Page 994 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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Late last year the government sought public feedback on our draft alcohol, tobacco and other drug strategy. This whole-of-government strategy recognises that if we are to continue to build a safe and healthy community we need to prevent the uptake and delay the onset of harmful drug use and support people to reduce harmful drug use, prevent, stop and disrupt the production and supply of illicit drugs and regulate and manage the availability of legal ones, and reduce drug-related harm to individuals and our community as a whole.
According to the global burden of disease study, although alcohol and tobacco are the drugs that continue to cause the most harm in Australian society, accounting for 11.9 per cent of the total burden of disease and injury, illicit drugs are responsible for nearly three per cent. The proportion of people using illegal drugs has remained relatively stable and use of some illegal drugs has even slightly decreased over the past three years. However, the use of illicit drugs is a direct cause of death and disability and it is a key risk factor for a number of health conditions and diseases.
The increase in the non-medical use of pharmaceuticals has been associated with an increase in a range of harms, both nationally and internationally. In the Australian context opioid and amphetamine dependence are the most common forms of illicit drug dependence. Opioid dependence was responsible for the greatest health burden. Pharmaceutical opioid-related poisoning hospitalisations have exceeded those associated with heroin use.
Seventy-one per cent of opioid drug deaths are deemed unintentional, with heroin being the opioid drug most frequently involved in death. The injection of oral medicines is becoming increasingly prevalent and poses risks for the spread of blood-borne disease. Inappropriate prescribing leads to suboptimal treatment outcomes for a range of conditions, including pain, anxiety and sleep disorders. Illicit trade in pharmaceutical drugs has been ongoing for decades in Australian states and territories, and crimes are routinely committed to obtain pharmaceutical drugs while under their influence.
There have also been, as has been noted in this place previously, significant changes in the patterns of use of crystal methamphetamine. Between 2010 and 2013, while there has been no significant increase in methamphetamine use overall, the use of powder decreased while the use of crystalline methamphetamine doubled. This shift in the use of powdered methamphetamine to crystalline methamphetamine is typically associated with increasing levels of harm among users, including increased dependence.
The long-term consequences of methamphetamine use are well established. They include harms in the social sector area, such as financial and legal problems, as well as health dependency domains. Injecting drug use is a major source of blood-borne virus infection. This is well understood in relation to diseases such as hepatitis B and C and HIV/AIDS. It has also been concluded by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that mental illness is reported in higher proportions by those who had smoked cannabis in the previous 12 months compared with those who had not.
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