Ice, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin give way to fentanyl, wastewater tests reveal
SOUTH Australians are using less ice, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin than they were last year, but wastewater tests reveal drug-users may have discovered a new vice.
SOUTH Australians are using less ice, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin than they were last year, wastewater testing shows.
But an Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission report has found the consumption of the deadly drug fentanyl and the morphine-based painkiller oxycodone is on the rise.
Use of methamphetamine in Adelaide dropped to 44 doses a day per 1000 people in the latest testing in April, well down on the 97 hits a day per 1000 people in December last year. Based on the latest data, Adelaide is no longer the ice capital of Australia – Darwin recorded the highest for any city with 46 doses a day per 1000 people.
Regional SA went down to 27.5 hits a day per 1000 people in April, from just over 50 hits a day in December 2017.
The ACIC report also revealed sewage testing in 23 countries around the world identified Australians as the second highest users of the four most common illegal stimulant drugs. Only American druggies snort, smoke and swallow more ice, speed, ecstasy and cocaine than Australian addicts.
Users in the US have 78 hits of the stimulants a day per 1000 people, compared with Australians at 40 hits a day, the Dutch on 37, the Swiss on 30 and Brits on 28. The ACIC report, released today, contains the results of secret wastewater testing at the inlets of 47 unidentified sewage treatment plants around the nation.
Wastewater testing is considered by experts around the world to be the most accurate way of measuring what illegal drugs are being taken and where they are being consumed.
ACIC chief executive Mike Phelan said police, health and other agencies used the wastewater testing results to shape their responses to the demand and supply side of Australia’s huge illicit drug problem.
“We estimate that a tonne of methylamphetamine (mainly in its crystal form, known as ice) is consumed in SA each year, as well as 108kg of cocaine, 58kg of MDMA (ecstasy) and 38kg of heroin,” he told The Advertiser.
“Transnational serious and organised crime groups profit from importing, trafficking, manufacturing and selling drugs. Wastewater analysis provides a measure of demand for a range of drugs. This allows governments to direct resources to priority areas and monitor the progress of demand and supply reduction strategies.”
The ACIC report also revealed use in rural SA of the deadly drug fentanyl – the synthetic opiate drug which is 80 times more potent than morphine – has leapt from just under 10 hits a day per 1000 people to almost 15 hits since December last year.
It showed Australians consume an estimated 8.4 tonnes of methylamphetamine (mainly ice) a year as well as 3 tonnes of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of ecstasy pills and 765kg of heroin.