Overdose Early Warning Snapshot 2024

This year Penington Institute is releasing an overdose snapshot as an early warning for our community on overdose rates.

We do so because there is no time to waste. We cannot afford to wait until the publication of the full report in August. We cannot even afford to wait another day.

Measured against last year’s report, we are seeing an alarming and devastating rise in the number of drug-induced deaths recorded year on year in Australia.

More than six Australians lose their lives to overdose every day.

In 2022, 2,356 Australians lost their lives due to overdose – that is almost double the number of Australians who died in road traffic accidents (1,276) in the same period. Let that sink in.

When the ages of those 2,356 Australians are considered, we are talking about almost 70,000 years of potential life lost (using Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates).

Unintentional overdose death is far outpacing population growth in Australia. Among Indigenous Australians, the numbers are calamitous – almost four times worse.

And our response as a nation is simply not keeping up.

We know that with the right interventions, overdose deaths are preventable.

There is not a moment to lose.

John Ryan

CEO, Penington Institute