Successes of the National Drug Strategy
Since the inception of the National
Campaign Against Drug Abuse in 1985, Australia has had major successes in reducing the prevalence of, and harms from, drug use. • Far fewer Australians are smoking and being exposed to second-hand smoke as a result of comprehensive public health approaches, including bans on advertising, bans on smoking in enclosed public spaces and significant investments in public education and media campaigns. The daily smoking rate among Australians aged 14 years and over has fallen from 30.5 per cent in 1988 to 16.6 per cent in 2007. • Far fewer people are using illegal drugs. The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey shows the proportion of people reporting recent use of illegal drugs fell from 22 per cent in 1998 to 13.4 per cent in 2007. The recent use of cannabis—the most commonly used illegal drug—fell from 17.9 per cent in 1998 to 9.1 per cent in 2007. • Law enforcement agencies have continued to be effective in detecting and seizing illegal drugs to disrupt supply. The number of illegal drug seizures increased by almost 70 per cent between 1999–2000 and 2008–09, and the collective weight of seizures increased by about 116 per cent. • The heroin shortage that began in 2000 has been sustained, with heroin use remaining at low levels since then.
• Harms associated with injecting drug use have also been reduced. It is estimated that from 2000–2009 needle and syringe programs, which ensure the safe supply and disposal of syringes to injecting drug users, have directly averted over 32 000 new HIV infections and nearly 97 000 hepatitis C infections. • Since its introduction in September 2005 non-sniffable Opal fuel has contributed to a 70 per cent reduction in petrol sniffing across 20 regional and remote communities in Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. • Early intervention and diversion programs, which help prevent young people and adults apprehended for drug use from getting caught up in the criminal justice cycle by diverting them to treatment interventions, have become an established and successful part of the harm minimisation approach. • Drink driving has become largely unacceptable within the general Australian population. There was a substantial reduction in alcohol-related road deaths between the mid 1970s and the early 1990s through mass breath testing of drivers, lower and nationally consistent driver blood alcohol content limits, zero limits for special driver groups, a system of penalties, mass public education and media campaigns and other road safety initiatives. • Far more is known about what works in the treatment of alcohol and other drug dependence, including through brief interventions, detoxification, pharmacological and psychosocial treatment approaches.