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One million Australians abuse pharmaceutical drugs

According to a study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, almost one million people in the country are misusing and abusing pharmaceutical drugs, with misuse of legal painkillers becoming particularly problematic.

The study noted that most people abusing painkillers were obtaining the drugs legally from doctors and pharmacists. More than 50% were purchasing them over the counter from a pharmacy, while 18% got them with a legal prescription.

The report found that opioid prescriptions increased by 24% from mid-2012 to mid-2015, with those for Oxycodone increasing by 60% during the same time.

Preventive measures against abuse are forthcoming in the country, including a ban on over-the-counter codeine medicines that is scheduled to begin in February 2018. The federal government has committed AUS $16m (£9.2m) to a scheme that will monitor prescriptions for addictive medicines in real time, but implementation will not take place for at least a year.

Shane Jackson, president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, said that pharmacists would continue to have difficulty identifying people who are shopping for medications at various pharmacies until the implementation of the real-time monitoring scheme takes effect.

More Australians are dying from drug-related causes than from driving-related ones. In 2016, almost 1,300 people died from driving accidents, compared to about 1,800 drug-related deaths.

About 550 drug-related deaths were caused by prescription painkillers, including morphine, Oxycodone, and codeine, which was a 168% increase from 2006. Slightly over 660 deaths were due to overdoses of sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

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