DRUG-ADDICTED WOMEN 'DIE AT ALARMING RATE'

Women addicted to hard drugs die at 20 times the rate of other women,
according to Australia's first comprehensive review of the illicit
drug death toll.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre study, released today,
paints an alarming picture of death rates among Australians hooked on
heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, party drugs and cannabis.

Among the general public, men die more often than women, but the
latest analysis shows drug addiction "evens out" the figures.

Male abusers die at ten times the rate of their clean peers, but for
women the rate is doubled.

"The impact on women's mortality is just far, far more dramatic," said
University of NSW academic Professor Shane Darke, author of the
200-page national review.

"They're dragged up from a position of relative safety to the
incredibly high risk rate compared to their sisters."

Heroin and methamphetamine have a far greater impact on women and
girls, the review found.

The book, Mortality Amongst Illicit Drug Users: Epidemiology, Causes
And Intervention, is the first to analyse the rates and causes of drug
deaths.

Heroin kills more than 350 Australians each year, with cocaine and
methamphetamines responsible for a further 100 deaths.

Prof Darke has found that dependent users of these hard drugs die at
15 times the rate of the general population - with half dead by the
age of 50.

Half of all premature deaths are caused by overdose, with another 30
per cent caused by disease associated with the addiction.

Ten per cent commit suicide but Prof Darke said a more surprising
finding is that 10 per cent die of trauma.

"That's people who are either murdered or have drug-induced accidents.
That's a phenomenally high rate," he said.

"It proves just how dangerous and risky these habits
are."

Despite international increases in methamphetamine use, heroin
remained by far the most dangerous and deadly of the illicit drugs,
Prof Darke said.

"Heroin overdose death rates are now about the same level as they were
in the early 1990s, when it was rightly regarded as a national
tragedy," he said.

"Now methamphetamine is the hot topic and heroin is considered a
problem solved, but that's clearly very wrong."

The review showed drug treatment dramatically reduced the risk of
death, but Prof Darke said addicts must access long term programs
rather than a short detox courses to break the habit.