Changes in the initiation of heroin use after a reduction in heroin supply

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 <= 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.