The number of Australians getting drug and alcohol treatment is slowly rising with a sharp jump in the number of people seeking treatment for drugs like ice.

There has been a nearly six-fold increase in the number of Australians getting treatment for drugs such as ice or speed in the past decade.

Subscribe for FREE to the HealthTimes magazine



More Australians have been seeking help for drug and alcohol abuse since 2014/15.

The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, released on Friday, said people were getting treated for alcohol abuse more than any other drug.

But the number of people seeking help specifically for alcohol abuse had slowly dropped over the past decade.
FEATURED JOBS


Treatment for the amphetamines group of drugs increased from 10,000 episodes to 58,200 episodes over the 10 years to 2018/19.

Among those cases, methamphetamines, like ice, made up two-thirds of treatment in 2018/19.

About 137,000 Australians aged 10 and over sought treatment for their drug or alcohol issues in 2018/19.

This marked a 19 per cent increase in clients since 2014/15.

More than half of people seeking drug and alcohol treatment were between 20 to 39-years-old.

Australians aged 40 and over made up 35 per cent of treatment cases.

Younger Australians were more likely to be the ones seeking treatment for cannabis use.

Nearly two-thirds of cannabis treatment clients were aged between 10 to 19-years-old.

Counselling was the most common type of drug and alcohol treatment.

Heroin users were mostly older, with the number of people seeking treatment declining over the past 10 years.

One in six people seeking treatment identified as Indigenous, with Aboriginal people more likely to seek treatment than non-Indigenous Australians.

Men received more treatment than women.

Comments

COMPANY

CONNECT