National study of drug use through analysis of sewage finds high rate of ice use compared with countries in Europe

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The first national study of drug use through analysis of sewage has found that, while Australians are big users of illegal stimulants compared with Europeans, their alcohol intake is “relatively low”.

Consumption of stimulants in Australia, driven by use of methylamphetamine or “ice”, ranked second only to Slovakia, according to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission report.

But the drinking of alcohol, the most widely used drug in Australia, was “at the lower Mediterranean end of consumption in Europe” with 1.2 alcoholic drinks per person per day, it said.

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The study also found Australians were lighter smokers of cigarettes than Europeans and the Chinese, although smoking was heavier in regional Australia than in capital cities – a gulf that was not apparent when it came to alcohol.

The report, released on Sunday and based on analysis of chemical compounds in wastewater from 51 treatment sites, covered about 58% of the population or about 14 million people.

It is the first in a series over three years intended to give more accurate data on drug use, including by location, to guide federal, state and territory government policy responses to ice use.

Researchers from the University of Queensland and University of South Australia reported methylamphetamine was the most commonly used illicit drug in their analysis.

However, they did not test for cannabis, long identified in surveys and reports, including by the ACC, as Australia’s most prevalent illicit drug.

“From an international perspective, methylamphetamine levels in Australia rank high compared to countries in Europe where wastewater analysis is routinely conducted,” the report said.

By contrast, cocaine use in Australia – mostly concentrated in Sydney, Canberra and Darwin – was “relatively low, while MDMA is close to the European average”.

But when methylamphetamine, amphetamine, MDMA and cocaine were grouped together under the banner of illegal stimulants, Australia’s consumption was more than double that in most of the 17 European countries that underwent similar analyses of their sewers.

At just under 40 doses per 1000 people per day, Australia was second only to Slovakia (more than 60) and well above the likes of Portugal (less than 10), which decriminalised drug use in 2001.

The level of methylamphetamine use in WA far outstripped the rest of the nation.

The monitoring also showed oxycodone and fentanyl use across all jurisdictions was at concerning levels.

Regional areas in Victoria and Queensland showed higher than average oxycodone levels, while fentanyl use in regional areas in NSW, South Australia and WA were above average.

“Whether that is all prescription dispensing or whether it is being diverted to an illicit market, that’s the sort of information that will help us in our border protection, it will help us in our local policing,” the commission’s chief executive, Chris Dawson, said.

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“It will also help the medical authorities to understand better whether there is in fact overprescribing taking place.”

Dawson said he had been warned by US authorities for several years that use of prescription drugs was a very significant problem there, with oxycodone users graduating to heroin.

“We take those warnings clearly on board,” he said. “That’s why these sorts of assessments are very important.”

The report said that wastewater analysis had become “the standard for measuring population-scale use of a range of different chemical compounds”.



The research is bankrolled by $3.6m from the government’s fund of assets seized from drug traffickers and other convicted criminals.

In regional Australia, the average person smoked the equivalent of 1.7 cigarettes a day, compared with 1.4 in capital cities.

Cigarette smoking in the Northern Territory, and parts of regional Queensland and Tasmania in particular, was “substantially above the national average”.