Summary
In Victoria, 138 publicly funded alcohol and other drug treatment agencies and outlets supplying data provided 52,133 treatment episodes in 2009–10. This was an increase of two agencies and about 5,000 treatment episodes compared with 2008–09. The median1 ages of persons receiving treatment for their own drug use (32) and those seeking assistance for someone else’s drug use (35) were both slightly older than in 2008–09. Alcohol (46%), cannabis (23%), opioids (19%, with heroin alone accounting for 14%), and amphetamines (5%) were again the most common principal drugs of concern. Counselling was the most common form of main treatment provided (accounting for 51% of episodes, similar to 2008–09), followed by withdrawal management (detoxification) (19%) and support and case management only (13%).
1 The median is the midpoint of a list of observations ranked from the smallest to the largest.