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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1564 ..

Mrs Carnell - the answer to the Member's question is:

There were a total of 14 overdoses recorded in the Coroner's Court for the 1996 calendar year. Out of those 14 deaths, there are 4 outstanding inquests which have not been dispensed with by the Coroner.

(1) There were 3 deaths by heroin and 2 by heroin mixed with other prescription drugs in 1996.

(2) There was 1 death by morphine and 2 by morphine mixed with other prescription drugs in 1996.

(3) There have no recorded deaths by other illegal drugs in 1996.

(4) There were no deaths occurring directly from marijuana use, however there were 3 deaths recorded by suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning in which the deceased were habitual users of the drug.

(5) There were 9 deaths recorded for either overdoses, suicide or asphyxia in which drugs, both prescription and illegal, were present in the deceased's body. It would be imprudent to say that drugs, whether legal or illegal were a contributing factor, however one could speculate that they were.

(6) Ambulance paramedics were called out to 164 drug overdose patients in 1996.

(7) Electronic records do not contain this information. This data could only be provided by a manual inspection and collation of all ambulance case sheets. I am not prepared to authorise the use of the very considerable resources that would be involved in providing the detailed information required to answer the Member's question.

(8) The ACT Alcohol and Drug Service (ADS) has targeted young people's alcohol and cannabis use and safe behaviours in their health promotion activities this financial year. A range of activities have been implemented. The venues have included Australian National University, Canberra University and all youth centres. In addition the ADS has undertaken the following activities:

The Drug Information Kit was launched in March 1997 and offered to all schools, this is a valuable resource for both students and teachers.

Training will be held in the coming weeks titled "Alcohol and other drug issues for workers with young people", this will be provided by accredited Alcohol and Drug Service trainers.

ADS have reviewed and revised their parenting course "Young people, parents and drugs." The course targets parents of Year 6 students. The first pilot group will be run at Curtin Primary School. Expressions of interest for this course have been received from other primary schools.

A one off session "Parents with teenagers who are using drugs" will be held at Belconnen Community Services.

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