Standing in Baptist Place,a Melbourne laneway where many overdoses have occurred,Dr Jill Tomlinson,president of the Australian Medical Association Victoria,said that on average one person dies each month in the CBD.
“These deaths are entirely preventable,” she said. “The CBD is currently an unsupervised injecting facility and that means that people are injecting all around the CBD.”
Dr Paul MacCartney,addiction medicine specialist at community health provider cohealth,said the expected arrival of the synthetic opioids meant deaths may increase by ten times.
“We are hearing from our colleagues in the UK,that with a reduction in heroin supply around the world,synthetic opioids are arriving in the UK and they will arrive in Australia and there will be a tidal wave of overdoses,” he said.
“It’s vital that we provide the option for people to get into treatment before this tidal wave arrives.” MacCartney said that in the US,there were up to 100,000 deaths a year from synthetic opioids,which is double the number of people dying from gun deaths.
“What we know in Australia is that up until now,synthetic opioids haven’t arrived in any great sense,” he said.