Illicit killer drug surges in Australia

The latest national report shows drug fatalities are now almost double the Australian road toll, with deaths surging 40 per cent from one illicit drug.

Exclusive: Drug fatalities are now almost double the Australian road toll, with heroin deaths surging 40 per cent, a new report has found.

The latest national data from The Penington Institute shows there were 2356 drug induced deaths in 2022 - 79 more than the year before.

That equates to six people a day losing their lives to overdoses, despite policy reforms designed to ease the problem.

And it follows recent dire warnings about new synthetic opioids called Nitazenes which are a hundred times more potent than heroin.

“We’ve got to do much better community education about the signs of overdose, and how to respond in an emergency and that includes access to Naloxone, which is an amazing opioid overdose reversal drug,” Penington Institute CEO John Ryan said.

Penington Institute CEO John Ryan. Picture: Supplied

A national Take Home Naloxone program introduced in 2022 was meant to provide the medication for free at pharmacies for drug users and their families.

However, a recent Monash Addiction Research Centre University study found 40 per cent of chemists did not stock the medicine.

The new report shows in 2022 heroin deaths were up 40 per cent from 328 deaths in 2021 to 460.

Deaths caused by stimulant drugs including methamphetamine and cocaine increased by 4.9 per cent to 552 deaths in 2022.

“People don’t think you can overdose on cocaine, but you certainly can. It’s just not the sleepy experience that you have with opioids. It’s actually the opposite. It’s an explosive experience for your heart for your organs for your brain. You end up having a major coronary or a stroke,” Mr Ryan said.

Unintentional deaths involving alcohol increased by 7.6 per cent to 369 in 2022.

While it is possible to drink enough to cause death, many of these alcohol deaths may have involved alcohol mixed with other drugs, Mr Ryan said.

Nitazene powder is behind a spike in drug overdose deaths. Picture: Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Unintentional drug-induced deaths related to benzodiazepines, antidepressants and anti-convulsants all decreased, the new data shows.

Unintentional deaths involving oxycodone, morphine and codeine also decreased.

This could be due to new rules that came into effect in 2018 that made codeine a prescription only medication.

People aged 40-49 were most likely to die from an overdose with 502 deaths in this age group, up 6 per cent on the year before.

With deaths from drugs are now almost double the annual road toll (1276 deaths), Mr Ryan said there needs to be better community education about the signs of overdose with too many parents leaving their kids to “sleep off” their drug use,

“Most people don’t know that unusual snoring like gargling sort of snoring is actually an overdose,” he said.

“They should have tried to wake them up and administered Naloxone if they couldn’t wake them. They don’t do that because they don’t know and so people are actually dying from ignorance and the burden of the guilt that the family members carries is really, really tough.”

In her warning about Nitazenes, NSW Health Chief Addiction Medicine Specialist Dr Hester Wilson said other signs of an opioid overdose were pinpoint pupils, drowsiness, loss of consciousness, slowed breathing/snoring and skin turning blue/grey.