Australians consumed drugs with a street value of about $7.5bn, representing a 34 percent rise in annual consumption.
There has been a sharp rise in drug use among Australians, with cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin consumption all hitting record levels, according to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s (ACIC) latest wastewater analysis.
Published on Friday, the ACIC’s annual report revealed that Australians consumed an estimated 22.2 tonnes of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and MDMA (commonly known as “ecstasy”) between August 2023 and August 2024.
This represents a 34 percent increase on the previous year’s findings, with marked increases in the consumption of cocaine (69 percent), MDMA (49 percent), methamphetamine (21 percent), and heroin (14 percent).
The drugs had a combined estimated street value of 11.5 billion Australian dollars (about $7.5bn), according to the ACIC. Meth alone accounted for 8.9 billion Australian dollars (about $5.8bn) – or 78 percent – of that total.
