Wastewater results show high levels of heroin and methylamphetamine consumption in Victoria

Today Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) Chief Executive Officer, Mr Michael Phelan APM and Professor Christina Lee, Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at The University of Queensland signed a contract extending their involvement in the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program (NWDMP) for a further four years. This enables the University of Queensland, and through it the University of South Australia, to continue to undertake the data collection and analysis underpinning the program.

At the signing, the ACIC also released the eighth report of the NWDMP, revealing Victoria reported some of the highest heroin and methylamphetamine consumption levels across the country.

Across the eleven sites monitored in the state in April 2019—two capital city and nine regional sites—findings show Victoria had the highest average capital city and regional consumption of heroin and the highest average regional consumption of methylamphetamine nationally. Victoria also had the second highest average capital city consumption of cocaine and the second highest average regional consumption of oxycodone in the country.

Mr Phelan said that much of the harm that Australians suffer at the hands of organised crime is due to the illicit drug trade. By measuring the level of consumption of illicit drugs and legal drugs with abuse potential, the NWDMP provides a key indicator of the level of harm posed by these substances.

“Extending this valuable program to provide a further four years of drug consumption data will enable law enforcement, policy, education, regulatory and health agencies to build a more comprehensive picture of drug use in Australia,” said Mr Phelan.

The NWDMP found that, compared to December 2018, of the substances tested in April 2019 in Victoria:

  • average nicotine consumption increased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average alcohol consumption increased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average methylamphetamine consumption increased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average cocaine consumption increased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average MDMA consumption increased in capital city sites and decreased in regional sites
  • average MDA excretion decreased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average oxycodone consumption decreased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average fentanyl consumption decreased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average heroin consumption increased in both capital city and regional sites
  • average cannabis consumption decreased in both capital city and regional sites.

The ACIC would like to acknowledge the valuable support and specialist expertise of the University of Queensland and the University of South Australia, which provide the NWDMP with leading-edge, coordinated national research on illicit and licit drugs and the wastewater treatment plant operators which provide invaluable contributions to the program.

The report is available from the ACIC website: www.acic.gov.au

Note to editors

In accordance with current wastewater analysis conventions, the terms of the contract, and to protect the integrity of the program, the exact locations are not able to be publicly released by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. To maintain the confidentiality of the participating site, each site was allocated a unique code to de-identify their results, however trends in particular states and territories are still able to be identified.