Heroin Use in New South Wales, Australia, 1996-2000: 5 Year Monitoring of Trends in Price, Purity, Availability and Use From the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS)

• NCJ Number: 196052
• Journal: Addiction Volume: 97 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2002 Pages: 179-186
• Author(s): Shane Darke; Libby Topp; Sharlene Kaye; Wayne Hall
• Date Published: February 2002
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This paper documents trends in the price, purity, availability, and use of heroin in New South Wales detected by the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) between 1996 and 2000 and demonstrates the utility of the IDRS in identifying such trends.

Abstract

The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) compares information derived from interviews with injecting drug users, key informants who work in the illicit drugs field, and key indicator data on illicit drug trends. The price of heroin fell by almost half during the period under review, but the purity of police seizures of the drug was high across all years, ranging between 62 and 71 percent. Heroin was considered easy to obtain by both purchasers and key informants from law enforcement and health fields. Concurrent with the fall in heroin prices, there seems to have been an increase in the number of heroin users. Between 1997 and 1998 there was a sharp increase in the injecting use of cocaine by heroin users in New South Wales, a pattern that has persisted. Figures, references