In the first three months of this year Northern Territory Police seized three to four times more ice than in the same period last year.
How widespread the rising epidemic of ice, or crystal methylamphetamine, is in the NT will be investigated over the next six months by a parliamentary inquiry, announced on Wednesday.
The NT Council of Social Services has reported a sharp increase in the number of people using the drug, which the Australian Crime Commission says is the third most common illicit substance being used in indigenous communities.
The inquiry will look at how other jurisdictions are handling the problem, and what the social impacts are in urban, regional and remote areas.
Police will also be asked to provide evidence on how ice is supplied - whether by cross-border trafficking or local manufacture.
In the 12 months to February, NT police detected 17 drug labs.
They have noticed the drug playing a bigger part in major crimes, in car crashes, and there are more crimes featuring weapons, said Detective Superintendent Tony Fuller from the NT drug squad.
"A lot of that is due to the profits being generated and there's also a fair bit of extortion and rip-offs that occur," he told AAP.
When weapons are involved police have to call in the tactical response group, he said, so police have to "allocate a lot more resources to what would normally be a simple stop-and-search".
Det Supt Fuller said there are also other, stronger forms of amphetamines available that people are taking under the impression it is ice.
"A lot of other new psychoactive synthetic drugs have effects on people you can't predict," he said.
Police Minister Peter Chandler said the inquiry would examine why young people were turning to drugs.
"Is there more we can do in our schools, are we able to get to these kids?" he said.
"The best thing we can possibly do is prevent someone from starting in the first place. If that means we can better target programs in schools to let children know the dangers of drugs ... the community and in particular that child is a winner."
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