Stimulant related drug deaths are climbing sharply across Australia. New national data show the country’s long run of falling overdose rates has come to an end. The latest Drug Trends reporting from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney puts the 2024 drug induced death toll at 2,005. That works out to a rate of 7.3 deaths per 100,000 people, or roughly 5.5 lives lost every single day. Drug related hospital admissions told a similar story. Cases climbed to almost 57,000 in 2023 to 24, and researchers say hospital growth alone cannot explain the increase.

A Recovery That Has Stalled

For much of the past decade, Australia’s overdose figures had been heading in the right direction. Deaths peaked at 8.2 per 100,000 people in 2017, then eased gradually as public health efforts took hold. That progress now appears to have run out of road. Preliminary figures show the national age standardised rate of drug induced deaths rose 7.4 per cent between 2023 and 2024, reversing years of gains. Associate Professor Amy Peacock, NDARC deputy director and lead of the Drug Trends programme, said the figures already exceed the revised 2023 estimate of 6.8 deaths per 100,000 people. She expects them to climb further as more data comes in. “It suggests that the decline in overdose deaths, which we’ve observed since the historical peak in 2017, has well and truly stalled,” she said.

Amphetamine and Cocaine Harms Take Centre Stage

Opioids still account for more overdose deaths than any other drug class in Australia. Even so, it is amphetamine and cocaine harms pushing the latest rise. Deaths involving amphetamine type stimulants jumped 29 per cent. Cocaine related deaths surged by 40 per cent, according to the NDARC findings. Peacock warned against treating methamphetamine as yesterday’s problem. “Methamphetamine in particular remains a significant challenge for prevention, treatment and harm reduction, and should not be viewed as a problem of the past,” she said. Cocaine’s rapid climb shows these harms are no longer confined to a single substance. Together, the two trends are reshaping the national overdose picture.

Hospitals Absorbing the Impact

The pressure is showing up in hospital wards too. Researchers recorded 56,797 drug related hospitalisations in 2023 to 24, a jump of 10.5 per cent on the year before. That is more than double the 4.1 per cent growth seen across all hospital admissions over the same period. Amphetamine type stimulants accounted for the largest single share of these admissions, at 29 per cent, with most cases involving methamphetamine. The hospitalisation rate for this drug class rose 24 per cent since 2022 to 23. Cocaine related hospitalisations climbed by a similar margin, up 29 per cent over the same window. People aged 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 made up the bulk of cases, each accounting for 26 per cent of admissions. Mental and behavioural disorders linked to substance use made up 59 per cent of cases, ahead of poisoning at 41 per cent. Around 6.1 per cent of these hospital stays required intensive care.

The Risk Factors Researchers Keep Finding

Behind the statistics sit patterns that repeat year after year. Polydrug use featured in 73 per cent of overdose deaths, underlining how rarely a fatal overdose involves just one substance. Men accounted for 66 per cent of deaths, continuing a long standing gender gap in overdose mortality. Researchers noted a personal history of self harm as a contributing factor in around one in eight deaths, a reminder that mental health and substance use often sit close together in these cases. Stimulant related drug deaths, in particular, rarely occur in isolation from these wider vulnerabilities.

Why Prevention Cannot Wait

Peacock’s warning carried a clear message for policymakers. “The sooner we respond to these changing patterns of drug related harm, the greater our opportunity to prevent avoidable deaths and hospitalisations,” she said. That window narrows every time a new drug class starts climbing before authorities bring the last one under control. Stimulant related drug deaths are now outpacing the broader trend, and hospital admissions are growing faster than the health system itself. That makes the case for investing early, in prevention and demand reduction rather than crisis response, stronger than ever. Communities, schools and health services still have the chance to act before these numbers climb any higher. That opportunity depends on treating today’s data as a warning rather than a footnote.

The findings come from two Drug Trends reports released annually by NDARC, covering drug related deaths and hospitalisations across Australia, as reported by Medical Xpress.

Source: medicalxpress