THE number of drug traffickers caught in Warrnambool has tripled in the past financial year.
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Crime Statistics Agency figures for the Warrnambool City Council area showed that in the 2013-14 financial year there were 36 people prosecuted for drug dealing.
During the past financial year (2014-15) that figure jumped to 115.
South-west police crime manager Senior Sergeant Mark Canavan said a dedicated unit focusing on drug trafficking had led to the spike.
He said police had made drug trafficking a primary focus rather than concentrating on those using.
"Drug crime statistic figures are always a return for effort," he said.
"We're trying to prevent that downward spiral attached to drugs which has an enormous negative impact on families and communities, not just on individuals," he said.
The CSA released a second ‘in brief’ research paper titled Recorded drug use and possession crime in metropolitan, regional and rural Victoria, 2006-2015.
The paper explores the distribution of police recorded drug use and possession incidents and first time offenders across Victoria during the past decade.
It shows that the previously reported increases in drug use and possession incidents over the past five years occurred across the state, although they were highest in regional towns and cities.
The new analysis shows that in 2015, regional Victoria recorded a rate of 361 incidents per 100,000 population, substantially higher than the rate recorded in both metropolitan Melbourne (273 incidents per 100,000 population) and rural Victoria (194 incidents per 100,000 population).
CSA chief statistician Fiona Dowsley said the largest increases were recorded in Victoria’s smaller towns.
“When compared to 2011, the largest increases occurred in some of Victoria’s smaller urban areas, such as Gisborne-Macedon, Warragul-Drouin, Moe-Newborough, and Sale,” she said.
“Police statistics are not necessarily an accurate measure of the underlying incidence of offending, and instead may be more reflective of changes to police activity.”
Some regional towns and cities reported almost a third of offenders were now female (Horsham and Shepparton), while others accounted for less than a fifth (Warrnambool, Colac and Bairnsdale).
