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Illicit Drug Reporting System
- AIC research project
- Start date: June 2002 (complete)
Description
The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) is a national project funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing and coordinated by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of New South Wales. It is conducted in all Australian States and the Australian Capital Territory annually. The aims of this project are to monitor emerging drug trends, to provide information to policy makers, law enforcement and health professionals and to identify areas requiring future research. The IDRS is primarily concerned with four main classes of drugs: heroin, amphetamines, cocaine and cannabis.
Data are obtained from three sources: interviews with injecting drug users, interviews with experts and professionals who work in the drug field or regularly come into contact with drug users, and existing data routinely collected by other agencies. These data are compared against each other for convergence, and against previous years' results to determine new trends.
This AIC project involved the ACT component of the study in 2002.
Publications
- Australian Capital Territory drug trends 2002 : findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) (PDF 149kB)
Catherine Rushforth. National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre technical report, 2003 - Australian Capital Territory drug trends 2001 : findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) (PDF 1.05MB)
Paul Williams and Cathie Rushforth. National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre technical report, 2002 - Australian Drug Trends 2002 : Findings of the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) (PDF 462kB)
(Catherine Rushforth contributed to this 2003 NDARC monograph)