In this ABC News story, Penington Institute CEO John Ryan discusses the sobering statistics revealed in Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2024, while lived experience advocate Jen Furby shares her tragic story of losing her daughter to overdose.
This story, Drug overdose deaths continue to climb as advocates slam ‘deplorable’ government inaction, by national health equity reporter Rachel Carbonell and specialist reporter Evan Young, illustrates the devastating human impact of the overdose crisis.
Jen shares her emotional experience of losing her 25-year-old daughter Nicole to a drug overdose in 2022. Nicole was found to have four different drugs in her system that contributed to her death – a situation that Penington Institute CEO John Ryan says is all too common.
“Drugs have a multiplier effect in combination,” he says. “So if you have opioids, plus some alcohol, that actually increases your risk of overdose – and especially if you add in benzodiazepines.”
A call for national action on overdose prevention
In this article, Ryan says that less than 2 per cent of the national drug budget goes to harm reduction, compared to two thirds going to law enforcement.
“We need politicians to end the fear campaigns around drug use. That approach is disingenuous and we know it doesn’t work,” he says.
“We can’t arrest our way out of these problems.”
Read the article, Drug overdose deaths continue to climb as advocates slam ‘deplorable’ government inaction, published on ABC News on 25 August, 2024.
