The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) is a national illicit drug monitoring system intended to identify emerging trends of local and national concern in illicit drug markets, and forms part of Drug Trends. The IDRS consists of annual interviews across all Australian jurisdictions with people who inject drugs (PWID), as well as analysis and examination of indicator data sources related to illicit drugs. The IDRS is designed to be sensitive to trends, providing data in a timely manner, rather than describing issues in detail. This report details findings from Adelaide, South Australia. Results are not representative of all consumers or drug use in the general population and should be interpreted alongside findings from other data sources for a more complete profile of emerging trends in illicit drug use in Australia.

The IDRS sample recruited from Adelaide, South Australia (SA) was consistent with the SA profile in previous years, whereby half (50%) the sample was male, with a mean age of 46 years. The majority (89%) of the sample was unemployed at the time of interview, a significant increase from 2019, and most of the sample (97%) received a government pension/allowance or benefit in the month prior to interview. Half (50%) the sample reported that methamphetamine was their drug of choice, and almost two-thirds (64%) reported that methamphetamine was the drug they had injected most often in the past month, a decrease relative to 2019 (81%). On the other hand, heroin as participants’ drug of choice increased from 16% in 2019 to 37%. Heroin being the drug injected most often in the past month also increased in 2020 (32%; 16% in 2019).