That's the view of Orana Local Area Commander Superintendent David Simmons, who says police and the community need to work together to tackle a scourge that did not discriminate when it came to age, location or social status.

"The public are the police and the police are the public," he said.

"It's the foundation of western policing. We can't work alone. Police on their own, without information from the public, solve very few crimes.

"The crimes occur to the public, they're the victims and we need information from them to follow up on, investigate and lock people up.

"If you want a civilised, non-violent society then somebody's got to enforce that, and that includes reporting what you know to the enforcement authorities. Really, without information we're hamstrung when it comes to the vast majority of crime."

Even if you never dealt or used ice, there was still good reason to worry about its impacts on the community, Superintendent Simmons said.

"To buy it, people need money, and to get that money the vast majority of people need to commit crimes," he said.

"The higher their usage, the more money they need and the more crime and violence.

"But it's not just that. You might be happily going about your business, shopping in town, for instance, and someone on ice 'goes off' and you get caught up in the calamity. You don't know what's going to come of that, because when they're on ice, people lose sight of reality and there is a very real potential for them to become very violent for reasons that are quite irrational to other people.

"Aggression, violence, assaults and robberies are, in many cases, linked back to drug use, and at the moment it's ice in particular because it's very much becoming the preferred drug.

"There are untold incidents where those types of incidents have been linked to ice, and often that level of ice use is quite high."

Superintendent Simmons said the nature of people in rural and regional areas to be both caring community members and in some cases "stickybeaks" had its benefits when it came to tackling the problem of illicit drugs.

"Country people can be inquisitive, and for that reason it's probably more difficult to set up a laboratory in country areas," he said.

"If you walk past a place one day and all of a sudden the windows are blacked out, they're going to ask questions."

Blacked out and covered up windows were among clues that might suggest a drug operation is operating from inside. And police most definitely wanted to hear from residents who had observed such clues, Superintendent Simmons said.

"We'd like to know about anything that raises suspicion," he said.

"Frequent, short visits by people in a short time period is a bit of a giveaway.

"When numerous people frequent an address in just a few hours on certain days of the week, there's something going on. Likewise if people drop in to a house and just stand at the door or at a side window and disappear."

Despite warnings and community education programs, including those run by police youth and liaison officers, children in their early teens were trying and becoming addicted to ice in the Orana region.

The substance's highly-addictive characteristics and the natural tendency for young people to succumb to peer pressure and experiment with substances of unknown origin were a potentially deadly combination, Superintendent Simmons said.

"The culture and peer pressure among kids, which has never really been any different, lives in the schools and the youth when they're growing up," he said.

"All the lectures and facts and figures you're given sink into the background when it comes down to a dare from one of your mates.

"Kids live in a bit of an unreal world. They don't have the ability to see the world as adults do because they're still growing and learning. That's why they're at enormous risk. They're much easier to tempt to take drugs than an adult who's never taken drugs."

Superintendent Simmons urged parents to be aware of any "strange or irrational behaviour" in their children.

"If there is, you need to question it, because a child that gets addicted to ice is going to be an enormous problem for themselves, their family and society in general."

If there was an easy solution to the problems caused by ice, Superintendent Simmons said, it most likely would have been implemented by now.

"Therein lies the problem, and it's something we obviously need to combat because it's detrimental to a peaceful society, its health and finances, but there's no quick fix," he said.

"We do know that we need to do as much as we can to target suppliers, the ones who are spreading the misery and grief, creating addictions and addicted customers they then know they can regularly supply to. Really, they are the scum of the Earth."