Shoppers in the Hunter Valley stripped supermarket shelves bare almost immediately after it was announced they would be plunged into Covid lockdown - but it wasn't the only panic-buying that was taking place.
Daily Mail Australia understands that drug dealers are hoping to cash in on the seven-day stay-at-home orders by driving up the price of ice to as high as five times the normal asking fee in communities where meth use is almost triple the New South Wales average.
The street price of the dangerous drug normally fluctuates between $300 to $500 a gram, but with bored casual users now unable to leave their homes from 5pm Thursday in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, the cost is set to shoot up to $1000 to $1500.
Dealers are also well aware that generous government subsidies will soon start to flow into the area, meaning more dollars will be competing for the same amount of product, inflating prices.
Lockdown measures have been extended to Newcastle and the Hunter regions due to a local outbreak of new cases
'With lockdown, people are going to have a hard time getting on the gear,' a source with inside knowledge of the drug trade in the area told Daily Mail Australia.
'So the price will go through the roof.
'I reckon it will probably go to somewhere between $1,000 to as high as $1,500 a gram.'
The NSW government last year released a report outlining the devastating impact that meth is having on many Hunter Valley communities, with assistant senior counsel Sally Dowling SC noting that use of the drug has rapidly increased over the past decade.
'Maitland, Moree Plains and Cessnock each experience more than double the state average of convictions for possession or use of amphetamines,' she told the East Maitland hearing in 2019.
The Special Commission of Inquiry into the drug 'Ice' received testimony from concerned locals in a range of fields who warned that use of the drug has become more prevalent among adolescents.
The NSW government last year released a report outlining the devastating impact that meth is having on many Hunter Valley communities, with assistant senior counsel Sally Dowling SC noting that use of the drug has rapidly increased over the past decade. Pictured: The city of Newcastle
Daily Mail Australia understands that drug dealers in the picturesque Hunter Valley are hoping to cash in on the seven-day stay-at-home orders by driving up the price of ice to as high as five times the normal asking fee
Anne-Marie Connelly, the client services manager of Cessnock Community Services told the hearing that 'younger and younger' people were using the drug across the Hunter Valley, some as young as 12.
'It appears to have increased appearance in schools in the area,' she said.
'The exposure to parents using has desensitised young people to the negative consequences... It appears there's a higher likelihood of a young person using ice because of that inter-generational effect.
