Increase in Australian DrugRelated Deaths

Drugrelated deaths have increased by almost a third in the past five
years, prompting the nation's top medical groups to call for a national
summit on drug abuse. The Government had to consider new ways of dealing
with the growing drug problem, the Australian Medical Association and the
Australasian College of Physicians said yesterday. The latest unpublished
data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that between 1990 and
1995 the total number of drugrelated deaths, using legal and illegal
drugs, leapt from 892 to 1182. The ABS classes drugdependence deaths as
those which occur in known drug users. AMA federal president Dr Keith
Woollard said a summit would draw together a wide range of people with
varied expertise and experience and should reach a national consensus on
the way forward.

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