Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission sewage testing report reveals size of illegal drug problem
Australians are illegally using more than 15 tonnes of ice, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin a year, sewage tests reveal, with the country’s top criminal intelligence boss describing the amount spent as “astounding”.
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Sewage testing has revealed Australians illegally use more than 15 tonnes of ice, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin a year.
An Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission report being released today will reveal the street value of illegal drugs taken by Australians in the 12 months to August last year topped $9.3 billion.
It also shows Melburnians use more heroin than addicts in any other capital city.
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Drug users in rural Victoria are the second highest consumers of heroin and the morphine-based painkiller oxycodone, which is known on the streets as hillbilly heroin, when compared with every other regional area in Australia.
The sewage testing revealed Australians now snort, smoke, swallow and inject more than 9.8 tonnes of methylamphetamine a year, as well as 4.1 tonnes of cocaine, 1.1 tonnes of ecstasy and more than 700kg of heroin.
ACIC chief executive Mike Phelan said the report confirmed the black economy relating to illegal drugs was disturbingly high.
“It is astounding that Australians waste over $9.3 billion a year on drugs,” he told the Herald Sun.
“This is money people could be spending on legitimate goods for themselves and their families.”
The ACIC report contains the results of secret wastewater testing at the inlets of 58 sewage treatment plants around the nation — including 11 in Victoria.
Urine and faeces excreted by 13 million Australians was examined to get the drug use figures.
The ACIC report also revealed:
USAGE of cocaine, ice and other forms of methylamphetamine increased in Australia from the year ending August 2016 to the year ending August 2018 while the annual consumption of ecstasy and heroin decreased during the same period.
ONE site in regional Victoria had the highest usage of ice in Australia at up to 96 hits a day per 1000 people, compared with the national average of 37 hits.
USE of the deadly drug fentanyl — the synthetic opiate drug which is 80 times more potent than morphine and killed legendary musician Prince in 2016 — increased in Melbourne between April 2018 and August 2018 but decreased in regional Victoria.
USERS at one site in rural Victoria consumed up to 27 hits of fentanyl a day per 1000 people, compared with the national average of 8 hits.
AVERAGE ecstasy use increased in Melbourne and rural Victoria in the four months to August 2018.
TASMANIA had the highest use of cannabis in Australia while several regional sites in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia had usage levels higher than the national average of just above 15,000mg a day per 1000 people.
Mr Phelan said the latest ACIC wastewater report was the sixth in the series of nine and the first to include cannabis in the sewage testing process.
“There was apparent variation in consumption between the states and territories, with regional average cannabis consumption more than double capital city average consumption,” he said.
Originally published as Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission sewage testing report reveals size of illegal drug problem