice users and throwing them in prison, Warrnambool police are now offering counselling referrals, helping them find jobs and even places to live. 

Sergeant Chris Asenjo, of the Warrnambool police divisional response unit, said the approach was about putting people in a place to recover.

"We now realise there is a human aspect to this drug and one of our primary things is to try to ensure a person has the ability to break free from this stuff,” Sergeant Asenjo said.

He said ice had an incredible impact on users’ families, who were among those providing information to police.

"People – family members of those addicted to ice – are seeking advice from us on how this can be fixed,” he said. “We even have parents of ice users and traffickers ask that we imprison their kids as ways of getting help.

“There's certainly more awareness and we’re certainly receiving more information from the public about drug traffic and involvement.

"People sometimes don't think they have a drug problem until they're sitting in a jail cell. We recommend getting support as soon as you can before police need to get involved.”

The Warrnambool-based Western Region Alcohol and Drug (WRAD) Centre is preparing to open Sliding Doors – a non-residential, six-week program for eight people, in October, which will expand across the region.

"If they're going along to a structured program, that (structure) will add resilience to be able to complete the program and have a longer period away from the drugs,” WRAD operations manager Daryl Fitzgibbon said.

Brophy Family and Youth Services last year revealed 19 per cent of its clients in the past 18 months had used or were still using ice.

The agency’s CEO Francis Broekman believes the right steps have been made since then to help those clients, including education in schools and ice-specific training for staff.

He said the lack of a specialised youth drug and alcohol service was glaring.

"We're moving in the right direction,” he said.

“A youth-specific response is needed. It's a really significant gap in this region. 

“WRAD’s services are a good start, a fantastic start, but we need more of it. 

"Early intervention is the best value for money in the end. As soon as they get into the adult system they are chronic users whose lifestyle is so structured around the use and supply of drug and alcohol that it defines their life and defines them, so it's a lot more difficult to move them into a drug and alcohol-free life.

“There is no quick cure and there is no methadone for ice.”