Ice possession, use surges in Victoria

Ice use and possession has surged by 2000 per cent in Victoria over ten years, a new report shows.

The drug has surpassed cannabis as the most common substance involved in minor drug offences, with proven use and possession charges jumping from 263 in 2007-08 to 5712 in 2016-17, the Sentencing Advisory Council revealed.

In the last year, a third of the 19,937 sentences for minor drug offences were related to ice.

"What we're not looking at is those offences where ice may be a contributing factor, for example, to serious assault," Sentencing Advisory Council Chair, Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg, told AAP on Thursday.

The council's analysis of 118,101 of all minor drug crimes proven before magistrates courts in the decade to June 2017 also showed most offenders were male and nearly a quarter aged under 25.

Meanwhile, offences related to the misuse of prescription drugs surged by nearly 300 per cent over the 10 years, compared to an eight per cent increase for cannabis.