Australia’s overdose crisis continues to claim lives at an alarming rate, with 2,272 people dying from overdoses in the latest year of comprehensive national data.
That’s the equivalent of more than six deaths every single day.
The latest figures mark the tenth consecutive year that overdose deaths have exceeded 2,000, and the 16th straight year that overdose fatalities have exceeded the road toll.
Since 2001, more than 42,000 Australians have died from an overdose.
“We’re losing significantly more Australians to drug overdoses than on our roads,” Penington Institute CEO John Ryan said.
Much like we’ve adopted an ambitious ‘towards zero’ approach to aggressively pushing down the road toll, Australia must now embrace a similarly uncompromising push to stop overdose deaths.
“Overdose remains a full-blown health crisis,” said Dr Jake Dizard, the Director of Research at Penington Institute, who helped produce the report.
“More than six Australians die from overdose every day — that’s a national calamity. Every one of these deaths is preventable.”
“There are many evidence-based measures we could be using to give people the knowhow, the support and the tools to keep safe, but we just aren’t doing it.”
The latest data is contained in the 2025 Australia’s Annual Overdose Report, released to mark International Overdose Awareness Day (Sunday August 31).
The new data reveals some alarming trends. These include:
Rising share of drug deaths among older Australians
While overdose affects people of all ages, the crisis is increasingly impacting older Australians. Since 2001, unintentional drug-induced deaths among people aged 50 to 59 have increased by 305%, while deaths among those aged 60 to 69 have nearly tripled. In contrast, deaths among people under 30 have declined by roughly one-third. (See p. 28)
| Age bracket | 0-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
% increase vs. 2001 |
-47% |
-31% |
+12% |
+153% |
+305% |
+179% |
+60% |
Stimulants remain a big challenge
Stimulants — such as amphetamines and MDMA — have now overtaken benzodiazepines as the second most common drug group involved in unintentional overdose deaths, contributing to one in three fatal overdoses in 2023. Opioids remain the single biggest driver of deaths, involved in nearly half of all unintentional overdoses. (See p. 63)
Indigenous people overrepresented
The rate of unintentional overdose deaths remains persistently higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Deaths for Indigenous Australians die at a rate more than three and a half times higher than non-Indigenous Australians. (See p. 31)
“These latest figures are a stark reminder of the need for immediate action to expand access to evidence based initiatives that minimise the harms from drugs.” Dr Dizard said.
Specifically, Penington Institute is urging the Federal Goverment to:
- Develop a National Overdose Prevention Strategy and
- Reconvene the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, a national coordinating body that boosted drug policy’s place on the agenda in the late 1990s and 2000s.
It also wants governments to “rebalance funding”, with less emphasis on law enforcement measures and more on proven methods of overdose prevention.
Media Contact
For all media enquiries, contact:
- Ryan Sheales, 0402 351 412 and ryan@theagendagroup.com.au or
- Anna Northey, 0400 640 622 media@penington.org.au
About Penington Institute
Penington Institute is an independent drug policy research non-profit committed to freedom from serious drug harms. Penington Institute is the global convenor of International Overdose Awareness Day and has produced Australia’s Annual Overdose Report for the past decade.