Quick help needed -- Australian drug death stats?

does anyone know where i can find the figures for illicit drug-related deaths in Australia? i'm looking to back up the assertion that in 2005 we're losing a lot fewer people than we did in, say, 1990.

my editor's on my ass for this one, so any help would be much appreciated!

Australian Bureau of Statistics.

thanks Mac... never would have thought to check that one myself!

i'm really looking for something that looks at how drug-related deaths have decreased/increased/whatever over time. ABS is drawing a blank on that front.

A quick search of PubMed came up with a few nice results, didn't come across any articles on general drug fatality rates, but ones on specific drugs seem to be quite available. In your line of work I'd hope you'd have access to the full texts of these articles. A quick glance at one of the overviews of Heroin related deaths in NSW makes me think you might have a hard time proving your point.

Heroin-related deaths in New South Wales, Australia, 1992-1996.
Darke S, Ross J, Zador D, Sunjic S.

The coronial files of all heroin-related fatalities that occurred in New South Wales (NSW) over the period 1992-1996 were inspected. There were 953 heroin-related fatalities in NSW over the study period. There was a substantial, statistically significant increase in heroin-related fatalities over the study period, from 152 deaths in 1992 to 226 during 1996.

(Source)

Click to expand...

Here is a page of results which has a decent amount of similar studies. A lot of them aren't Australian, but you should find some in there. The "Related Articles" link at the top-right of each page is your friend!

Entrez PubMed Search Results

When you're done, don't forget to post a copy of your article up here.