Queensland Drug Trends 2003: Findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS)

Introduction: The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) is an on-going research project that serves as a strategic early-warning system for emerging trends and patterns in illicit drug use and associated harms. Since 1999 the IDRS has been conducted annually in every state and territory of Australia, and is now jointly funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing and the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NDLERF). The IDRS focuses primarily on four main illicits: heroin, amphetamines, cocaine and cannabis, but also monitors trends in other drugs and in drug-related harms. An important feature of the IDRS is that it aims to disseminate its findings in a timely fashion, highlighting current issues that require further attention rather than providing a more protracted, in-depth analysis of available data. Each year the key findings are presented at a national conference in November, and the final report is published by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) early the following year. In addition, NDARC produces an annual national report and quarterly Drug Trends Bulletins highlighting issues of particular interest. Data for the IDRS come from three complementary sources: a survey of injecting drug users (IDU) who are considered a ‘sentinel’ group in the community, structured interviews with key informants (KI) working in the drug and alcohol field, and existing data sets. By triangulating information from these three sources the IDRS is able to assess with some confidence the reliability and validity of its findings.