It is estimated there are tens of thousands of regular heroin users in Australia, and last year in Victoria there was a 30 per cent increase in overdose fatalities.
Sam Biondo from the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association said these statistics are of significant concern, and the reasons behind the increase include changes in supply, price, purity and street dealing habits.
“If we multiply that by the impact of similar substances and probably similar trends in other states, we've got a national catastrophe on our hands,” Mr Biondo said.
“We're seeing a generation of ice users that are getting burnt out, and are now mentally unstable from years and years of ice use, now turning to heroin..."
Obtaining accurate and recent national figures is difficult, and not all states have experienced an increase in fatal overdoses over the past 12 months.
However, survey data from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre suggested the proportion of those injecting heroin on a daily basis is increasing nationally.
One of the key questions confronting authorities now is whether the increase in fatalities represents a temporary spike, or a longer-term trend.
Jeremy Dwyer from the Victorian Coroner’s Prevention unit said fear is widespread.
“There's fear in people I've spoken to that we know what things can get to based on the heroin epidemic of the 90s, so a lot of people are keeping a close eye on this,” Mr Dwyer said.
Former heroin user Ra Bromilow, 28, was studying law, playing representative basketball and living a reasonably functional life when he first discovered the drug ice.
“It was pretty much the answer to any problem I had, it was absolutely euphoric, it was amazing," he said.
"Living on ice at the start was really fun and then it started to get very terrible, very quickly. Like I went through psychosis, a lot of paranoia, severe anxiety, very restless, short tempered."
Seven months living free of drugs has given Mr Bromillow the clarity to reflect on his amphetamine-riddled life.
The chaos became too much, but at the time he wasn’t quite ready to live drug free.
"I believe a lot of people, especially young people, are moving back to heroin now."
“The reason I transitioned to heroin (is) it brought me back down - made me feel more stable. This is only at the start though, like it gets really bad after a while,” he said.
Jackson Oppy runs the Hader Rehabilitation clinic, and says Ra Bromillow’s story is common.
He says street-heroin is pure and comparatively cheap, but clients recovering from "heroin-only" habbits are rare.
“We're seeing a generation of ice users that are getting burnt out, and are now mentally unstable from years and years of ice use, now turning to heroin which is a very effective anti-psychotic,” Mr Oppy said.
Ra Bromillow now has his sights set on a career in the drug and alcohol sector and says authorities are right to be concerned.
“All the stigma now is on ice, how bad ice is and you know the heroin epidemic was back in the 90s so that's sort of been forgotten about. So I believe a lot of people, especially young people, are moving back to heroin now,” he said.
