Drug-induced deaths reach record high

Males aged 50–59 years are the most likely to die from unintentional drug overdose, as new data reveals more than 2500 Australians died from overdoses in 2024, the highest number ever recorded.
 
The Penington Institute’s 2026 overdose snapshot, an early release of findings from its Annual Overdose Report 2026, shows that deaths increased across multiple categories, including total drug-induced deaths, unintentional overdose deaths, and unintentional deaths involving opioids and stimulants.
 
It reveals that 2596 Australians died from drug-induced causes in 2024, equivalent to seven people per day, and a 10.7% increase on the previous year.
 
For the first time, unintentional overdose deaths exceeded 2000 in a single year (2091 deaths) rising by 15.1% from 2023, and showing little sign of slowing down.
 
Dr Hester Wilson, Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Addiction Medicine, says the complexity of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use is often misunderstood.

‘There’s lots of reasons why people use drugs, but one is because they’ve developed a dependence, and that is a serious health condition that needs treatment,’ she told newsGP.
 
‘We need to understand what meaning it has to the people who are using ... because the bottom line is most don’t want to come to harm, and the vast majority of these deaths were unintentional.
 
‘And to acknowledge not everybody who has had an opioid overdose has a dependence. There’s an overlap between people who have chronic pain and an opioid dependence, and they are commonly the one person.
 
‘For GPs, there’s a concern about flagging this person who has chronic pain and we’re prescribing for, that they might have developed an opioid dependence. It’s complex.’
 
The overdose figures come as a recent newsGP poll of more than 1000 respondents revealed 38% encounter AOD issues daily in their routine general practice consultations, and 34% encounter them weekly. This is followed by 20% who ‘occasionally’ encounter patients with AOD issues, and 6% ‘rarely’.
 
A long-time advocate for harm-minimisation approaches to AOD issues, Dr Wilson highlights the value of the trusted GP–patient relationship and non-judgemental conversations, enabled by funded longer consults.
 
‘The trickiness we have in general practice is that opioids are most commonly used to manage patients’ chronic pain. These can be highly effective medications, but they’re also high risk, and that harm can happen to anybody,’ she said.
 
‘How do we ensure that people have access to these effective medicines, but they are clinically appropriate? How do we mainstream this serious condition of addiction that causes real harm?
 
‘We need to have a comprehensive, patient-centred assessment to ensure the best outcomes are achieved.
 
‘And for GPs to do that, we need to spend a lot of time with people, and more and more we are being penalised financially ... so it comes back to funding the longer and complex consult, and collaborative care because people don’t just have chronic pain – they have all the other issues that go with that.’

The overdose snapshot also shows a spike in deaths across several drug categories, with the most common drugs involved being opioids (1083), stimulants (843), and benzodiazepines (696).
 
Opioids were the most common drug involved in unintentional deaths across 2023–24, contributing to 41.9%, with the Penington Institute anticipating further increases due to larger numbers of open cases for coroner-certified deaths.
 
Deaths involving stimulants – methamphetamine, amphetamine (including prescription stimulant medications used to treat ADHD), and MDMA – increased by 25.1% in a single year.
 
Stimulants replaced benzodiazepines as the second-most common drug involved in unintentional overdose deaths in 2023.
 
Cocaine-related deaths increased by 28.2% in one year, while unintentional drug-induced deaths related to alcohol, antidepressants and anti-psychotics all decreased from 2023.
 
Males accounted for 1520 unintentional overdose deaths, compared to 571 females. And for the first time, people in the 50–59 age group recorded the highest number of unintentional overdose deaths.
 
Dr Wilson notes the significance of this age group when physiology may begin to change.
 
‘We might be developing other chronic illnesses or conditions that will impact our ability to survive an overdose,’ she said.
 
‘[For example] if you’ve got sleep apnoea or obesity or cardiorespiratory issues, you’re much more likely to die because you don’t have the cardiac and respiratory reserve.
 
‘And this is a changing issue ... I don’t see very many young people anymore – it’s people in their 40s and 50s and 60s with other chronic illnesses who’ve developed opioid dependence and need treatment.’
 
In a separate dataset also released this week, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) analysed deaths among people with a history of accessing specialist AOD treatment services.
 
Between 2012 and 2023, almost 37,700 people using these services died. Of these, three in five deaths were from potentially avoidable causes, with accidental poisoning, suicide and liver disease the top three causes of death. While a higher proportion of people treated for heroin or pharmaceuticals died, the highest number of deaths were for people being treated for alcohol only.
 
Parallel to the Penington data, the AIHW findings show the average age of all deaths was in the 50–59-year-old category.
 
While these are people accessing AOD services, Dr Wilson says ‘the reality is’ they are the same group who are accessing general practice – further cementing the GP’s role.

‘We may not recognise it, I still come across GPs that tell me they don’t see any AOD issues,’ she said.

‘But as the Penington report states: these people are not strangers, they are our sons, daughters, parents, partners and friends.
 
‘Any overdose death is an absolute tragedy, whether they are due to someone being so depressed that it’s intentional, or unintentional.’
 
GP resources:
Dr Wilson is guest speaker at the RACGP’s upcoming General Practice in Addiction Conference, aimed to support GPs to improve care for people impacted by AOD use.
 
The Opioid Safety Toolkit has resources for doctors and patients to help ensure awareness of risks.

The Penington Institute will release a full analysis in Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2026 in August.
 
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alcohol and other drugs AOD drug overdose drug-induced death medication harm opioids stimulants