Patterns of service use
Over the period 2015–16 to 2019–20, 9,960 clients received treatment in Tasmania. Of these clients:
- the majority received treatment in a single year (75%):
- 16% (1,616) received treatment for the first time in 2019–20
- a further 59% (5,844) received treatment in only one of the four collection periods (excluding 2019–20)
- 17% (1,664) of clients received treatment in any 2 of the 5 years
- 5.9% (586) of clients received treatment in any 3 of the 5 years
- 1.8% (182) of clients received treatment in any 4 of the 5 years
- 0.7% (68) of clients received treatment in all 5 collection years (Table SCR.28).
Drugs of concern
In 2019–20, for clients in Tasmania receiving treatment episodes for their own alcohol or drug use:
- alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern (40% of episodes) (Figure 22; Table SE TAS.10).
- amphetamines as a principal drug of concern accounted for 3 in10 episodes (30%), followed by cannabis (19%), and morphine (1.5%);
- within the amphetamines group:
- methamphetamine was reported as a principal drug of concern in over 9 in 10 (93%) treatment episodes (Figure 22a)
- in over half (52%) of treatment episodes where methamphetamine was a principal drug of concern, injecting was the most common method of use, followed by smoking (33%) (Figure 22b).
Clients can nominate up to 5 additional drugs of concern; these drugs are not necessarily the subject of any treatment within the episode (see Technical notes).
In 2019–20, when the client reported additional drugs of concern:
- cannabis was the most common additional drug of concern (19% of episodes), followed by amphetamines (11%), alcohol and nicotine (both 8%) (Table SE TAS.11).
Over the period 2015–16 to 2019–20:
- alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern for clients, fluctuating from 38% in 2016–17 to 41% in 2018–19 and 40% in 2019–20 (Table SE TAS.10)
- amphetamines replaced cannabis as the second most common principal drug of concern in 2016–17, increasing from 22% to 30% over the period
- cannabis decreased from 26% to 19%
- within the amphetamines group, methamphetamine was reported as the principal drug of concern in almost 2 in 3 episodes (65%) in 2015–16, rising to 93% in 2019–20 (Figure 22a)
- although morphine accounts for a small proportion of all closed treatment episodes (ranging from 3.3% in 2015–16 to 1.5% in 2019–20) it has consistently remained higher than the national proportions.
- morphine was 4 times higher in 2015–16 to 7 times higher in 2017–18, although the proportion has been decreasing, it remains 5 times higher than the national proportion in 2019–20 (Table SD.2).