A new report shows that six Australians die every day from a drug overdose. Source: Dean812, Wikimedia Commons
A new report shows that six Australians die every day from drug overdoses, prompting a call for urgent action.
Penington Institute, a public health research group, released an annual report showing that in 2021, there were 2,231 drug induced deaths.
Of these deaths, 1,675 were intentional.
“Overdose deaths in Australia have exceeded the road toll since 2014, and we see little to no action to demonstrably change this,” Penington Institute CEO John Ryan said.
The report also showed that seven out of 10 unintentional drug overdose deaths in 2021 were men, and that Indigenous Australians were almost four times more likely to die of an overdose than non-Indigenous Australians.
Rural and regional parts of the country also had a higher rate of drug overdose deaths than metropolitan areas.
Of these overdoses, the most common drug found in peoples’ system were opioids, accounting for 45.7 per cent of overdose deaths in 2021.
Further still, opioids were found in 81 per cent of deaths involving multiple substances.
A major cause for concern, according to the report, were deaths linked to the powerful synthetic opioid Fentanyl, which had surged by 800 per cent since 2001.
Benzodiazepines, a family of drug typically used for the short-term treatment of anxiety – including drugs like Valium and Xanax – made up 32.5 per cent of unintentional drug induced deaths, claiming 544 lives.
This figure is even higher than alcohol, causing 313 such deaths.
The report stated that: “Deaths associated with multiple drug types are far more common than those associated with a single type of drug.”
This increase in drug overdose deaths in Australia has coincided with the international opioid crisis.
While Australia’s population has only grown by 33 per cent in this time frame, unintentional drug deaths have risen by 71 per cent.
Australia has seen over 37,000 drug induced deaths since 2001.
Penington Institute began producing the annual overdose report eight years ago in attempt to drive change, but CEO John Ryan said that the response has been inadequate next to the magnitude of the problem.
“The time to address this national crisis is now,” he said.
“We already have the tools and know-how to reduce overdose deaths – we just need to do it by implementing evidence-based solutions, supporting access to treatment, and closing the gap in overdose death rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
