Deaths from drug use rose in first year of pandemic to rate not seen since Australia’s late 1990s peak

The Drug Trends report from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has found increasing harm from methamphetamine and cocaine. Photograph: Flavio Brancaleone/AAP

Five Australians died due to drug use per day in 2020, rates similar to a national peak in the late 1990s, according to the annual Drug Induced Death report.

Released by the Drug Trends program at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre on Thursday, the report found there were 1,842 drug-induced deaths in the first year of the pandemic.