ILLICIT DRUG USE

In reply to the Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (24 February 2011) (First Session).

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations): The Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse has provided the following information:

The Government highlighted in its response of 23 February 2011 to the Controlled Substances (Simple Cannabis Offences) Amendment Bill that according to prevalence of use data taken from the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, cannabis use within the South Australian community did decline from 17.6 per cent of the population who had used cannabis in the previous 12 months in 1998, to 10.2 per cent in 2007. It was also pointed out that there was a downward trend shown in overall illicit drug use recorded in South Australia, down from 23.9 per cent to 14.7 per cent in the same period. The Government does not retract this statement.

The honourable member has indicated that more up-to-date data is available through the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, a 2009 South Australian Drug Trends Report, which indicate increases in frequency of use of illicit drugs in South Australia. This is not correct. I believe the honourable member is referring to 2009 data available in the South Australian report on the Illicit Drug Reporting System published in 2010. The data the honourable member has quoted is not population prevalence data but data from a national project that examines drug use patterns of existing illicit drug users.

The data quoted by the Government from the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey is the most recent publicly available population prevalence data.