Annual report shows opioids playing a big role in drug overdoses

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Accidental fatal overdoses in Australia continue to be driven by the use of opioids, according to the country's annual overdose report. But it's the increased use of anti-anxiety medication in combination with other drugs that's causing concern.

Transcript

00:00 This year's snapshot of drug overdoses produced by the Pennington Institute makes for some

00:06 difficult reading.

00:07 It's found that in the 20 years since 2001, over 37,000 Australians have lost their lives

00:14 to drugs.

00:15 That's one person every four hours and most of those are accidental.

00:20 During that period, the number of unintentional drug-induced deaths has increased by more

00:25 than 70%.

00:27 Despite Australia's population growing by just 33%.

00:31 Indigenous Australians are over-represented in overdose deaths.

00:34 20 per 100,000 compared to just under 6 per 100,000 for non-indigenous people.

00:41 Interestingly it's a worse problem in regional and rural areas, but it affects people from

00:47 all walks of life, including from the richest to the poorest.

00:50 It really is a tragedy.

00:52 It's far exceeded the road toll now since 2014 and yet we're not giving it the attention

00:57 that it deserves.

00:59 Deaths from anti-anxiety prescription medication are also on the rise.

01:03 In 2021, benzodiazepines were the second most common cause of unintentional drug-induced

01:08 deaths behind opioids.

01:10 While the actual cause of death is often a combination of drugs, the proportion of accidental

01:15 overdose deaths involving benzodiazepine has grown in the past two decades.

01:21 And there are similar rises for stimulants, anti-convulsants and anti-psychotics.

01:26 We've got a very significant overdose problem now with stimulant drugs, methamphetamine

01:32 and cocaine, but also still with anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping drugs prescribed by doctors.

01:38 The Pennington Institute says we only need to look to America and Canada for an example

01:43 of the catastrophic impact of synthetic opioids.

01:47 It wants health authorities here to start making plans.

01:50 We've certainly seen in the US the rise of fentanyl and we've seen fentanyl increase

01:54 in Australia but not anywhere near the scale of what's been happening in the United States.

01:59 That's a real danger for us and we should be preparing for the possibility that fentanyl

02:05 comes to Australia.

02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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