20,000 people aged 14 and over were surveyed about Cocaine usage by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Australian.
The results of a survey in Australia indicated that the country’s cocaine use rose by 2.5% in 2019.
Carried out by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Australia, they surveyed over 22,000 people to discover an indicated increase in the drug’s usage.
A report in the Australian publication Stoney Roads described the results as indicating “nearly 1 in 24 Australians have gotten on the nose beers”, which presumably is local slang from sniffing cocaine or other illegal substances.
Some of the reports other findings include an indicated 4.2% of people over the age of 14 said they used cocaine once or more in 2019.
For men and women in their 20s, it was an even bigger figure with 14.4% of men and 9.4% of women saying they had used the drug in the previous year.
New South Wales results showed 5% usage, which according to the survey’s results is above the national average, and also an increase from the previous results of the 2016 survey that were 3.4%.
Victoria showed an even bigger number and a jump of 50% since the last survey, as it went from 2.5 to 5.2% in the same time period.
It was also indicated that most cocaine users are aged between 20 and 49 with men more likely than women to take the drug.
The survey also found that cocaine is allegedly easier to obtain and this would be supported by the indicated 70% increase of cocaine usage in Australia since 2003.
Alongside the survey, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission analysed sewage water from nearly half the country’s population, and the results estimated that 5.7 tonnes of cocaine were consumed in 2019-20, which is up by 85.6% from 3 tonnes since the results from 2016-17.
Water results found that Sydney was presumed to be the epicentre of cocaine use consuming a daily average of 15 ‘doses’ per 1000 people in October 2020. This compared to Melbourne’s 6 doses per 1000 people, Brisbane’s 5, and Canberra’s 10.
H/T: Stoney Roads
