Emergency medicine specialist Dr David Caldicott said there had been a "huge surge" in the severity of ice usage in regional and rural areas as organised crime groups looked to exploit rural populations. 

"The rural market is being deliberately targeted as a vulnerable and untapped market for the imported entity [ice]," he said.

"It's like the high seas and it's being plundered."

Associate Professor Rebecca McKetin from Australian National University said ice's popularity in regional areas was in part due to the fact that the manufacture of methamphetamines was historically centred in the bush.

"There was no restriction on the availability to regional and rural areas, unlike heroin which was imported and we tended to see in the big cities," she said.

"You've already got a market there and you're putting the crystal methamphetamine on the shelves."

She said substance abuse of all types was more prevalent in regional areas. 

Dr Caldicott said while ice usage seemed to have dropped back slightly since its heyday several years ago, those who did present at emergency departments affected by ice were younger and more floridly affected by the drug than in previous years.

A marked increase in the purity of the drug was responsible, he said.

Dr Caldicott said the drug had a billion dollar impact on the Australian healthcare system.

Former Victoria Police commissioner Ken Lay has been selected to head up a new "National Ice Taskforce" working closely with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan and Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash to bring state and territory authorities together.

The aim is for the combined governments to develop a "National Ice Action Strategy" and to collate an interim report to be handed to Mr Abbott by the middle of this year.

The national taskforce comes a month after the announcement by the Andrews government of a $45 million "Ice Action Plan" to tackle the problem.