Day Carolyn, Degenhardt Louisa, Hall Wayne
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Drug Alcohol Rev. 2006 Jul;25(4):307-13. doi: 10.1080/09595230600741040.
Increasing heroin use in Australia over the past 30 years has been associated with a decline in the age of initiation to heroin use. The 2001 Australian heroin shortage was used to assess the effects of a reduction in heroin supply on age of initiation into heroin injecting. Data collected from regular injecting drug users (IDU) over the period 1996 - 2004 as part of the Australian Illicit Drug Reporting System were examined for changes in self-reported age of first heroin use after the onset of the heroin shortage. Estimates were also made of the number of young people who may not have commenced injecting heroin during the heroin shortage. The proportion of IDU interviewed in the IDRS who were aged <or=24 years decreased from 46% in 1996 to 12% in 2004, with the most marked drop in 2001, the year in which there was an abrupt and marked reduction in heroin availability. Of those who reported first injecting between 1993 and 2000, similar proportions reported heroin and amphetamine as the first drug injected. After 2000, methamphetamine was the drug most often reported as being the first injected. Estimates suggested that between 2745 and 10,560 young people may not have begun to inject heroin in 2001 as a result of reduced heroin supply. If around one in four of these young users had progressed to regular or dependent heroin use, then there may have been a reduction of between 700 and 2500 dependent heroin users. There was an increase in amphetamine injecting but it is unclear to what extent any reduction in heroin injecting has been offset by increased amphetamine injecting. Reduced heroin availability probably resulted in a reduction in the number of new heroin injectors in Australia. Efforts need to be made to reduce the chances that young people who have initiated methamphetamine injecting do not move to heroin injecting when the heroin supply returns.
在过去30年里，澳大利亚海洛因使用量的增加与开始使用海洛因的年龄下降有关。2001年澳大利亚的海洛因短缺被用来评估海洛因供应减少对开始注射海洛因年龄的影响。作为澳大利亚非法药物报告系统的一部分，收集了1996年至2004年期间定期注射吸毒者（IDU）的数据，以研究海洛因短缺开始后自我报告的首次使用海洛因年龄的变化。还估计了在海洛因短缺期间可能尚未开始注射海洛因的年轻人数量。在IDRS中接受访谈的年龄≤24岁的IDU比例从1996年的46%降至2004年的12%，在2001年下降最为明显，这一年海洛因供应量急剧显著减少。在那些报告1993年至2000年间首次注射的人中，报告海洛因和安非他命为首次注射药物的比例相似。2000年以后，甲基苯丙胺是最常报告的首次注射药物。估计表明，由于海洛因供应减少，2001年可能有2745至10560名年轻人没有开始注射海洛因。如果这些年轻使用者中约四分之一的人发展为定期或依赖海洛因使用，那么依赖海洛因的使用者可能减少了700至2500人。安非他命注射有所增加，但尚不清楚海洛因注射的减少在多大程度上被安非他命注射的增加所抵消。海洛因供应量减少可能导致澳大利亚新的海洛因注射者数量减少。需要努力降低已开始注射甲基苯丙胺的年轻人在海洛因供应恢复时转向注射海洛因的可能性。
