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Australian Drug Trends 2022: Key findings from the National Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Interviews

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Author: Rachel Sutherland, Julia Uporova, Cate King, Fiona Jones, Antonia Karlsson, Daisy Gibbs, Olivia Price, Raimondo Bruno, Paul Dietze, Simon Lenton, Caroline Salom, Catherine Daly, Natalie Thomas, Jennifer Juckel, Seraina Agramunt, Yalei Wilson, Warren Que Noy, Joanna Wilson, Louisa Degenhardt, Michael Farrell, Amy Peacock

Resource Type: Drug Trends National Reports

The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) is a national illicit drug monitoring system that has been conducted annually since 2000, and is part of Drug Trends. The IDRS interviews people who inject drugs (PWID) from every capital city of Australia and provides an analysis and examination of indicator data sources related to illicit drugs. It is designed to be sensitive to trends, providing data in a timely manner, rather than describing issues in detail.  

The 2022 IDRS report provides the most up-to-date findings of the IDRS interviews from 2000 to 2022 with people who regularly inject illicit drugs.  

This includes: 

  1. A report overviewing the key findings in 2022; 
  2. An infographic summarising key findings in 2022; 
  3. A background and methods document highlighting approaches to collating and presenting estimates; and 
  4. The executive summary, summarising key findings in 2022. 

Results are not representative of all consumers or drug use in the general population and should be interpreted alongside findings from other data sources for a more complete profile of emerging trends in illicit drug use in Australia. 

Latest release date 

21 September 2022  

Use of the data 

Please note that any presentation of these data should include acknowledgment of Drug Trends at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. 

Citation: Sutherland, R., Uporova, J., King, C., Jones, F., Karlsson, A., Gibbs, D., Price, O., Bruno, R., Dietze, P., Lenton, S., Salom, C., Daly, C., Thomas, N., Juckel, J., Agramunt, S., Wilson, Y., Que Noy, W., Wilson, J., Degenhardt, L., Farrell, M. & Peacock, A. (2022). Australian Drug Trends 2022: Key Findings from the National Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Interviews. Sydney: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. 

Funding 

Drug Trends is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the Drug and Alcohol Program. 

Queries 

Please contact the research team at drugtrends@unsw.edu.au with any queries; to request additional analyses using these data; or to discuss the possibility of including items in future IDRS interviews.