Trends in drug-related hospitalisations in Queensland, 1999 - 2021

The National Drugs and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) has published a bulletin titled “Trends in drug-related hospitalisations in Australia, 1999-2021.” The report uses data from the National Hospital Morbidity Database, and while there are issues with how some drug-related hospitalisations are recorded, the report provides a good insight into some of the trends. Alcohol and tobacco were excluded from this report. There were 14,770 drug-related hospitalisations in 2021-21, with young women aged 10-19 representing a disproportionately high number of these hospitalisations. Amphetamine-type stimulants (including methamphetamine and MDMA) were the class of drugs that had the highest rates of hospitalisations, however this rate had declined when compared with previous years. There were increases in hospitalisations observed for non-opioid analgesics, cannabinoids and cocaine.

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