The Little Blue Book

Pharmaceuticals A pharmaceutical is a medicinal drug used to alleviate, cure, treat, or prevent disease or illness. These – like pain relief medications, tranquillisers and various opioids - are available by prescription. These too can impair performance and judgment (even when being used as directed), and, if misused, can be highly addictive and damaging to the health and well-being of users. In Australia, more people die by overdose of legal pharmaceutical drugs (67.1%) than from heroin (20%), synthetic narcotics (12.9%) or meth/amphetamine (ice, ecstasy, MDMA) (20.1%). 2 Statistics published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) show that, in 2013, 4.7% of people aged 14 years or older, or one-in-twenty, used a pharmaceutical drug for non-medical purposes (a rise of 12% since 2010). 3 (1) Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs (2) www.abs.gov.au ; Drug Induced Deaths in Australia, A Changing Story, 2016 (3) www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs Around 8% of people in Australia aged 16–85 years have had a drug use disorder in their lifetime, 1 and more die from misuse of legal drugs than from any other (including heroin, ice and other narcotics). 2 93 ADA Australia PostScript Section 2 Section 1 Section 3