Vic hotel ice dealer avoids jail sentence

A woman who sold ice from her luxury Melbourne hotel room will do 200 hours of community service.

Melinda Hansen, 25, was living at The Olsen hotel in South Yarra when police discovered drug-making paraphernalia and chemicals "suitable for the manufacture of methylamphetamine" in her room.

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg said the community corrections order was appropriate, despite media reports saying she had got off lightly.

"This does interfere with her liberties," Mr Rozencwajg said on Friday.

"She is compelled to undergo treatment and unpaid community work."

Hansen is also not allowed to leave her house between 11pm and 6am.

Mr Rozencwajg made it clear he believed the media had sensationalised the case.

Notebooks with a recipe for methylamphetamine, sales contacts and price lists, as well as deal bags and drugs were found in the hotel room.

Ms Hansen pleaded guilty to trafficking methylamphetamines, also known as ice, over 15 months from March 2013 to June 2014.

Prosecutors said despite the chemicals and recipe, there was no evidence Hansen was cooking the drugs herself.

Defence lawyer Marita Altman told the court on Wednesday the "pretty pink handwriting" in the notebooks, a hangover from her private school education, was the only organised part of Hansen's life during that period.

She had a "raging cocaine addiction" after returning from two years in London in 2012, Ms Altman said, but had since spent time in drug rehab.

Her drug counsellor told the court on Wednesday that Hansen attends counselling, and mentors new women entering the program at a transitional facility in Moonee Ponds.

Mr Rozencwajg put Hansen on an 18-month community corrections order, requiring her to do 200 hours of community work and be assessed for drugs.

If she fails to meet those orders she could face up to three months in jail.