MELBOURNE, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lethal overdoses on prescription painkillers in Australia have almost doubled in ten years, a study has found.
The study, published by Melbourne's Penington Institute on Wednesday, revealed that opioid-based painkillers were responsible for 71 per cent of all drug-related deaths in Australia in 2014.
It also found that the use of opioid-based painkillers in Australia quadrupled between 2004 and 2014.
Benzodiazepines, such as Valium or Xanax, killed 438 Australians in 2014 while oxycodone, morphine and codeine overdoses killed 411 compared to just 188 deaths linked to ecstasy and amphetamines.
John Ryan, the CEO of the Penington Institute, said that Australians aged 30-59 represented 78 per cent of all painkiller overdose deaths in Australia.
"These figures challenge the conventional wisdom that it is young urban people who are most at risk of dying of overdose in Australia," Ryan said in a media release on Wednesday.
Ryan said there had been a significant increase in accidental overdoses in Australia from 2004 to 2014.
"Accidental deaths from overdose reached 1,137 in 2014, a rapid rise from 705 deaths in 2004 and a 61 per cent increase in a decade," Mr Ryan said.
"Between 2013 and 2014 overdose deaths smashed through the 1,000 deaths mark, with a rise of 14.5 per cent in one year alone, from 993 to 1,137.
"These grim figures underscore how severe the overdose crisis is in Australia... It is now time for significant investments to be made to reduce the human toll from accidental overdose.
"Comprehensive investments have been made to reduce the road toll. The question is therefore: why isn't a similar level of investment being made into overdose prevention and awareness?"
Painkiller-related deaths were particularly prominent in rural areas, with 5.7 deaths per 100000 being attributed to painkiller overdoses in 2014, an 83 per cent increase from the 3.1 deaths per 100000 recorded in 2004.
